#57. Patrik Baab: “Is Russophobia a form of racism?”

Original title: Who is funding the conflict? Michael Schneider on the power of banks & BlackRock
Interviewer: Patrik Baab1
Guest: Michael Schneider
Published: July 26, 2026
By: Gegen den Strom @PatrikBaab-Official2
On: YouTube

My comment: see footnote3


In total this is a discussion about the hidden mechanisms of power, the necessity of civic courage, and the urgent appeal: Recognize the patterns of history before they repeat themselves.

Michael Schneider

Michael Schneider looks back on decades of work as a critical intellectual and bestselling author. He argues for a return to reason and shows why the loss of historical awareness poses the greatest threat to a peaceful future in Europe.
A discussion about the hidden mechanisms of power, the necessity of civic courage, and the urgent appeal: Recognize the patterns of history before they repeat themselves.

In this interview, writer and professor Michael Schneider analyses the historical and economic driving forces behind the current confrontation with Russia. While the official narrative often emphasizes moral values, Schneider looks behind the scenes of a system driven by financial interests and a deeply rooted historical repression.

The conversation with Michael Schneider covers:
The Economics of War: Why the Third Reich’s campaign in Russia was also a gigantic amortization plan for the German economy and what role financial capital plays today in fuelling conflicts.
The Power of Banks: How financial giants like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs extend their influence to the highest levels of government and use wars as a means of securing devalued loans.
Reversal of Perpetrator and Victim: Why the crimes against Soviet citizens remain a taboo subject in Germany’s collective memory and how this repression is giving rise to a new, dangerous Russophobia.
The Betrayal of Intellectuals: The failure of the academic elite and the creeping conformity in media and universities, which increasingly marginalizes critical voices.
Civilizational Regression: How digitalization and AI are leading to a society without history and why the legacy of the Enlightenment is under such massive attack today.
The Crumbling Empire: Why the USA, as a “bankrupt state,” is ruthlessly sacrificing its vassals in Europe for its own interests – from deindustrialization to the destruction of vital infrastructure like Nord Stream.
“An empire that treats its vassals this way only shows how deep in the shit it is itself.”

Michael Schneider looks back on decades of work as a critical intellectual and bestselling author. He argues for a return to reason and shows why the loss of historical awareness poses the greatest threat to a peaceful future in Europe.


Timestamps
01. Economics and History: Can a Lost War Be Won? — 00:00
02. The Russian Campaign as an Amortization Plan for German Industry — 01:45
03. “All Wars Are Bankers Wars”: The Role of Financial Capital in Modern Conflicts — 03:50
04. The Power of Banks: When BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Managers Rule — 06:10
05. Plundering Ukraine: Contracts on Raw Materials and Energy Resources — 07:50
06. Managing National Debt: How to Make Money from the Ruin of Others — 11:10
07. The Suppressed Crime Against Humanity: Commemoration Culture and Its Blind Spots —13:40
08. Perpetrator-Victim Reversal: The Creeping Inheritance of Russophobia — 16:40
09. Collective Relief: Why February 24, 2022, Was Used as a “Liberation to Hate” — 19:55
10. The Betrayal of Intellectuals: Careerism vs. Civil Courage — 25:45
11. Ideological Purge: Self-Censorship in Publishing Houses and Universities — 28:30
12. Embedded Philosophy: How the German Mind Became a Sycophant of Power — 32:20
13. Civilizational Regression: From the Enlightenment to a Historyless AI Society — 38:15
14. Identitarian Thinking as a Substitute for Reason: The Legacy of the Enlightenment in Danger — 43:10
15. Aggression Shift: How Social Anger Is Politically Instrumentalized — 50:10
16. A Tottering Colossus: The USA Between Financial Collapse and Aggression Against Vassals — 55:20
17. Nord Stream and Deindustrialization: When Empires Sacrifice Their Allies — 57:55

Footnotes

  1. Patrik Baab is a German journalist and author. His research has focused on topics including intelligence agencies and political assassinations, the war in Ukraine, Russia, and geopolitical issues. He has worked in Eastern Europe and Russia, Scandinavia, Ukraine, the Balkans, and the United Kingdom. Source: Website Patrik Baab, about ↩︎
  2. Gegen den Strom: @PatrikBaab-Official ↩︎
  3. My comment:

    At 24:08 Michael Schneider makes a big mistake by stating that it was a mistake of Putin to march into Ukraine. As the Russian investigative journalist, who worked for “Echo of Moscow” and “Novaya Gazeta”, Yulia Latynina said: “They left us no choice…” in the interview with the Ukrainian Diana Panchenko: “”I WANT TO RETURN TO RUSSIA.” A Big Interview with Latynina“, published on Panchenko LIVE channel, @PanchenkoOnline on July 12, 2026.
    The cause of the decision to enter Ukraine via the start of the special operation is directly related to all what happened before that day in 2022, and which started in 2014 in Maidan, with the massacre, orchestrated by the USA and the coup, that followed, also orchestrated by the USA.[1][2][5]

    The anti-Russians in Ukraine even wanted to stop the foodsupplements in 2015 to Donbass and to create a genocide there[2]. In the documentary “Donbass”[6], made by Anne-Laure Bonnel in January 2015, we can even witness a long convoy with trucks, from Russia, transporting food to Donbass. The docu is available on YouTube.
    There was a war going on, because of NATO expansion[8], NATO provoked the Russians by expanding, Jens Stoltenberg even admitted it[9], they did it in order to get the answer where they were begging for and are experiencing now. To make the western citizens believe that Russia started the war.
    The correct sentence is: Russia was provoked to start te war.

    At the end there was indeed no other choice left, than to start with the “enough is enough”, and that is not a mistake, but a must in order to stop the NATO violations, and even till the moment of the present, NATO continues provoking. It is, since the attacks deep inside Russia not about provocations anymore, but a real war and Russia reacts on it in the legal way, in the way NATO/the collective west has begged for, laughed about, and downplayed, humiliated the Russians, making the blood of the Russians boil and finally attacking targets deep inside Russia.

    A filthy, vile, extremely aggressive anti-Russia rhetoric, full of slander and hatred was and is used by NATO’s secretary general Rutte, a maniacal warmonger. We have all heard it, it was/is his face, his mouth, his voice and he was not forced to walk to the microphone, and not forced to speak. He did it voluntarily. With joy and pleasure. NATO has even started with hiring two psychologists from the Cambridge university, to create a psychological system that creates “mass formation[10]”, and is named “Cognitive Warfare”. It is published on the NATO website[11] and not hidden. Even the names of the psychologists are publicly available[11].
    What we witnessed and are witnessing is the big mistake of the west. Not of Russia.

    So, please correct that, Michael Schneider, and start to read the following utterly important books, articles and even 2 lectures.

    [1] “The Russia Ukraine War And Its Origins, From the Maidan to the Ukraine War” – professor Ivan Katchanovski
    [2] “What I saw in Ukraine – 2015-2022 – diary of an international monitor – far away from the mainstream narrative” – Benoît Paré
    [3] “Ukraine: The Great Manipulation – 2022-2024 – decryption of war propaganda” – Benoît Paré
    [4] “[Stalingrad] is our reference point now more than ever, an unparalleled symbol of resistance, our enemies’ worst nightmare…Whosoever tries it will meet the end of all the others – Swedes, Napoleon, the Germans and their allies…Russians are like the Scythians: they wait, they suffer, they die, and then they kill.” Source: The Franco-British Plot to Dismember Russia, written by investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg, on Substack, June 26, 2024.
    [5] Jeffrey D. Sachs: “The ninth anniversary of the Ukraine war“, published on his website, on February 28, 2023.
    [6] Documentary “Donbass”, made by Anne-Laure Bonnel in January 2015. Published on YouTube.
    [7] “Three types of Ukrainians, how we were divided“, a lecture by the Ukrainian Diana Panchenko, Панченко LIVE @PanchenkoOnline (21 April, 2026)
    [8] YouTube “The Expansion of NATO Since 1949” by @WawamuStats
    [9] YouTube “Jens Stoltenberg admits NATO expansion provoked Ukraine War“, by @World_Politics1
    [10] Book: “The Psychology of Totalitarianism“, written by Dr. Mattias Desmet. YouTube: Neutrality Studies / Pascal Lottaz, May 3, 2026: “EU in Grip of Deadly Mass-Formation”  | Prof. Mattias Desmet
    [11] Lecture: “Dr. Jonas Tögel: Die Kognitive Kriegsführung der NATO – mein Vortrag bei W.I.R.“, published by Dr. Jonas Tögel on his YouTube channel @DrJonasToegel – Brilliantly explained in the lecture, at 1:19:56 – “Inoculation Theory and Misinformation”, published 29th October 2021 in NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, by Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden. see post. ↩︎

#40. The psychological value of truth

Excerpt from: Neutrality Studies May 3, 2026: “EU in Grip of Deadly Mass-Formation” | Prof. Mattias Desmet1, 2

Mattias Desmet: […] The problem started when modernity got alienated from the act of sincere speech. Meaning that as a human being we constantly are confronted with a choice like will we take the easy way and buy into all these narratives that everyone shares? Will we take the easy way and buy into all these social illusions and shared narratives? Or will we take a difficult road and say like look okay this doesn’t feel good to me and I will try to articulate why I feel this isn’t right.

So the act of sincere speech at all levels from the lowest to the highest level always boils down to this. It means that you decide to articulate words that go against certain ideal images that are projected onto us. Like most people even never realize that they buy into all these social norms and ideal images. They just constantly do.
They never think for themselves. They always think as others want them to think. They speak the words that other people want them to speak and they never speak their own words. That’s what happens in a mass formation. Suddenly the mass emerges.

There is this huge pressure to conform, to go into it and then there is like a few percentage of the people who decide to say that they do not agree and Gustave Le Bon3 in the 19th century already mentioned: every time a massformation emerges you have three groups:

First 20 to 30% of the people who buy into the massformation they just are completely hypnotized, literally hypnotized, it’s hypnosis, mass transformation, is mass hypnosis. And then you have a large group, 60% maybe 65%, who knows that there is something wrong but who chooses to remain silent because they feel the tremendous pressure of the massformation. And then there is a few percent of the people, sometimes up to 10% sometimes even 20%, who doesn’t go along with it and who decides to speak out, to try to to say like look there is something wrong with this narrative here of the Ukraine war, of the corona crisis, and so on.

The 3 groups in massformation [summarized by this blog’s admin].
  1. 20 to 30% of the people are completely hypnotized, literally hypnotized (mass hypnosis)
  2. 60% maybe 65% know that there is something wrong but choose to remain silent because of the tremendous pressure of the massformation
  3. 10% sometimes even 20% do not go along with it and decide to speak out

Gustave Le Bon in the 19th century already observed, he said like this small group of dissident people when they speak out, they will almost always be very disappointed because they will feel that the people in the masses refuse to wake up because once someone is in a mass formation is hypnotized and no matter what you say, no matter how clear your arguments are against the narrative, they will have no psychological impact because they refer to a part of reality to which no emotions are attached anymore.

Meaning that at a psychological level all these arguments have not the least, no impact at all. Gustave Le Bon said already: when these dissident people speak out they are very disappointed because they see that the masses refuse to wake up, and that’s crucial. He said like: but that doesn’t mean that their words have no impact. When there are people who continue to speak out in a quiet and sincere way not claiming that they know everything but just saying like: look I do not agree, there is something wrong according to me. When these people continue to speak out, they will not be able to wake up the masses, but usually they will prevent the masses from going to the last stage of the mass formation where they typically will try to destroy everyone who doesn’t go along with the masses.

So, and that’s what we need. When the masses do not go to the last stage, they will destroy themselves before they destroy everyone who doesn’t go along with them.

And to the contrary, when the people who do not fall prey to the massformation choose to be to remain silent, the masses will first destroy the people who do not go along with the masses4 and then they will destroy themselves as happened in the Soviet Union for instance. We could go give a lot of historical examples.

Pascal Lottaz: Yeah, it’s a very good point. So the act of resistance is actually also the the act of helping the mass, is actually of preventing, just through resistance, and and through saying like no, there’s something wrong here, even if you don’t go along with it, I want it to be registered.

Mattias Desmet: Exactly. You know, the only cure, I could analyze this from 20 perspectives and you would see it’s always the same conclusion:

The only cure, the only remedy for a society, sick of lies and manipulation, sick of propaganda, is sincerity. That’s the only cure. We have to rediscover the psychological value of truth for a human being. Truth is fundamental for a human being. It’s fundamental. It’s fundamental for every human being, every individual, and it’s fundamental for humans living together. There can be no society truly humane which is alienated from the act of sincere speech.

Footnotes

  1. Professor Mattias Desmet is the author of the book: The Psychology of Totalitarianism. ↩︎
  2. Professor Mattias Desmet publishes essays on Substack ↩︎
  3. “Mass formation” (psychosis) was theorized by the French sociologist and anthropologist Gustave Le Bon at the end of the 19th century. More: ResearchGate, MDPI, Goodreads ↩︎
  4. Playlist: 59 Europeans, who are speaking / writing truth, have been sanctioned. ↩︎

#34. Dr. Tögel: State Terrorism and Cognitive Warfare – Understanding Propaganda

Edited: October 31, 2025 (Instagram info was added)

This blog post concerns a video in which Dr. Tögel1 explains how mainstream media is used for propaganda and cognitive warfare2. He goes into great detail about what is being said, what is being claimed, and what is true or false. The video concerns the German ZDF broadcast, published on October 23rd, titled “Markus Lanz.”3 Markus Lanz4 moderates the interview with guests: Georg Mascolo5, Katja Kloger6, and Andrey Gurkov7.


Dr. Jonas Tögel:

When I watched the “Markus Lanz” program from October 23, 2025, and analyzed it for war propaganda, I was immediately struck by how one-sided the choice of guests was: Both Katja Gloger and her husband, Georg Mascolo, are members of the “Atlantikbrücke” – a transatlantic think tank that receives funding from, among others, banks and the German Foreign Office. Unfortunately, Markus Lanz did not introduce either of them as transatlantic lobbyists. The selection of guests thus plays a significant role: I myself have experienced firsthand that one is not invited to talk shows if one does not represent the desired positions. Source Instagram

The “Markus Lanz” show from October 23rd is a good example of how the same issues can be presented very differently: In the program, it’s perfectly acceptable to discuss state terrorism: terrorist attacks are carried out by one’s own intelligence services, for which an enemy is blamed, against whom war can now be waged under the pretext of “terrorism.” When it comes to the 1999 terrorist attacks in Moscow and the Russian KGB/FSB is the possible perpetrator, such considerations are not only permissible but even probable. However, when it comes to September 11, 2001, and American intelligence services as possible perpetrators, such considerations are not allowed and are dismissed as “conspiracy theories.” I find that astonishing. Source Instagram


Because the mainstream propaganda system, explained in detail in this video, is not only used in Germany, the video is published here, so that we all can learn how the crowds are mislead, brainwashed. The video is subtitled. Choose your language in the menu bar. The menu bar becomes visible after you have clicked the red YT start button.

Footnotes

  1. Dr. Tögel, website: https://www.jonastoegel.de ↩︎
  2. See earlier published blogposts:
    #31. War Games – Geostrategy in a Multipolar World
    #32. NATO’s Cognitive Warfare ↩︎
  3. ZDF: https://www.zdf.de/talk/markus-lanz-114 ↩︎
  4. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Lanz ↩︎
  5. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – Georg Mascolo – https://www.icij.org/journalists/georg-mascolo
    “Georg Mascolo, Germany, is a bestselling author and journalist who worked for nearly 25 years for the Spiegel Group.
    From 2008 until 2013, he was editor-in-chief of Spiegel magazine. From 2014 until 2022, he was the head of the Joint Investigative Group of Süddeutsche Zeitung and the two German public broadcasters WDR and NDR.
    Mascolo has been an ICIJ member since 1998.
    He has been the dean of the Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance since 2017. In 2014, he was named Political Journalist of the Year by the influential professional journal Medium Magazin.”
    ↩︎
  6. Journalismusfest Innsbruck – Katja Gloger – https://www.journalismusfest.org/en/katja-gloger-2
    “Katja Gloger studied Eastern European history, Political science and Slavic studies in Hamburg and Moscow. After graduating from the German School of Journalism in Munich, she became a TV-reporter for WDR Radio and Television in Cologne. From 1989 on she was based as  correspondent for the weekly Stern in Moscow.. Gloger interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, whom she accompanied for months as the first Western correspondent. She later headed the foreign desk of Stern and was posted as senior political correspondent to Washington, D.C.
    Honored with the Henri-Nannen-Award and named political “Journalist of the Year” she now works as a freelance journalist and book author focusing on Russia and Security Policy. Her books include Putin’s World: The New Russia, Ukraine and the West; Stranger Friends: Germans and Russians. The Story of a Fateful Relationship and the bestseller Outbreak: Insights into a Pandemic. 
    She is a regular guest on German radio and television, panelist and moderator of discussions on Russia and international affairs. In her honorary capacity, she is Spokesperson and Executive Member of the Board of RSF Reporters without Borders, Germany. She lives in Berlin.”
    ↩︎
  7. Wikipedia – Andrey Gurkov – https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Gurkov ↩︎

#32. NATO’s Cognitive Warfare

Lecture (2023) by Dr. Jonas Tögel, published on September 10, 2025 (subtitled)

Dr. Jonas Tögel is a German psychologist, American studies scholar, propaganda researcher, and bestselling author. He works as a research associate at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Regensburg. His motivation is to help people recognize, understand, and neutralize manipulation in everyday life and propaganda. In doing so, he is committed to strengthening his audience’s resilience so that one can remain peaceful, positive, and able to act even in difficult times. Website: Dr. Jonas Tögel

“When I gave my lecture on NATO’s cognitive warfare in spring 2023, it was not foreseeable how much the threat of war in Europe would increase.
Today it is clear that cognitive warfare has divided populations, weakened the peace movement, and that it is therefore possible to continue to push forward with rearmament and a new, major war in Europe.
What is needed now is an understanding of the mechanisms of war propaganda and a determined, shared, and loud desire for peace.” – Dr. Jonas Tögel

More:

Quote: “[…..] we first discuss how to define “misinformation”, and how it relates to various other commonly used terms such as “disinformation” and “fake news”. Next, we examine the psychology of correcting misinformation: what happens when someone is exposed to a fact check, and what are the benefits and drawbacks of correcting misinformation once the damage is already done? Finally, we discuss how to build psychological resilience against misinformation through psychological “vaccines” or “inoculation”: we look at the theoretical background of inoculation theory (dating back to the 1960s), its modern application within the context of online misinformation (in online games and educational videos), and future prospects and research avenues in the field.

Attention: Both authors are professors at the university of Cambridge: check Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden. The biography on their Cambridge profile doesn’t mention any collaboration with NATO or writing for NATO. There’s no link to the NATO document “Inoculation Theory and Misinformation”. Why not? There must be a reason.
There’s no link to their Cambridge profile on the NATO profile. Check: Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden. Why not?
Conclusion: That, which cannot stand the light of day, is being concealed.
Both professors have prostituted their knowledge regarding the possibility of brain manipulation, and NATO is the pimp.

In case the page will be removed from the NATO website, and all denied, today, October 11, 2025 this PDF has been created. The from the NATO website downloaded file: PDF

Screenshot taken October 11, 2025, from the NATO website.

More in Blog Multerland: “Evidence based science or prostitution?

#31. War Games – Geostrategy in a Multipolar World

LECTURE by DR. JONAS TÖGEL, German psychologist, American studies scholar, propaganda researcher, and bestselling author. He works as a research associate at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Regensburg. His motivation is to help people recognize, understand, and neutralize manipulation in everyday life and propaganda. In doing so, he is committed to strengthening his audience’s resilience so that one can remain peaceful, positive, and able to act even in difficult times. Website: Dr. Jonas Tögel

Part 1: NATO vs. Russia – Understanding Geostrategy (subtitles available)
Published: October 5, 2025

Part 2. Going to war with geostrategy?
Published: October 8, 2025

Additional:

NATO’s Cognitive Warfare

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