Those interested in politics may still remember the particularly insidious “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory from the USA that made the rounds in 2016. The latest Dresden “crime scene: cat and mouse” is based on this completely absurd story. “‘Pizzagate’ is the concrete trigger for our story and therefore of course influenced us,” revealed screenwriter Jan Cronauer (43), who had the idea for the film together with his colleague Stefanie Veith. What had happened in the United States six years ago?
In 2016, the presidential election campaign between the future Republican President Donald Trump (76) and his then Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton (75) was raging in the USA. All inhibitions seemed to be thrown overboard in the struggle with the political opponent, insults and slander were the order of the day. A lot of fake news was also spread on the internet at the time, primarily to discredit Clinton and thus prevent her presidency. One particularly insane lie was that at a pizza parlor in the US capital, Washington D.C. a child porn ring would operate in which Clinton was also involved.
Trump’s campaign workers even shared this obviously completely false story with their followers without further research, adding fuel to the fire to cast the Democrat in a bad light. The then incumbent President Barack Obama (61) was just as involved in the machinations as the pop singer Lady Gaga (36), according to websites like 4chan or reddit, where the story was first spread.
Spurred on by this online conspiracy theory, a gunman broke into the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington D.C. and searched the basement for the children allegedly hidden there. He even fired two shots from an assault rifle and devastated parts of the pizzeria, whose logo is said to have resembled a sign for pedophiles. The perpetrator could not find any clues for the pedophile ring and allowed himself to be arrested on the spot by the police without resistance. In a widely publicized trial in 2017, he was sentenced to four years in prison.
