The Bielefeld Conspiracy Theory

© 2007 Deutsche Welle

It could be a university prank or a case for Mulder and Scully: Students from the University of Kiel have claimed in their own X-file that the German city of Bielefeld doesn't actually exist. It appears on the German map, the city has a Bundesliga soccer team and regional train services include it as a destination. It is home to 330,000 inhabitants and one of Germany's 20 major cities. But according to a group of students in the northern German city of Kiel, Bielefeld not only doesn't exist but its creation and promotion is a disturbing conspiracy to hide a number of (im)possible secrets.

The students from the university of Kiel started to smell a rat after hearing about Bielefeld for as long as they could remember but had never met anyone who had lived there, come from there or even visited the city in the Westphalia region in northwestern Germany. It soon became a topic of discussion between them that maybe the town didn't actually exist. Historical texts state the official founding of the city of Bielefeld took place in the year 1000. In over a thousand years of existence, Bielefeld looks to have kept itself pretty much to itself, with its main claim to fame coming from Dr. August Oetker, his renowned baking powder and the nationwide food business which developed from it and which still bears his name. But despite this, the Kiel students continued to muse about its existence.

Sudden appearance of city dwellers: After casually voicing concerns, the students began to notice an increase in people claiming to have come from Bielefeld, to have wandered the streets of this mythic location and those who had friends and relatives living there. The students' suspicions were aroused further by the seemingly distant looks and vacant expressions of those making these claims. Had they been manipulated? Had the minds of these people been rewired as some part of a nefarious plan?...