title: Alien (film)

text: "Alien" had both an immediate and long-term impact on the science fiction and horror genres. Shortly after its debut, Dan O'Bannon was sued by another writer named Jack Hammer for allegedly plagiarising a script entitled "Black Space". However, O'Bannon was able to prove that he had written his "Alien" script first. In the wake of "Alien" success, a number of other filmmakers imitated or adapted some of its elements, sometimes by using "Alien" in titles. One of the first was "The Alien Dead" (1979), which had its title changed at the last minute to cash in on "Alien" popularity. "Contamination" (1980) was initially going to be titled "Alien 2" until 20th Century Fox's lawyers contacted writer/director Luigi Cozzi and made him change it. The film built on "Alien" by having many similar creatures, which originated from large, slimy eggs, bursting from characters' chests. An unauthorized sequel to "Alien", titled "", was released in 1980 and included alien creatures which incubate in humans. Other science fiction films of the time that borrowed elements from "Alien" include "Galaxy of Terror" (1981), "Inseminoid" (1981), "Forbidden World" (1982), "Xtro" (1982), and "Dead Space" (1991).


title: Alien (film)

text: The "chestburster" effect was parodied in Mel Brooks's comedy "Spaceballs". Near the end, in a diner, John Hurt does a cameo appearance as a customer who seems to be suffering indigestion. He turns out to have an "alien" in his gut, and moans, "Oh, no...not again!" The "alien" then does a song-and-dance, singing a line of "Hello, Ma Baby", from the classic Warner Bros. cartoon "One Froggy Evening".


title: Alien (film)

text: Nintendo's long-running "Metroid" video game series, created in 1986, was significantly influenced by "Alien", both in stylistic and thematic elements. As an homage to "Alien", villains in the first "Metroid" installment were named Ridley and Mother Brain, after the movie's director and the ship computer, respectively.


title: Alien (film)

text: In 2002, "Alien" was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the National Film Preservation Board of the United States, and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for historical preservation alongside other films of 1979 including "All That Jazz", "Apocalypse Now", "The Black Stallion", and "Manhattan".


title: Alien (film)

text: In 2019, author J. W. Rinzler published "The Making of Alien", a behind-the-scenes book about the making of the film with cast and crew interviews and previously unseen photographs. "The Verge" praised the book as "the definitive story of the classic horror film".


title: Alien (film)

text: Eli Roth cites "Alien" as his primary influence, saying "I saw "Alien" when I was 8 years old. To me, it was like a combination of "Jaws" and "Star Wars" and that's the movie that made me want to be a director. It traumatized me. I actually threw up I was so nervous after I saw it but that's like the highest compliment you can give a horror film." Ty Franck, one of the authors behind the sci-fi series "The Expanse", credits "Alien" as one of his major inspirations.


title: Alien (film)

text: Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the film in both adult and "junior" versions, which was adapted from the film's shooting script. "Heavy Metal" magazine published a graphic novel adaptation of the film entitled "", as well as a 1980 "Alien" calendar. Two behind-the-scenes books were released in 1979 to accompany the film. "The Book of Alien" contained many production photographs and details on the making of the film, while "Giger's Alien" contained much of H. R. Giger's concept artwork for the movie. A model kit of the alien, 12 inches high, was released by the Model Products Corporation in the United States, and by Airfix in the United Kingdom. Kenner also produced a larger-scale Alien action figure, as well as a board game in which players raced to be first to reach the shuttle pod while Aliens roamed the "Nostromo" corridors and air shafts. Official Halloween costumes of the alien were released in October 1979.


title: Alien (film)

text: In 2019, students at North Bergen High School in New Jersey adapted the film into a play. The production had no budget, with props and sets developed from recycled toys and other items. Social media recognition brought Scott's attention to the play. He wrote a letter of congratulations to the students ("My hat comes off to all of you for your creativity, imagination, and determination") and recommended they consider an adaptation of his film "Gladiator" for their next stage production. He donated to the school to put on an encore performance at which Weaver was in attendance. She got on stage before the performance to congratulate the cast and crew for their creativity and commitment.


title: Alien (film)

text: The success of "Alien" led 20th Century Fox to finance three direct sequels over the next eighteen years, each by different writers and directors. Sigourney Weaver remained the only recurring actor through all four films: the story of her character Ripley's encounters with the aliens became the thematic and narrative core of the series. James Cameron's "Aliens" (1986) focused more on action and involved Ripley returning to the planetoid accompanied by marines to confront hordes of aliens. David Fincher's "Alien 3" (1992) had nihilistic tones and found her on a prison planet battling another Alien, ultimately sacrificing herself to prevent her employers from acquiring the creatures. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Alien Resurrection" (1997) saw Ripley resurrected through cloning to battle more aliens even further in the future.


title: Alien (film)

text: The success of the film series resulted in the creation of a media franchise with numerous novels, comic books, video games, toys, and other media and merchandise appearing over the years. A number of these began appearing under the "Alien vs. Predator" crossover imprint, which brought the alien creatures together with the eponymous characters of the "Predator" franchise. A film series followed, with "Alien vs. Predator" in 2004, and "" in 2007.


title: Alien (film)

text: Sigourney Weaver has expressed interest in reuniting with Ridley Scott to revive her character for another "Alien" film. In the 2003 commentary track for the "Alien" DVD included in the "Alien Quadrilogy" set, she and Scott both speculated on the possibility, with Weaver stating: "There is an appetite for a fifth one, which is something I never expected...it's really hard to come up with a fifth story that's new and fresh...but I have wanted to go back into space...I think outer space adventure is a good thing for us right now, 'cause Earth is so grim...so we've been talking about it, but very generally." Scott remarked that, if the series were to continue, the most logical course would be to explore the origins of the space jockey and the aliens. Weaver supported this idea, saying "I think it would be great to go back, because I'm asked that question so many times: 'Where did the alien come from?' People really want to know in a very visceral way." David Giler said that he, Walter Hill, and Gordon Carroll, the producers of the first four films in the series, would not be willing to produce another unless it was about the aliens' homeworld and Weaver was on board (despite the fact that they were among the producers of "Alien vs. Predator" films). Weaver indicated that she would only return to the franchise if either Scott or James Cameron were to direct. Cameron had been working on a story for a fifth "Alien" film which would explore the origins of the creatures, but ceased work on it when he learned that Fox was pursuing "Alien vs. Predator", which he felt would "kill the validity of the franchise".


title: Alien (film)

text: In July 2009, 20th Century Fox announced that Jon Spaihts had been hired to write a prequel to "Alien", with Scott attached to direct. The script was subsequently re-worked by Scott and Damon Lindelof. Titled "Prometheus", it went into production in May 2011, and was released the following year. Scott said in a statement: "While "Alien" was indeed the jumping-off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of "Alien" DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative."


title: Alien (film)

text: "Variety" reported on February 18, 2015, that a new "Alien" film would be developed by Neill Blomkamp. On February 25, it was confirmed that Sigourney Weaver would have a role in the film, the intent being to produce a direct sequel to "Aliens", ignoring the events of later films, featuring the characters of Hicks and Newt. Blomkamp's sequel was ultimately shelved by Fox in favor of "", a continuation of Scott's prequel, "Prometheus".


title: Alien (film)

text: Several computer games based on the film were released, but not until several years after its theatrical run.


title: Alex Jones

text: Alexander Emerick Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American far-right and alt-right radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist. He hosts "The Alex Jones Show" from Austin, Texas, which the Genesis Communications Network broadcasts across the United States (syndicated and internet radio). Jones's website, "InfoWars", promotes conspiracy theories and fake news, as do his other websites "NewsWars" and "PrisonPlanet". Jones has provided a platform and support for white nationalists, giving Unite the Right rally attendee and white supremacist Nick Fuentes a platform on his website "Banned.Video", as well as serving as a potential "entry point" to their ideology.


title: Alex Jones

text: The conspiracy theories promoted by Jones alleged that the United States government either concealed information about or outright falsified the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and the 1969 Moon landing. He has claimed that several governments and big businesses have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria".


title: Alex Jones

text: A longtime critic of Republican and Democratic foreign and security policy, Jones supported Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid and continued to support him as a savior from an alleged criminal bipartisan cabal controlling the federal government, despite falling out over several of Trump's policies including airstrikes against the Assad regime. A staunch supporter of Trump's reelection, Jones supported the false claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election and, on January 6, 2021, was a speaker at a rally in Lafayette Square Park supporting Trump, preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.


title: Alex Jones

text: In 2022, for Jones' defamatory falsehoods about the Sandy Hook shooting, juries in Connecticut and Texas have awarded over $1.4 billion in damages respectively from Jones to families of Sandy Hook shooting victims and a first responder; they had alleged that Jones' lies led to them being threatened and harassed for years. On August 4, 2022, a Texas court ordered $4.1 million in compensatory damages, and $45.2 million in punitive damages the following day. In the second defamation case in Connecticut, a judge awarded the eight families $965 million in compensatory damages on October 12, 2022, and on November 10, 2022, $473 million in punitive damages in the form of lawyers' fees. The judge also issued an order that he was "not to transfer, encumber, dispose or move his assets out of the United States until further order of the court." On December 2, 2022, Jones filed for personal bankruptcy to avoid paying any of the damages.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones was born on February 11, 1974, in Dallas, Texas, and was raised in the suburb of Rockwall. His father was a dentist and his mother was a homemaker. He claims Irish, German, Welsh, English, and Comanche descent. The family moved to Austin in Jones's sophomore year of high school. He attended Anderson High School, where he played football and graduated in 1993. After graduating, Jones briefly attended Austin Community College before dropping out.


title: Alex Jones

text: As a teenager, he read "None Dare Call It Conspiracy", a book by John Birch Society conspiracy theorist Gary Allen, which alleged global bankers controlled American politics rather than elected officials. It had a profound influence on him, and Jones has described Allen's work as "the easiest-to-read primer on The New World Order".


title: Alex Jones

text: The Waco siege at the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas, had an impact on Jones. It ended in April 1993, near the end of Jones's senior year of high school, with a substantial fire and a significant number of fatalities. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), these events "only confirmed his belief in the inexorable progress of unseen, malevolent forces". It was at this time he started to host a call-in show on public access television (PACT/ACTV) in Austin.


title: Alex Jones

text: The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, was intended by perpetrator Timothy McVeigh as a response to the federal involvement in the botched resolution of the Waco siege on its second anniversary. Jones began accusing the federal government of having caused it: "I understood there's a kleptocracy working with psychopathic governments—clutches of evil that know the tricks of control". He did not believe the bombing had been the responsibility of McVeigh and his associate Terry Nichols. In 1998, he released his first film, "America Destroyed by Design".


title: Alex Jones

text: In 1998, Jones organized a successful campaign to build a new Branch Davidian church as a memorial to those who died during the 1993 fire. He often discussed the project on his public-access television program. He claimed that David Koresh and his followers were peaceful people who were murdered by Attorney General Janet Reno and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms during the siege.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones began his career in Austin working on a live, call-in format public-access cable television program. In 1996, Jones switched to radio, hosting a show named "The Final Edition" on KJFK (98.9 FM). Influenced by radio host William Cooper, who phoned in to Jones's early shows, Jones began to broadcast about the New World Order conspiracy theory at this time.


title: Alex Jones

text: While running for Congress, Ron Paul was a guest on his show several times. In 1999, Jones tied with Shannon Burke for that year's poll of "Best Austin Talk Radio Host", as voted by readers of "The Austin Chronicle." Later that year, he was fired from KJFK-FM for refusing to broaden his topics. The station's operations manager said that Jones's views made it difficult for the station to sell advertising. Jones said:


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones is the publisher and director of the "InfoWars" fake news website responsible for promoting conspiracy theories. "InfoWars" was originally founded by Alex and Kelly Jones (his then-wife) in about 1999, initially as a mail-order outlet for the sale of their conspiracy-oriented videos. In November 2016, the "InfoWars" website received approximately 10 million visits, making its reach more extensive than mainstream news websites such as "The Economist" and "Newsweek". Another of Jones's websites is PrisonPlanet.com.


title: Alex Jones

text: After his firing from KJFK-FM, Jones began to broadcast his own show by Internet connection from his home. In July 2000, a group of Austin Community Access Center (ACAC) radio hosts claimed that Jones had used legal proceedings and ACAC policy to intimidate them or try to get their broadcasts removed. In 2001, Jones's radio show was syndicated on approximately 100 stations.


title: Alex Jones

text: On the day of the 9/11 attacks, Jones said on his radio show there was a "98 percent chance this was a government-orchestrated controlled bombing." He began promoting the conspiracy theory that the Bush administration was behind the attack. As a result, several stations dropped Jones's program, according to columnist Will Bunch. Jones became a leading figure of the "9/11 truther" cause. In 2010, the show attracted around two million listeners each week. According to Alexander Zaitchik of "Rolling Stone" magazine, in 2011 Jones had a larger on-line audience than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined. In 2020, "The Alex Jones Show" was syndicated nationally by the Genesis Communications Network to more than 100 AM and FM radio stations in the United States.


title: Alex Jones

text: According to journalist Will Bunch, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, the show has a demographic that leans more towards younger listeners than do other conservative pundits, due to Jones's "highly conspiratorial tone and Web-oriented approach". Bunch also stated that Jones "feed[s] on the deepest paranoia".


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones told "The Washington Post" in November 2016 that his radio show, then syndicated to 129 stations, had a daily audience of five million listeners and his video streams had topped 80 million viewers in a single month.


title: Alex Jones

text: According to court testimony Jones delivered in 2014, "InfoWars" then had revenues of over $20 million a year.


title: Alex Jones

text: A 2017 piece for German magazine "Der Spiegel" by Veit Medick indicated that two-thirds of Jones's funds derive from sales of his own products. These products are marketed through the "InfoWars" website and through advertising spots on Jones's show. They include dietary supplements, toothpaste, bulletproof vests and "brain pills," which hold "an appeal for anyone who believes Armageddon is near", according to Medick. From September 2015 to the end of 2018, the InfoWars store made $165 million in sales, according to court filings relating to the Sandy Hook lawsuits filed against Jones.


title: Alex Jones

text: In August 2017, Californian medical company Labdoor, Inc reported on tests applied to six of Jones's dietary supplement products. These included a product named Survival Shield, which was found by Labdoor to contain only iodine, and a product named Oxy-Powder, which comprised a compound of magnesium oxide and citric acid—common ingredients in dietary supplements. Labdoor indicated no evidence of prohibited or harmful substances, but cast doubt on the marketing claims for these products, and asserted that the quantity of the ingredients in certain products would be "too low to be appropriately effective".


title: Alex Jones

text: On a 2017 segment of "Last Week Tonight", host John Oliver stated that Jones spends "nearly a quarter" of his on-air time promoting products sold on his website, many of which are purported solutions to medical and economic problems claimed to be caused by the conspiracy theories described on his show.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones continued this behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Jones was issued a cease and desist from the Attorney General of New York, after he claimed, in the absence of any evidence, that products he sold, including colloidal silver toothpaste, were an effective treatment for COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also sent him a letter on April 9, 2020, warning that the federal government might proceed to seize the products he was marketing for COVID-19 or fine him if he continued to sell them. A disclaimer then appeared on Jones's website, stating his products were not intended for treating "the novel coronavirus". On a linked page, Jones was quoted: "They plan on, if they've fluoridated you and vaccinated you and stunned you and mesmerized you with the TV and put you in a trance, on killing you." Jones continued to sell the products.


title: Alex Jones

text: Research commissioned in 2017 by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) determined that two products sold by Jones contained potentially dangerous levels of the heavy metal lead.


title: Alex Jones

text: During the April 2022 InfoWars bankruptcy hearing, Jones's representative stated "InfoWars is a prominent trademark in the conspiracy theory community and Alex Jones is equally as prominent". He added that Jones's name was the "Coca-Cola of the conspiracy theory community".


title: Alex Jones

text: On July 24, 2018, YouTube removed four "InfoWars" videos citing "child endangerment and hate speech", issued a "strike" against the channel, and suspended the ability to live stream. On July 27, 2018, Facebook suspended Jones's profile for 30 days, and removed the same videos, saying they violated the website's standards against hate speech and bullying. On August 3, 2018, Stitcher Radio removed all of his podcasts, citing harassment.


title: Alex Jones

text: Later that year, on August 6, 2018, Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify removed all content by Jones and "InfoWars" for policy violations. YouTube removed channels associated with "InfoWars", including The Alex Jones Channel. On Facebook, four pages associated with "InfoWars" and Alex Jones were removed over repeated policy violations. Apple removed all podcasts associated with Jones from iTunes. On August 13, 2018, Vimeo removed all of Jones's videos because of "prohibitions on discriminatory and hateful content". Facebook cited instances of dehumanizing immigrants, Muslims and transgender people, as well as glorification of violence, as examples of hate speech. After "InfoWars" was banned from Facebook, Jones used another of his websites, "NewsWars", to circumvent the ban.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones's accounts were also removed from Pinterest, Mailchimp and LinkedIn. , Jones retained active accounts on Instagram, Google+ and Twitter. Jones tweeted a Periscope video calling on others to get their "battle rifles" ready against antifa, the mainstream media, and Chicom operatives. In the video, he says: "Now is time to act on the enemy before they do a false flag." Twitter cited this as the reason to suspend his account for a week in August 2018.


title: Alex Jones

text: In September, Jones was permanently banned from Twitter and Periscope after berating CNN reporter Oliver Darcy. On September 7, 2018, the "InfoWars" app was removed from the Apple App Store for "objectionable content". He was banned from using PayPal for business transactions, having violated the company's policies by expressing "hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions." After Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter several previously banned accounts were reinstated including Donald Trump, Andrew Tate and Ye resulting in questioning if Alex Jones will be unbanned as well. However Musk denied that Alex Jones will be unbanned criticizing Jones as a person that "would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame".


title: Alex Jones

text: "InfoWars" remained available on Roku devices, in January 2019, a year after the channel's removal from multiple streaming services. Roku indicated that they do not "curate or censor based on viewpoint," and that it had policies against content that is "unlawful, incited illegal activities, or violates third-party rights," but that "InfoWars" was not in violation of these policies. Following a social media backlash, Roku removed "InfoWars" and stated "After the "InfoWars" channel became available, we heard from concerned parties and have determined that the channel should be removed from our platform."


title: Alex Jones

text: In March 2019, YouTube terminated the Resistance News channel due to its reuploading of live streams from "InfoWars". On May 1, 2019, Jones was barred from using both Facebook and Instagram. Jones briefly moved to Dlive, but was suspended in April 2019 for violating community guidelines.


title: Alex Jones

text: In March 2020, the "InfoWars" app was removed from the Google Play store due to Jones disseminating COVID-19 misinformation. A Google spokesperson stated that "combating misinformation on the Play Store is a top priority for the team" and apps that violate Play policy by "distributing misleading or harmful information" are removed from the store.


title: Alex Jones

text: Comedian Joe Rogan attracted controversy for hosting Jones on his podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience", in October 2020. The episode was made available on YouTube and Spotify in spite of Jones's ban from both platforms. Though Rogan fact-checked Jones throughout the course of the interview, he nonetheless faced backlash from critics, who accused Rogan of giving Jones a platform to spread misinformation and validate his views. A YouTube spokesman responded that YouTube reviewed the episode and determined it did not violate the site's guidelines, noting that YouTube bans channels rather than individuals.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones has described himself as a conservative, paleoconservative, and libertarian, terms he uses interchangeably. Others describe him as conservative, right-wing, alt-right, and far-right. Asked about such labels, Jones said he is "proud to be listed as a thought criminal against Big Brother".


title: Alex Jones

text: In 1998, he was removed from a George W. Bush rally at Bayport Industrial District, Texas. Jones interrupted governor Bush's speech, demanding that the Federal Reserve and Council on Foreign Relations be abolished. Journalist David Weigel, reporting on the incident, said Jones "seemed to launch into public events as if flung from another universe."


title: Alex Jones

text: In early 2000, Jones was one of seven Republican candidates for state representative in Texas House District 48, an open swing district based in Austin, Texas. Jones said that he was running "to be a watchdog on the inside" but withdrew from the race after a couple of weeks.


title: Alex Jones

text: On July 15, 2000, Jones infiltrated the Bohemian Grove "Cremation of Care", a Jones-alleged planning event of the New World Order involving child sacrifice, which he called "a ritualistic shedding of conscience and empathy" and an "abuse of power".


title: Alex Jones

text: On June 8, 2006, while on his way to cover a meeting of the Bilderberg Group in Ottawa, Jones was stopped and detained at the Ottawa airport by Canadian authorities. They confiscated his passport, camera equipment, and most of his belongings. He was later allowed to enter Canada legally. Jones said about his immigration hold: "I want to say, on the record, it takes two to tango. I could have handled it better."


title: Alex Jones

text: On September 8, 2007, Jones was arrested while protesting at 6th Avenue and 48th Street in New York City, when his group crashed a live television show featuring Geraldo Rivera. He was charged with operating a megaphone without a permit, and two other persons were also cited for disorderly conduct.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones is a vocal gun rights advocate. MTV labeled him a "staunch Second Amendment supporter", while "The Daily Telegraph" in London called him a "gun-nut".


title: Alex Jones

text: In January 2013, Jones was invited to speak on Piers Morgan's CNN show after promoting an online petition to deport Morgan because of his support of gun control. In the ensuing debate with Morgan, Jones stated that "1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms". Jones was referring to the American Revolutionary War in relation to theoretical gun control measures taken by the government. Jones said he owned around 50 firearms. Morgan said on CNN's "Newsroom" the following evening he couldn't conceive of a "better advertisement for gun control than Alex Jones' interview last night". On his own show, according to "The Atlantic", Glenn Beck said Morgan "is trying to make everybody who has guns and who believes in the Second Amendment to be a deterrent to an out of control government look like a madman. So now he immediately books the madman and makes him look like a conservative."


title: Alex Jones

text: In a "New York" magazine interview in November 2013, Jones said mass shootings in the United States "were very, very suspicious, but at minimum, the tragic events were used to try to create guilt on the part of the average gun owner. So via the guilt trip, they would accept their individual liberties curtailed."


title: Alex Jones

text: During an episode of his show "InfoWars" on May 24, 2022, Jones said concerning the Robb Elementary School shooting: "I would predict a lot of mass shootings right before elections and like clockwork, it is happening. To me, it is just very opportunistic what is happening."


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones is a proponent of the New World Order conspiracy theory. In 2009, Jones claimed that a convicted con man's scheme to take over a long-vacant, would-be for-profit prison in Hardin, Montana, was part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) plot to detain US citizens in concentration camps, relating to said conspiracy theory. On June 9, 2013, Jones appeared as a guest on the BBC's "Sunday Politics", discussing conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg Group, with presenter Andrew Neil and journalist David Aaronovitch. Aaronovitch implied that, since Jones had not been killed for exposing conspiracies, they either do not exist or that Jones is a part of them himself. Jones began shouting and interrupting, and Neil ended the interview, describing Jones as "an idiot" and "the worst person I've ever interviewed". According to Neil on Twitter, Jones was still shouting until he knew that he was off-air.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones was in a "media crossfire" in 2011, which included criticism by Rush Limbaugh, when the news spread that Jared Lee Loughner, the perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting, had been "a fan" of the 9/11 conspiracy film "Loose Change" of which Jones had been an executive producer.


title: Alex Jones

text: "Media Matters" covered his claim that NFL players protesting during the national anthem were "kneeling to white genocide" and violence against whites, which the SPLC featured in their headlines review. His reporting and public views on the topic have received support and coverage from white nationalist publications and groups, such as the AltRight Corporation and the New Zealand National Front.


title: Alex Jones

text: The Jones film "Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement" features the Georgia Guidestones, a 19-foot-high megalithic granite monument installed in Elberton in 1982, an attraction that drew 20,000 annual visitors. On July 7, 2022, the day they were dynamited by unknown saboteurs, his guest U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said ecumenical texts inscribed on it represented a nefarious future of "population control" as envisioned by the "hard left." She added, "There is a war of good and evil going on, and people are done with globalism." Jones admitted to enjoying the destruction, "at an animal level", though he added he would also would have liked them to remain as an "evil edifice" exposing supposed depopulation plans.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones has repeatedly made hateful comments towards the LGBT community. In 2010, he claimed: "The reason there's so many gay people now is because it's a chemical warfare operation, and I have the government documents where they said they're going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children". In a 2013 interview on YouTube concerning same-sex marriage he ultimately blamed the "globalists" who "want to encourage the breakdown of the family, because the family is where people owe their allegiance" as a means "to get rid of God" by "taking the rights of an ancient, unified program of marriage and... are breaking it". He has claimed that the government is putting chemicals in water supplies to make people homosexual. In 2018, Jones threatened to come after drag performers with torches "like the villagers in the night".


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones believes that global warming is a hoax made up by the World Bank to control the world economy through a carbon tax.


title: Alex Jones

text: "Salon" paraphrased Jones as having claimed President Obama had "access to weather weapons capable of not only creating tornadoes but also moving them around, on demand" His belief in weather warfare has been reported by mainstream media. He has claimed that Hurricane Irma may have been geo-engineered.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones is a proponent of the conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama is transgender, with much of his apparent proof being pictures of Obama where it appears she has a bulge in her pants, and a video clip where Barack Obama refers to somebody as "Michael". Jones has claimed that the election of Joe Biden is part of a plot by the deep state and the globalists to bring about "the takedown of America".


title: Alex Jones

text: In April 2017, Jones was criticized for claiming that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack was a hoax and false flag. Jones stated that the attack was potentially carried out by civil defense group White Helmets, which he claimed are an Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist front financed by George Soros.


title: Alex Jones

text: While Jones initially supported QAnon, Right Wing Watch reported that he had ceased to support QAnon by May 2018, declaring the source "completely compromised". In 2021, after the Capitol attack, Jones denounced believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory on "InfoWars".


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones is known for both his opposition to vaccines, and his views on vaccine controversies. On June 16, 2017, "Vox" covered his claim that the introduction of the "Sesame Street" character Julia, an autistic Muppet, was "designed to normalize autism, a disorder caused by vaccines." On November 20, 2017, "The New Yorker" quoted Jones as claiming "InfoWars" was "defending people's right to not be forcibly infected with vaccines". Critics argue that he endangers "children by convincing their parents that vaccines are dangerous." Jones has specifically disputed the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccines.


title: Alex Jones

text: On January 23, 2018, Jones announced he would be working with author Neil Strauss on his upcoming book, titled "The Secret History of the Modern World & the War for the Future".


title: Alex Jones

text: On December 2, 2015, Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, appeared on "The Alex Jones Show", with Trump stating to Jones at the end: "your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down. You'll be very, very impressed, I hope." During the broadcast, Jones compared Trump to George Washington and said 90% of his listeners supported his candidacy. Jones and Trump both said the appearance was arranged by Roger Stone, who made multiple appearances on Jones' program during the 2016 presidential campaign. Ron and Rand Paul were the only other significant politicians to appear on Jones' show in the preceding few years. Jones indicated his support for Trump during the presidential campaign.


title: Alex Jones

text: During his 2016 presidential campaign, via his Twitter account, Trump linked to "InfoWars" articles as sources for his claim "thousands and thousands" of Muslims celebrated 9/11 and the false assertion California was not suffering from a drought. A few days before one of Trump's August 2016 rallies, "InfoWars" published a video claiming Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had mental health issues, which Trump recycled in his campaign speech at the rally, according to "Mother Jones". Trump's claim the 2016 vote would be rigged, "The Independent" reported, followed a Jones video making the same claim two days earlier. In one of her own speeches and video ads, Clinton criticized Trump for his ties to Jones.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones ran a campaign attacking former president Bill Clinton as a rapist. He designed a T-shirt, ran another "get on MSM" competition and gate-crashed "The Young Turks" set at the RNC, while displaying the T-shirt, resulting in a physical altercation with Cenk Uygur. Jones said Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were demons because they both smelt of sulfur, a claim supposedly based on assertions from people in contact with them. In late 2015, "InfoWars" began selling T-shirts with the slogan "Hillary for Prison".


title: Alex Jones

text: According to Jones, Trump called him on the day after the election to thank him for his help in the campaign.


title: Alex Jones

text: In April 2018, Jones publicly criticized President Trump during a livestream, after Trump announced a military strike against Syria. During the stream, Jones also stated that Trump had not called him during the prior six months. A leaked interview of Jones in January 2019 expressing displeasure over his relationship with Trump was released by the Southern Poverty Law Center in March 2021, with Jones stating "I wish I never would have fucking met Trump... I'm so sick of fucking Donald Trump, man. God, I'm fucking sick of him."


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones supported Trump during his re-election campaign in 2020 and called on demonstrations to be held on the premise the election had been "rigged" against Trump.


title: Alex Jones

text: After Trump recommended at an August 2021 rally that people choose to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Jones said that Trump was either lying or "not that bright" and "a dumbass".


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones partially funded and raised other funds to finance the January 6 Trump rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the 2021 United States Capitol attack. "The New York Times" reported he assisted in raising at least $650,000 from Julie Fancelli, a Publix grocery chain heiress who is a follower of "InfoWars", to finance Trump's rally on the Ellipse, including $200,000 of the total amount deposited in one of Jones' bank accounts.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones attended the January 5 and 6 rallies at the capitol. On January 5, he was a scheduled speaker at the March to Save America and said, "We have only begun to resist the globalists. We have only begun our fight against their tyranny. They have tried to steal this election in front of everyone." Jones also stated that "I don't know how this is all going to end, but if they want to fight, they better believe they've got one," according to the same video. Jones called Joe Biden a "slave of Satan" and said, "Whatever happens to President Trump in 15 days, he is still the elected president of this republic. And we do not recognize the Communist Chinese agent Joe Biden, or his controllers."


title: Alex Jones

text: The next day, Wednesday, January 6, at a gathering in Lafayette Park north of the Capitol, he addressed the crowd with a bullhorn, and stated that he had seen "over a hundred" members of antifa in the crowd, a baseless assertion other Trump supporters had also made, although the FBI said there was no evidence of antifa involvement. The same day, a video of Jones was posted on "InfoWars", in which he is recorded saying "We declare 1776 against the new world order... We need to understand we're under attack, and we need to understand this is 21st-century warfare and get on a war-footing". In the same video, before setting off toward the Capitol building, Jones told the crowd: "We're here to take our rightful country back peacefully, because we're not globalist, antifa criminals. So let's start marching, and I salute you all." When rioters attacked the Capitol, Jones called on them to stop. "Let's not fight the police and give the system what they want," he said.


title: Alex Jones

text: In February 2021, "The Washington Post" reported that the FBI was investigating any role Jones might have played in influencing the participation of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in the incursion. Jones had previously hosted leaders of the two groups on his programs. Some members of the groups had been indicted for conspiracy in the incident.


title: Alex Jones

text: On November 22, 2021, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack subpoenaed Jones for testimony and documents by December 18 and 6, respectively. He had a virtual meeting with the committee by video link on January 24, 2022. By the estimate of his legal team, Jones said, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 100 times and had been instructed to do so by his counsel.


title: Alex Jones

text: On August 5, 2022, during a defamation trial in Texas brought by Sandy Hook school shooting parents against Jones, a lawyer for the plaintiffs revealed that Jones' lawyer had inadvertently sent him two years of texts from Jones' phone, and that a congressional panel investigating the Capitol riot had already requested access to the messages because Jones helped organize a rally just before the riot. On August 8 the congressional committee received Jones's text messages.


title: Alex Jones

text: In February 2017, James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, sent Jones a letter demanding an apology and retraction of his advocacy for the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Jones was given one month to comply or be subject to a libel suit. In March 2017, Jones apologized to Alefantis and retracted his allegations.


title: Alex Jones

text: In April 2017, the Chobani yogurt company filed suit against Jones for his claims that their factory in Idaho employing refugees was connected to a 2016 child sexual assault and a rise in tuberculosis. As a result, Jones issued an apology and retraction of his allegations in May 2017.


title: Alex Jones

text: In March 2018, Brennan Gilmore, who shared a video he captured of a car hitting counter protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally, filed a lawsuit against Jones and six others. According to the lawsuit, Jones said that Gilmore was acting as part of a false flag operation conducted by disgruntled government "deep state" employees promoting a coup against Trump. Gilmore alleged he received death threats from Jones's audience. In March 2022, Gilmore secured an admission of liability from Jones.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones has repeatedly spread disproven conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, including claiming that it was a "false flag" operation perpetrated by gun control advocates, that "no one died" in Sandy Hook, and that the incident was "staged", "synthetic", "manufactured", "a giant hoax" and "completely fake with actors." Jones faced numerous lawsuits due to these lies, and, in 2022, was ordered by a jury to pay $965 million in damages to 15 plaintiffs that he had defamed.


title: Alex Jones

text: On April 16, 2018, Neil Heslin, father of victim Jesse Lewis, filed a defamation suit against Jones, Infowars and Free Speech Systems in Travis County, Texas. Later that day, Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, parents of victim Noah Pozner, filed a defamation suit against them as well. Pozner, who has been forced to move several times to avoid harassment and death threats, was accused by Jones of being a crisis actor. Jones was found to be in contempt of court even before the trial started, failing to produce witnesses and materials relevant to the procedures. Consequently, Jones and "Infowars" were fined a total of $126,000 in October and December 2019.


title: Alex Jones

text: On June 26, 2018, six families of victims and an FBI agent who responded to the attack filed a defamation lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court against Jones, Infowars, Free Speech Systems, Infowars Health and others for spreading false claims, resulting in the harassment, stalking and threatening of survivors. On March 25, 2019, Jeremy Richman, one of the plaintiffs, whose daughter Avielle was killed, committed suicide. Jones, through his lawyer, offered condolences to Richman's family, then later that day on his show suggested that Richman had been murdered, and that his death had something to do with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference.


title: Alex Jones

text: On July 24, 2018, William Sherlach, husband of victim and school psychologist Mary Sherlach, filed a defamation lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court against Jones, Infowars, Free Speech Systems and Infowars Health.


title: Alex Jones

text: By February 2019, the plaintiffs won a series of court rulings requiring Jones to testify under oath. Jones was later ordered to undergo a sworn deposition, along with three other defendants related to the operation of Infowars. He was also ordered to turn over internal business documents related to Infowars. In this deposition in the last week of March 2019, Jones acknowledged the deaths were real, stating he had "almost like a form of psychosis", where he "basically thought everything was staged."


title: Alex Jones

text: On January 22, 2021, the Texas Supreme Court threw out an appeal for dismissal by Jones of four defamation lawsuits from families of Sandy Hook victims. The court allowed the judgments of two lower courts to stand without comment, allowing the lawsuits to continue. On April 5, 2021, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal against a Connecticut court sanction in the defamation lawsuit.


title: Alex Jones

text: On September 27, 2021, a district judge in Texas issued three default judgments against Jones, requiring him to pay all damages in two lawsuits. These rulings came after Jones repeatedly failed to hand over documents and evidence as ordered by the court, which the judge characterized as "flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules." On November 15, 2021, a superior court judge in Connecticut issued another default judgment in the fourth defamation lawsuit against Jones, and the amount he must pay the families will be determined at trial. As part of the legal settlement made against him, Jones claimed assets of $6.2 million in January 2022.


title: Alex Jones

text: On or about March 29, 2022, Jones offered a settlement of $120,000 to each of the thirteen people involved in the lawsuits, which was quickly rejected.


title: Alex Jones

text: On April 6, 2022, according to the Associated Press and "The Daily Beast", a lawsuit was filed in Austin, Texas, by some of the Sandy Hook families accusing Jones of hiding assets worth millions of dollars after he began being sued for defamation by the families of Sandy Hook victims. The suit claims Jones "conspired to divert his assets to shell companies owned by insiders like his parents, his children, and himself". The lawsuit alleges Jones drew $18 million from the Infowars company beginning in 2018 and accuses Jones of claiming a "dubious" $54 million debt at about the same time to another company alleged by the lawsuit to be also owned by Jones. Norm Pattis, an attorney for Jones, said the lawsuit was "ridiculous" and denied that there had been any attempt to conceal assets.


title: Alex Jones

text: On April 17, 2022, three companies owned by Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, suspending further civil litigation claims, as the families had sued Jones as well as his companies. The three companies affected were InfoW, Prison Planet TV, and IWHealth (or Infowars Health). The court filings estimated "InfoWars"' assets at between $0–$50,000, but its liabilities (including from the damages awarded against Jones in defamation suits) were stated as being between $1 million and $10 million. Regarding why Jones did not personally file for bankruptcy, his representative stated "It would ruin his name and harm his ability to sell merchandise." "Putting him in bankruptcy would harm his trademark value in terms of cashflow." A lawyer for the families involved in a Connecticut lawsuit against Jones responded, "Alex Jones is just delaying the inevitable: a public trial in which he will be held accountable for his profit-driven campaign of lies against the Sandy Hook families who have brought this lawsuit." On June 10, 2022, a federal judge in Texas dismissed the bankruptcy protection case after Jones and the families agreed that the three companies would be dropped from the defamation lawsuits against Jones, allowing them to continue in Texas and Connecticut.


title: Alex Jones

text: On June 2, 2022, Jones's attorneys asked the judge in the Connecticut lawsuit to drop them from the case. The judge said she had heard this before, citing thirteen times in the past four years when Jones' attorneys asked to replace each other or be dropped from the case. She ordered them to continue to represent Jones until she ruled on the motion on June 15.


title: Alex Jones

text: The first of three jury trials to determine defamation damages against Jones ("Heslin v. Jones") began in Texas on July 25, 2022, where the plaintiffs' attorney said they would seek $150 million from the jury. The plaintiffs, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, are parents of Jesse Lewis, one of the 20 students killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. Heslin testified on August 2 that conspiracy theorists, fueled by Jones' statements, fired into his house and car and subjected him and his family to harassment. He said Jones' failure to attend court during his testimony was a "cowardly act." While Heslin was testifying, Jones was broadcasting his show, calling Heslin "slow" and "manipulated by some very bad people." Jones subsequently arrived at court to present his testimony, first sitting through that of Jesse's mother Scarlett Lewis. Lewis said "Alex, I want you to hear this. We're more polarized than ever as a country. Some of that is because of you." She asked Jones: "Do you think I'm an actor?" Jones responded, "No, I don't think you're an actor." As the only person testifying in his defense, Jones admitted the Sandy Hook shooting was "100% real," and agreed with his own attorney that it was "absolutely irresponsible" to push falsehoods about the shooting and its victims.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones testified that he had complied with court orders in defamation suits and is bankrupt. On August 3, cross-examination revealed that Jones had not fully complied with court orders to provide text messages and emails for pretrial evidence gathering. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County District Court admonished him for lying under oath, as his failure to comply with court orders was the reason he lost the defamation suits, and that bankruptcy proceedings had yet to be adjudicated. Gamble said, "you're under oath. That means things must actually be true when you say them." After the judge left the courtroom, Jones said Lewis and Heslin were being "controlled." While the jury deliberated the amount of compensatory damages, Jones was claiming on his radio show that the proceedings were "an incredible spectacle" backed by globalists trying to shut him down. On August 4, 2022, the jury ordered Jones pay Heslin and Lewis $4.1 million in compensatory damages, and the following day, he was ordered to pay an additional $45.2 million in punitive damages. On November 22, 2022, a judge ruled that Jones must pay the full amount of the punitive damages, even though this amount exceeds a cap under Texas law. (Jones' attorneys had estimated the punitive damages award would be reduced to $1.5 million, while the plaintiffs' attorneys had expected it to be reduced to $4.5 million.)


title: Alex Jones

text: On October 12, 2022, in a trial that consolidated two cases, the jury awarded $965 million to be shared by 15 plaintiffs (eight families and one first responder). The plaintiffs' individual awards ranged from $28.8 million to $120 million. During the trial, the families testified that they had been threatened and harassed over years due to Jones' falsehoods. Jones reacted live to the verdict on his show, mocking it: "Do these people actually think they’re getting any money?" He implored his viewers to donate to him to "appeal", and also declared that the jury's verdict was an attempt to "scare us away from questioning" school shootings such as the Uvalde shooting and the Stoneman Douglas shooting, but "we're not going to stop."


title: Alex Jones

text: On November 10, 2022, in the second defamation case in Connecticut, a judge awarded the eight families a further $473 million in punitive damages in the form of lawyers’ fees, bringing the total to over $1.4 billion. The judge also issued an order that he was “not to transfer, encumber, dispose or move his assets out of the United States until further order of the court.” Consequently, numerous media sources have raised questions on how much Jones really owns and hides in assets.


title: Alex Jones

text: On November 22, 2022, in the first Texas case, Judge Gamble ruled that the punitive damages cap did not apply in this case due to the rare and egregious nature of the harm. She also questioned the constitutionality of the damages cap in general.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones spread discredited conspiracy theories about the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. He stated survivor David Hogg was a crisis actor.


title: Alex Jones

text: Marcel Fontaine sued Jones on April 2, 2018, after "InfoWars" falsely identified him as the gunman and posted photos of him in several versions of an article on the "InfoWars" website about the massacre. The lawsuit was filed in Texas court naming Jones, "InfoWars", parent company Free Speech Systems, LLC and "Infowars" employee Kit Daniels as defendants. Fontaine's lawsuit was the first one against Jones regarding mass school shootings. "Marcel Fontaine is the only reason why we filed the first Sandy Hook case" his lawyer said (after Fontaine's suit was filed, the lawyer said the families of two boys slain in the Sandy Hook shooting contacted his law firm about suing Jones). Fontaine died in a house fire in Worcester, Massachusetts, on May 14, 2022. The future of the lawsuit was unclear at the time of his death.


title: Alex Jones

text: Jones has three children with his former wife Kelly Jones. The couple divorced in March 2015. In 2017, Kelly sought sole or joint custody of their children due to her ex-husband's behavior. She claimed "he's not a stable person" and "I'm concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress" (Adam Schiff). His attorney responded by claiming that "he's playing a character" and describing him as a "performance artist". On his show, Jones denied playing a character and he called his show "the most bona fide, hard-core, real McCoy thing there is, and everybody knows it"; whereas in court, Jones clarified that he generally agreed with his attorney's statement, but that he disagreed with the media's interpretation of the term "performance artist". Kelly was awarded the right to decide where their children live while he maintains visitation rights. In April 2020, a state district judge denied an emergency motion by Kelly to secure custody of their daughters for the next two weeks after Jones led a rally at the Capitol, where he was mobbed by supporters and called COVID-19 a hoax.


title: Alex Jones

text: On December 2, 2022 Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas, claiming that his assets were between $1 million and $10 million, while his debts were between $1 billion and $10 billion. He also claimed that he had 50 to 99 creditors.


title: Fritzl case

text: The Fritzl case emerged in 2008, when a woman named Elisabeth Fritzl (born 6 April 1966) told police in the town of Amstetten, Lower Austria, Austria, that she had been held captive for 24 years by her father, Josef Fritzl (born 9 April 1935). J. Fritzl had assaulted, sexually abused, and raped his daughter repeatedly during her imprisonment inside a concealed area in the cellar of the family home. The abuse resulted in the birth of seven children: three of them remained in captivity with their mother; one had died just days after birth at the hands of J. Fritzl, who disposed of his body in an incinerator; and the other three were brought up by J. Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, having been reported as foundlings.


title: Fritzl case

text: J. Fritzl was arrested on suspicion of rape, false imprisonment, manslaughter by negligence, and incest. In March 2009, he pleaded guilty to all counts and was sentenced to life imprisonment.


title: Fritzl case

text: Josef Fritzl was born on 9 April 1935, in Amstetten, Lower Austria. In 1956, at age 21, he married 17-year-old Rosemarie (born September 23, 1939) with whom he had three sons and four daughters, including Elisabeth, who was born on 6 April 1966. Fritzl reportedly began sexually abusing Elisabeth in 1977, when she was aged 11.


title: Fritzl case

text: After completing compulsory education at age 15, Elisabeth started a course to become a waitress. In January 1983 she ran away from home and went into hiding in Vienna with a friend from work. She was found by police within three weeks and returned to her parents in Amstetten. She rejoined her waitress course, finished it in mid-1984, and was offered a job in nearby Linz.


title: Fritzl case

text: On 28 August 1984, after Elisabeth turned 18, Fritzl lured her into the basement of the family home, saying that he needed help carrying a door. In reality, Fritzl had been converting the basement into a makeshift prison chamber; the door was the last thing he needed to seal it. After Elisabeth held the door in place while Fritzl fitted it into the frame, he held an ether-soaked towel on her face until she was unconscious, then threw her into the chamber.


title: Fritzl case

text: After Elisabeth's disappearance, Rosemarie filed a missing persons report. Almost a month later, Fritzl handed over a letter to the police, the first of several that he had forced Elisabeth to write while she was in captivity. The letter, postmarked Braunau, stated that she was tired of living with her family and was staying with a friend; she warned her parents not to look for her or she would leave the country. Fritzl told police that she had most likely joined a cult.


title: Fritzl case

text: Over the next 24 years, Fritzl visited Elisabeth in the hidden chamber almost every day, or a minimum of three times a week, bringing food and other supplies, and repeatedly raping her. Elisabeth gave birth to seven children during her captivity. One child died shortly after birth, and three—Lisa, Monika, and Alexander—were removed from the chamber as infants to live with Fritzl and his wife, who were approved by local social services authorities as their foster parents. Officials said that Fritzl "very plausibly" explained how three of his infant grandchildren had appeared on his doorstep. The family received regular visits from social workers, who saw and heard nothing to arouse their suspicions.


title: Fritzl case

text: Following the fourth child's birth in 1994, Fritzl allowed the enlargement of the prison, from , putting Elisabeth and her children to work digging out soil with their bare hands for years. The captives had a television, a radio, and a videocassette player. Food could be stored in a refrigerator and cooked or heated on hot plates. Elisabeth taught the children to read and write. At times, Fritzl would punish the family by shutting off their lights or refusing to deliver food for days at a time. Fritzl told Elisabeth and the three children who remained (Kerstin, Stefan, and Felix) that they would be gassed if they tried to escape. Investigators concluded that this was an empty threat to frighten the victims; there was no gas supply to the basement. He also told them that they would be electrocuted if they tried to meddle with the cellar door.


title: Fritzl case

text: According to Fritzl's sister-in-law Christine, he went into the basement every morning at 09:00, ostensibly to draw plans for machines which he sold to manufacturing firms. He often stayed there for the night and did not allow his wife to bring him coffee. A tenant who rented a ground floor room in the house for twelve years claimed to hear noises from the basement, which Fritzl said were caused by the "faulty pipes" or the gas heating system.


title: Fritzl case

text: On 19 April 2008, Fritzl agreed to seek medical attention after Kerstin, Elisabeth's eldest daughter, fell unconscious. Elisabeth helped him carry Kerstin out of the chamber and saw the outside world for the first time in 24 years. He forced her to return to the chamber, where she remained for a final week. Kerstin was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, the "Landesklinikum Amstetten", and was admitted in serious condition with life-threatening kidney failure. Fritzl later arrived at the hospital claiming to have found a note written by Kerstin's mother. He discussed Kerstin's condition and the note with a doctor, Albert Reiter.


title: Fritzl case

text: Medical staff found aspects of Fritzl's story puzzling and alerted the police on 21 April. The police broadcast an appeal on public media for the missing mother to come forward and provide information about Kerstin's medical history. The police reopened the case file on Elisabeth's disappearance. Fritzl repeated his story about Elisabeth being in a cult, and presented what he claimed was the "most recent letter" from her, dated January 2008, posted from the town of Kematen. The police contacted Manfred Wohlfahrt, a church officer and expert on cults, who raised doubts about the existence of the group Fritzl described. He noted that Elisabeth's letters seemed dictated and oddly written.


title: Fritzl case

text: Elisabeth pleaded with Fritzl to be taken to the hospital. On 26 April, he released her from the cellar along with her sons Stefan and Felix, bringing them upstairs. He and Elisabeth went to the hospital where Kerstin was being treated on 26 April 2008. Following a tip-off from Reiter that Fritzl and Elisabeth were at the hospital, the police detained them on the hospital grounds and took them to a police station for questioning.


title: Fritzl case

text: Elisabeth did not provide police with more details until they promised her that she would never have to see her father again. Over the next two hours, she told the story of her 24 years in captivity. Elisabeth recounted that Fritzl raped her and forced her to watch pornographic videos, which he made her re-enact with him in front of her children in order to humiliate her. Shortly after midnight, police officers completed the investigation. Fritzl, aged 73, was arrested on 26 April on suspicion of serious crimes against family members.


title: Fritzl case

text: During the night of 27 April, Elisabeth, her children and her mother Rosemarie were taken into care. Police said Fritzl told investigators how to enter the basement chamber through a small hidden door, opened by a secret keyless entry code. Rosemarie had been unaware of what had been happening to Elisabeth.


title: Fritzl case

text: On 29 April, it was announced that DNA evidence confirmed Fritzl as the biological father of his daughter's children. His defence lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said that although the DNA test proved incest, evidence was still needed for the allegations of rape and enslavement. In their 1 May daily press conference, Austrian police said that Fritzl had forced Elisabeth to write a letter the previous year indicating that he may have been planning to release her and the children. The letter said that she wanted to come home but "it's not possible yet." Police believe Fritzl was planning to pretend to have rescued his daughter from her fictitious cult. Police spokesman Franz Polzer said police planned to interview at least 100 people who had lived as tenants in the Fritzl apartment building in the previous 24 years.


title: Fritzl case

text: The Fritzl property in Amstetten is a building dating from around 1890. A newer building was added after 1978 when Fritzl applied for a building permit for an "extension with basement." In 1983, building inspectors visited the site and verified that the new extension had been built according to the dimensions specified on the permit. Fritzl had illegally enlarged the room by excavating space for a much larger basement, concealed by walls. Around 1981 or 1982, according to his statement, Fritzl started to turn this hidden cellar into a prison cell and installed a washbasin, toilet, bed, hot plate, and refrigerator. In 1983, he added more space by creating a passageway to a pre-existing basement area under the old part of the property, of which only he knew.


title: Fritzl case

text: The concealed cellar had a corridor, a storage area, and three small open cells, connected by narrow passageways; and a basic cooking area and bathroom facilities, followed by two sleeping areas, which were equipped with two beds each. It covered an area of approximately . The cell had two access points: a hinged door that weighed which is thought to have become unusable over the years because of its weight, and a metal door, reinforced with concrete and on steel rails that weighed and measured high and wide. It was located behind a shelf in Fritzl's basement workshop, protected by an electronic code entered using a remote control unit. In order to reach this door, five locking basement rooms had to be crossed. To get to the area where Elisabeth and her children were held, eight doors in total needed to be unlocked, of which two doors were additionally secured by electronic locking devices.


title: Fritzl case

text: Josef Fritzl (now known as Mayrhoff) was born on 9 April 1935, in Amstetten to Josef Fritzl Sr. and Maria Fritzl (née Nenning). He grew up as an only child raised solely by his working mother. His father, who was a severe alcoholic, had deserted the family when Fritzl was four, and never again came into contact with him. Fritzl Sr. later fought as a soldier in the Wehrmacht during World War II, and was killed in action in 1944. His name appears on a memorial plaque in Amstetten.


title: Fritzl case

text: After completing his education at an HTL Technical College with a qualification in electrical engineering, Fritzl obtained a job at Voestalpine in Linz. From 1969 until 1971, he held a job in a construction-material firm in Amstetten. Later, he became a technical equipment salesman, travelling throughout Austria. He retired from active employment when he turned 60 in 1995, but continued some commercial activities. In addition to his apartment building in Amstetten, Fritzl rented out several other properties. In 1972, he purchased a guesthouse and an adjacent campsite at Lake Mondsee. He ran it, together with his wife, until 1996.


title: Fritzl case

text: In 1967, Fritzl broke into the Linz home of a 24-year-old nurse while her husband was away and raped her while holding a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if she screamed. According to an annual report for 1967 and a press release of the same year, he was also named as a suspect in a case of attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman, and was known for indecent exposure. Fritzl was arrested and served 12 months of an 18-month prison sentence. In accordance with Austrian law, his criminal record was expunged after 15 years. As a result, more than 25 years later, when he applied to adopt and/or foster Elisabeth's children, the local social service authorities did not discover his criminal history.


title: Fritzl case

text: After his arrest, Fritzl claimed that his behaviour toward his daughter did not constitute rape but was consensual. Mayer forwarded extracts from the minutes of his talks with his client to the Austrian weekly "News" for publication. According to these statements, Fritzl said that he "always knew during the whole 24 years that what I was doing was not right, that I must have been crazy to do such a thing, yet it became a normal occurrence to lead a second life in the basement of my house."


title: Fritzl case

text: Regarding his treatment of the family he had with his wife, Fritzl stated, "I am not the beast the media make me to be." Regarding his treatment of Elisabeth and her children in the cellar, he explained that he brought flowers for Elisabeth and books and toys for the children into the "bunker," as he called it, and often watched videos with the children and ate meals with Elisabeth and the children. Fritzl decided to imprison Elisabeth after she "did not adhere to any rules any more" when she became a teenager. "That is why I had to do something; I had to create a place where I could keep Elisabeth, by force if necessary, away from the outside world." He suggested that the emphasis on discipline in the Nazi era, during which he grew up until the age of 10, might have influenced his views about decency and good behaviour. The chief editors of "News" magazine noted in their editorial that they expected Fritzl's statement to form the basis of the defence strategy of his lawyer. Critics said his statement may have been a ploy to prepare an insanity defence.


title: Fritzl case

text: Reflecting on his childhood, Fritzl initially described his mother as "the best woman in the world" and "as strict as it was necessary." Later, he expressed a negative opinion of his mother and claimed that "she used to beat me, hit me until I was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. It left me feeling totally humiliated and weak. My mother was a servant and she used to work hard all her life, I never had a kiss from her, I was never cuddled although I wanted it – I wanted her to be good to me." He also claimed that she called him "a Satan, a criminal, a no-good," that he "had a horrible fear of her." In 1959, after Fritzl had married and bought his house, his mother moved in with them. Over time, their roles reversed, and his mother came to fear him. Eventually, he also admitted he had later locked his mother in the attic and bricked up her window after telling neighbors that she had died, and kept her locked up until her death in 1980. It is unknown how long Fritzl kept his mother locked up in his attic, but newspapers have speculated that it may have been up to 20 years.


title: Fritzl case

text: In a report by forensic psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner, Fritzl's mother is described as unpredictable and abusive. Fritzl referred to himself as an "alibi" child, meaning that his mother only gave birth to him to prove that she was not barren and could produce children. Fritzl claims that his pathological behaviour is innate. During his prison stint for the earlier rape conviction, he admits that he planned to lock his daughter up so that he could contain and express his "evil side." He said, "I was born to rape, and I held myself back for a relatively long time. I could have behaved a lot worse than locking up my daughter." The forensic psychiatrist diagnosed Fritzl as having a "severe combined personality disorder" which included borderline, schizotypal and schizoid types and a sexual disorder and recommended that Fritzl receive psychiatric care for the rest of his life.


title: Fritzl case

text: Later reports have revealed Fritzl's premeditated plan to lock his daughter up was not for discipline but for his own gratification.


title: Fritzl case

text: Pursuant to the agreement that she would never have to see her father again, Elisabeth Fritzl gave videotaped testimony before Austrian prosecutors and investigators on 11 July 2008.


title: Fritzl case

text: On 13 November 2008, authorities in Austria released an indictment against Josef Fritzl. He stood trial for the murder of the infant Michael, who died shortly after birth, and faced between 10 years and life imprisonment. He was also charged with rape, incest, kidnapping, false imprisonment and slavery, which carry a maximum 20-year term.


title: Fritzl case

text: The trial of Josef Fritzl commenced on 16 March 2009, in the city of Sankt Pölten, presided over by Judge Andrea .


title: Fritzl case

text: On day one, Fritzl entered the courtroom attempting to hide his face from cameras behind a blue folder, which he was entitled to do under Austrian law. After opening comments, all journalists and spectators were asked to leave the courtroom, whereupon Fritzl lowered his binder. Fritzl pleaded guilty to all charges with the exception of murder and grievous assault by threatening to gas his captives if they disobeyed him.


title: Fritzl case

text: In his opening remarks, Rudolf Mayer, the defending counsel, appealed to the jury to be objective and not be swayed by emotions. He insisted Fritzl was "not a monster," stating that Fritzl had brought a Christmas tree down to his captives in the cellar during the holiday season.


title: Fritzl case

text: Christiane Burkheiser, prosecuting her first case since being appointed Chief Prosecutor, pressed for life imprisonment in an institution for the criminally insane. She demonstrated for jurors the low height of the ceiling in the cellar dungeon by making a mark on the door to the courtroom at , and described the cellar as "damp and mouldy," passing around a box of musty objects taken from the cellar, the odour of which made jurors flinch.


title: Fritzl case

text: On the first day of testimony, jurors watched eleven hours of testimony recorded by Elisabeth in sessions with police and psychologists in July 2008. The tape is said to have been so "harrowing" that the eight jurors did not watch more than two hours at a time. Four replacement jurors were on standby to replace any of the regular jurors in case they could not bear to hear any more of the evidence.


title: Fritzl case

text: Besides the video testimony, Elisabeth's older brother Harald testified and said that he was physically abused by Fritzl as a child. Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie, and Elisabeth's children refused to testify.


title: Fritzl case

text: On 18 March 2009, Elisabeth Fritzl attended the second day of the criminal trial against her father, in preparation for a book she wrote about her ordeal. She did not plan to see her father again. Fritzl's attorney, Rudolf Mayer, confirmed that she had been in the visitors' gallery in disguise at the time her video testimony was aired. "Josef Fritzl recognised that Elisabeth was in court and, from this point on, you could see Josef Fritzl going pale and he broke down," Mayer said. "It was a meeting of eyes that changed his mind." The next day, Fritzl began the proceedings by approaching the judge and changing his pleas to guilty on all charges.


title: Fritzl case

text: On 19 March 2009, Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 15 years. He said that he accepted the sentence and would not appeal. Fritzl is currently serving out his sentence in Garsten Abbey, a former monastery in Upper Austria that has been converted into a prison.


title: Fritzl case

text: Chancellor of Austria Alfred Gusenbauer said he planned to launch a foreign public image campaign for his country, in light of the "abominable events."


title: Fritzl case

text: Judge , who presided over the trial, stated medical experts reported Elisabeth and her children were in "relatively good health."


title: Fritzl case

text: After being taken into care, Elisabeth, all six of her surviving children and her mother were housed in a local clinic where they were shielded from the outside environment and received medical and psychological treatment. Members of the Fritzl family were offered new identities, but it was emphasized that it was their choice to make.


title: Fritzl case

text: Berthold Kepplinger, head of the clinic where Elisabeth and her children were being treated, said that Elisabeth and the three children held captive in the cellar required further therapy to help them adjust to the light after years in semi-darkness. They also needed treatment to help them cope with all the extra space that they now had in which to move about.


title: Fritzl case

text: In May 2008, a handmade poster created by Elisabeth, her children and her mother at the therapy facility was displayed in the Amstetten Town Centre. The message thanked local people for their support. "We, the whole family, would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for sympathy at our fate," they wrote in their message. "Your compassion is helping us greatly to overcome these difficult times, and it shows us there also are good and honest people here who really care for us. We hope that soon there will be a time where we can find our way back into a normal life."


title: Fritzl case

text: Kerstin was reunited with her family on 8 June 2008, when she was awakened from her artificially induced coma. Doctors said that she would make a full recovery.


title: Fritzl case

text: It was revealed that Elisabeth and her children were more traumatized than previously thought. During captivity, Kerstin tore out her hair in clumps, and was reported to have shredded her dresses before stuffing them in the toilet. Stefan could not walk properly, because of his height of , which had forced him to stoop in the cellar. It has also been revealed that normal everyday occurrences, such as the dimming of lights or the closing of doors, plunge Kerstin and Stefan into anxiety and panic attacks. The other three of Elisabeth's children who were raised by their father are being treated for anger and resentment at the events.


title: Fritzl case

text: In late July 2008, it emerged that Elisabeth ordered her mother Rosemarie out of the villa they had been sharing in a secret location set up for them by a psychiatric clinic. Elisabeth was upset about Rosemarie's passiveness during her upbringing.


title: Fritzl case

text: Lawyer Christoph Herbst, who represents Elisabeth and her family, said, "Fortunately, everything is going very well"; they spend their time answering hundreds of letters from all over the world. Felix, Kerstin, and Stefan, brought up underground with their mother, have learned to swim. All of Elisabeth's children attended a four-day summer camp organised by firefighters, with 4,000 other young campers, in August 2008. The children, along with their mother, have also made day trips, including swimming outings, on which care was taken to keep them out of reach of the paparazzi and to protect their privacy.


title: Fritzl case

text: In March 2009, Elisabeth and her children were forced to move out of the family's hide-away home and returned to the psychiatric clinic where medical staff had started trying to heal the family and unite the "upstairs" and "downstairs" siblings during the previous year. Elisabeth was reported to be distraught and close to a breakdown after a British paparazzo had burst into her kitchen and started taking photographs.


title: Fritzl case

text: After the trial, Elisabeth and her six children were moved to an unnamed village in northern Austria, where they were living in a fortress-like house. All of the children require ongoing therapy. Factors that traumatised the "upstairs" children include learning that Fritzl had lied to them about their mother abandoning them, the abuse they had received from him during their childhood, and finding out that their siblings had been imprisoned in the cellar. The "downstairs" children receive therapy due to their deprivation from normal development, the lack of fresh air and sunshine while living confined in the basement, and the abuse that they and their mother had received from Fritzl when he visited them in the basement. All of the children might have genetic problems common to children born of an incestuous relationship. Elisabeth was said to be estranged from her mother, Rosemarie, who accepted Fritzl's story about Elisabeth joining a cult and did not pursue the matter further, but Elisabeth allows her three children who grew up in Josef and Rosemarie's house to visit their grandmother regularly. Rosemarie lives alone in a small apartment.


title: Fritzl case

text: An article in March 2010 in "The Independent" stated that Elisabeth and her children recovered remarkably well, given the difficult lives they endured for so long. According to Josef's sister-in-law, Christine, Elisabeth enjoys spending her time shopping, taking frequent showers, and driving. She has passed her driving test without difficulty. Her relationship with Thomas Wagner, one of her bodyguards (who is 23 years younger than her), was reported to be ongoing, with him becoming a big-brother figure to her children. All of Elisabeth's children have developed normal sibling relationships with each other, and after having trouble dealing with the traumatic events, the three "upstairs" children slowly began recognising Elisabeth as their mother. The children enjoy being outdoors, playing video games, and spending time with their mother and grandmother. Despite their strained relationship, Elisabeth and her mother Rosemarie started visiting each other more, and Elisabeth has reportedly forgiven her mother for believing her father's story.


title: Fritzl case

text: On 28 June 2013, workers began filling the basement of the Fritzl home with concrete. Estate liquidator Walter Anzboeck stated that the construction would cost €100,000 and would take a week to complete. The house was to be sold on the open market. While most neighbours approved of the proposal, some preferred that the property be demolished due to its sordid history. Asylum seekers were offered the house to live in. The house was sold for €160,000 in December 2016, with the buyers voicing their intention to convert the building into apartments.


title: Fritzl case

text: In May 2017, Josef Fritzl changed his name to Josef Mayrhoff, probably due to getting into a prison fight that resulted in several of his teeth getting knocked out after other inmates set up a fake dating profile with his name and picture. Mark Perry, a British journalist who interviewed Fritzl in his cell, says he has shown no remorse for his crimes. He recalls he kept saying "just look into the cellars of other people, you might find other families and girls down there."


title: Fritzl case

text: In April 2019, it was reported that Fritzl's health was declining and that he did not want to live anymore.


title: Fritzl case

text: In September 2021, a decision was made to release Fritzl from a psychiatric detention facility to a regular prison, where he was to continue to serve his life sentence. That decision was based on a psychiatric report which said he no longer posed any danger. The ruling was appealed, and in late April 2022, a panel of three judges decided that Josef Fritzl could be moved. The decision was based on a supplementary psychiatric report submitted in March. However, a court ruled that he will remain in the psychiatric facility until an appeal to the Higher Regional Court in Vienna is heard. There are reports that he is suffering from dementia. The move to a regular prison means that Fritzl, who received a life sentence, will be eligible for parole in 2023, having served the initial 15 years of his sentence.


title: Fritzl case

text: The case was featured in the 2008 documentary, "The Longest Night: Secrets of the Austrian Cellar" and the 2010 documentary, "Monster: The Josef Fritzl Story".


title: Fritzl case

text: The 2009 book, "The Crimes of Josef Fritzl: Uncovering the Truth", by Stefanie Marsh and Bojan Pancevski, is about the case.


title: Fritzl case

text: "Room" author Emma Donoghue was inspired by the crimes, and her novel inspired a film adaptation with the same name.


title: Fritzl case

text: In 2021, Lifetime released a film inspired by the Fritzl case titled "Girl in the Basement" which is part of Lifetime's "Ripped from the Headlines" feature films. The film is directed by Elizabeth Röhm and it stars Stefanie Scott, Judd Nelson, and Joely Fisher.


title: Prussia

text: Prussia was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was "de facto" dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and "de jure" by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.


title: Prussia

text: In 1871, Prussian Minister-President Otto von Bismarck united most German principalities into the German Empire under his leadership, although this was considered to be a "Lesser Germany" because Austria and Switzerland were not included. In November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, a state of Germany from 1918 until 1933. From 1932, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup and the Nazi "" laws, which established a unitary state. Its legal status finally ended in 1947.


title: Prussia

text: The name "Prussia" derives from the Old Prussians; in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Danzig (modern-day Gdańsk). Their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany, and, in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The imposed Second Peace of Thorn (1466) split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, becoming a province of Poland, and the eastern part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia, a feudal fief of the Crown of Poland up to 1657. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.


title: Prussia

text: Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom. It became increasingly large and powerful in the 18th and 19th centuries. It had a major voice in European affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great (1740–1786). At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleon's defeat, Prussia acquired rich new territories, including the coal-rich Ruhr. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians.


title: Prussia

text: The Kingdom ended in 1918 along with other German monarchies that were terminated by the German Revolution. In the Weimar Republic, the Free State of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. Subsequently, it was effectively dismantled into Nazi German "Gaue" in 1935. Nevertheless, some Prussian ministries were kept and Hermann Göring remained in his role as Minister President of Prussia until the end of World War II. Former eastern territories of Germany that made up a significant part of Prussia lost the majority of their German population after 1945 as the Polish People's Republic and the Soviet Union both absorbed these territories and had most of its German inhabitants expelled by 1950. Prussia, deemed "a bearer of militarism and reaction" by the Allies, was officially abolished by an Allied declaration in 1947. The international status of the former eastern territories of the Kingdom of Prussia was disputed until the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in 1990, but its return to Germany remains a cause among far right politicians, the Federation of Expellees and various political revanchists and irredentists.


title: Prussia

text: The terms "Prussian" and "Prussianism" have often been used, especially outside Germany, to denote the militarism, military professionalism, aggressiveness, and conservatism of the class of landed aristocrats in the East who dominated first Prussia and then the German Empire.


title: Prussia

text: The main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background.


title: Prussia

text: The black and white national colours were already used by the Teutonic Knights and by the Hohenzollern dynasty. The Teutonic Order wore a white coat embroidered with a black cross with gold insert and black imperial eagle. The combination of the black and white colours with the white and red Hanseatic colours of the free cities Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, as well as of Brandenburg, resulted in the black-white-red commercial flag of the North German Confederation, which became the flag of the German Empire in 1871.


title: Prussia

text: "Suum cuique" ("to each, his own"), the motto of the Order of the Black Eagle created by King Frederick I in 1701, was often associated with the whole of Prussia. The Iron Cross, a military decoration created by King Frederick William III in 1813, was also commonly associated with the country. The region, originally populated by Baltic Old Prussians who were Christianised, became a favoured location for immigration by (later mainly Protestant) Germans ("see Ostsiedlung"), as well as Poles and Lithuanians along the border regions.


title: Prussia

text: Before its abolition, the territory of the Free State of Prussia included the provinces of East Prussia; Brandenburg; Saxony (including much of the present-day state of Saxony-Anhalt and parts of the state of Thuringia in Germany); Pomerania; Rhineland; Westphalia; Silesia (without Austrian Silesia); Schleswig-Holstein; Hanover; Hesse-Nassau; and a small detached area in the south called Hohenzollern, the ancestral home of the Prussian ruling family. The land that the Teutonic Knights occupied was flat and covered with fertile soil. The area was perfectly suited to the large-scale raising of wheat. The rise of early Prussia was based on the raising and selling of wheat. Teutonic Prussia became known as the "bread basket of Western Europe" (in German, "Kornkammer", or granary). The port cities which rose on the back of this wheat production included: Stettin in Pomerania (now Szczecin, Poland); Danzig in Prussia (now Gdańsk, Poland); Riga in Livonia (now Riga, Latvia); Königsberg in Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia); and Memel in Prussia (now Klaipėda, Lithuania). Wheat production and trade brought Prussia into a close relationship with the Hanseatic League during the period of time from 1356 (official founding of the Hanseatic League) until the decline of the League in about 1500.


title: Prussia

text: The expansion of Prussia based on its connection with the Hanseatic League cut both Poland and Lithuania off from the coast of the Baltic Sea and trade abroad. This meant that Poland and Lithuania would be traditional enemies of Prussia, which was still called the Teutonic Knights.


title: Prussia

text: In 1211 King Andrew II of Hungary granted Burzenland in Transylvania as a fiefdom to the Teutonic Knights, a German military order of crusading knights, headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Acre. In 1225 he expelled them, and they transferred their operations to the Baltic Sea area. Konrad I, the Polish duke of Masovia, had unsuccessfully attempted to conquer pagan Prussia in crusades in 1219 and 1222. In 1226 Duke Konrad invited the Teutonic Knights to conquer the Baltic Prussian tribes on his borders.


title: Prussia

text: During 60 years of struggles against the Old Prussians, the Order established an independent state that came to control Prūsa. After the Livonian Brothers of the Sword joined the Teutonic Order in 1237, the Order also controlled Livonia (now Latvia and Estonia). Around 1252 they finished the conquest of the northernmost Prussian tribe of the Skalvians as well as of the western Baltic Curonians, and erected Memel Castle, which developed into the major port city of Memel (Klaipėda). The Treaty of Melno defined the final border between Prussia and the adjoining Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1422.


title: Prussia

text: The Hanseatic League officially formed in northern Europe in 1356 as a group of trading cities. This League came to hold a monopoly on all trade leaving the interior of Europe and Scandinavia and on all sailing trade in the Baltic Sea for foreign countries.


title: Prussia

text: In the course of the Ostsiedlung (German eastward expansion) process, settlers were invited, bringing changes in the ethnic composition as well as in language, culture, and law of the eastern borders of the German lands. As a majority of these settlers were Germans, Low German became the dominant language.


title: Prussia

text: The Knights of the Teutonic Order were subordinate to the papacy and to the emperor. Their initially close relationship with the Polish Crown deteriorated after they conquered Polish-controlled Pomerelia and Danzig (Gdańsk) in 1308. Eventually, Poland and Lithuania, allied through the Union of Krewo (1385), defeated the Knights in the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410.


title: Prussia

text: The Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466) began when the Prussian Confederation, a coalition of Hanseatic cities of western Prussia, rebelled against the Order and requested help from the Polish king, Casimir IV Jagiellon. The Teutonic Knights were forced to acknowledge the sovereignty of, and to pay tribute to Casimir IV in the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), losing western Prussia (Royal Prussia) to Poland in the process. Pursuant to the Second Peace of Thorn, two Prussian states were established.


title: Prussia

text: During the period of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights, mercenaries from the Holy Roman Empire were granted lands by the Order and gradually formed a new landed Prussian nobility, from which the Junkers would evolve to take a major role in the militarization of Prussia and, later, Germany.


title: Prussia

text: On 10 April 1525, after signing of the Treaty of Kraków, which officially ended the Polish–Teutonic War (1519–21), in the main square of the Polish capital Kraków, Albert I resigned his position as Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and received the title "Duke of Prussia" from King Zygmunt I the Old of Poland. As a symbol of vassalage, Albert received a standard with the Prussian coat of arms from the Polish king. The black Prussian eagle on the flag was augmented with a letter "S" (for Sigismundus) and had a crown placed around its neck as a symbol of submission to Poland. Albert I, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern became a Lutheran Protestant and secularized the Order's Prussian territories. This was the area east of the mouth of the Vistula River, later sometimes called "Prussia proper". For the first time, these lands came into the hands of a branch of the Hohenzollern family, who already ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg, since the 15th century. Furthermore, with his renunciation of the Order, Albert could now marry and produce legitimate heirs.


title: Prussia

text: Brandenburg and Prussia united two generations later. In 1594 Anna, granddaughter of Albert I and daughter of Duke Albert Frederick (reigned 1568–1618), married her cousin Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg. When Albert Frederick died in 1618 without male heirs, John Sigismund was granted the right of succession to the Duchy of Prussia, then still a Polish fief. From this time the Duchy of Prussia was in personal union with the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The resulting state, known as Brandenburg-Prussia, consisted of geographically disconnected territories in Prussia, Brandenburg, and the Rhineland lands of Cleves and Mark.


title: Prussia

text: During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), various armies repeatedly marched across the disconnected Hohenzollern lands, especially the occupying Swedes. The ineffective and militarily weak Margrave George William (1619–1640) fled from Berlin to Königsberg, the historic capital of the Duchy of Prussia, in 1637. His successor, Frederick William I (1640–1688), reformed the army to defend the lands.


title: Prussia

text: Frederick William I went to Warsaw in 1641 to render homage to King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland for the Duchy of Prussia, which was still held in fief from the Polish crown. In January 1656, during the first phase of the Second Northern War (1654–1660), he received the duchy as a fief from the Swedish king who later granted him full sovereignty in the Treaty of Labiau (November 1656). In 1657 the Polish king renewed this grant in the treaties of Wehlau and Bromberg. With Prussia, the Brandenburg Hohenzollern dynasty now held a territory free of any feudal obligations, which constituted the basis for their later elevation to kings.


title: Prussia

text: Frederick William I succeeded in organizing the electorate by establishing an absolute monarchy in Brandenburg-Prussia, an achievement for which he became known as the "Great Elector". Above all, he emphasised the importance of a powerful military to protect the state's disconnected territories, while the Edict of Potsdam (1685) opened Brandenburg-Prussia for the immigration of Protestant refugees (especially Huguenots), and he established a bureaucracy to carry out state administration efficiently.


title: Prussia

text: On 18 January 1701, Frederick William's son, Elector Frederick III, elevated Prussia from a duchy to a kingdom and crowned himself King Frederick I. In the Crown Treaty of 16 November 1700, Leopold I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, allowed Frederick only to title himself "King in Prussia", not "King of Prussia". The state of Brandenburg-Prussia became commonly known as "Prussia", although most of its territory, in Brandenburg, Pomerania, and western Germany, lay outside Prussia proper. The Prussian state grew in splendour during the reign of Frederick I, who sponsored the arts at the expense of the treasury.


title: Prussia

text: Frederick I was succeeded by his son, Frederick William I (1713–1740), the austere "Soldier King", who did not care for the arts but was thrifty and practical. He was the main creator of the vaunted Prussian bureaucracy and the professionalised standing army, which he developed into one of the most powerful in Europe. His troops only briefly saw action during the Great Northern War. In view of the size of the army in relation to the total population, Mirabeau said later: "Prussia, is not a state with an army, but an army with a state." Frederick William also settled more than 20,000 Protestant refugees from Salzburg in thinly populated eastern Prussia, which was eventually extended to the west bank of the River Memel, and other regions. In the treaty of Stockholm (1720), he acquired half of Swedish Pomerania.