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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Berlin

The Berlin Asylum Patient Who Claimed to Be Grand Duchess Anastasia for Sixty-Three Years and Was Disproved by DNA Eleven Years After Her Death

Anna Anderson was pulled from a Berlin canal in February 1920 and claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, surviving daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. She maintained the claim through forty-five years of litigation and three biographies. DNA analysis in 1994 — three years after her 1984 cremation — identified her as the Polish factory worker Franziska Schanzkowska.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

The November 1989 East German Press Conference Mistake That Opened the Berlin Wall Within Hours

East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski announced relaxed travel regulations at a 9 November 1989 press conference. Asked by a journalist when the changes took effect, he consulted his notes and said "immediately, without delay." East Berliners gathered at the wall checkpoints within an hour. The checkpoints could not get authorisation to refuse passage. The wall opened on the evening of 9 November 1989.

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The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Berlin

The Coordinated Anti-Jewish Pogrom Across Germany and Austria on the Night of 9-10 November 1938 That Destroyed 267 Synagogues and Killed Approximately 91 Jews

Nazi SA stormtroopers and civilians attacked Jewish synagogues, businesses, and homes across Germany and Austria on the night of 9-10 November 1938. 267 synagogues were burned. About 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. About 91 Jews were killed and 30,000 arrested. The German Jewish community was forced to pay a one-billion-mark fine for the damage.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Reichstag, Berlin

The 27 February 1933 Reichstag Fire That Hitler Used as Pretext for the Emergency Decree That Suspended German Civil Liberties for the Next Twelve Years

The German parliament building in Berlin burned on the night of 27-28 February 1933. A Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested at the scene and beheaded the following January. The Nazi government used the fire as pretext for the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended civil liberties. The Enabling Act of 23 March made Hitler legal dictator.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Berlin

The German Hyperinflation of 1922-1923 in Which the Mark Fell From 4.2 to the US Dollar in 1914 to 4.2 Trillion to the Dollar by November 1923

The German mark lost value at progressively faster rates from August 1922 to November 1923. The peak exchange rate of 4.2 trillion marks to the US dollar was reached on 20 November 1923. The middle-class savings of the German Empire were destroyed. The Rentenmark currency reform of November 1923 stabilised the situation but did not restore the lost wealth.

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The Footnote June 25, 2026 · German Embassy, Paris

The German Military Attaché Whose Wastepaper Basket Started the Dreyfus Affair

Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen was the German military attaché at the Paris embassy from 1891 to 1897. The bordereau — the handwritten memorandum that produced the original 1894 Dreyfus treason conviction — had been retrieved from his embassy wastepaper basket by the French intelligence service through its routine cleaning-staff espionage operation. He spent the rest of his life refusing to comment.

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The Cabinet June 24, 2026 · Berlin Institute of Hygiene

The Cholera Hero's Therapeutic Vaccine for Tuberculosis Killed Patients and Almost Destroyed His Reputation

Robert Koch announced a tuberculosis cure in August 1890 — a glycerol extract from the tuberculosis bacterium that he called *tuberculin*. Within nine months it was substantially clear the substance did not cure tuberculosis and that it had killed several hundred patients. The fiasco nearly destroyed Koch's career.

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