To the untrained eye, Ingolstadt looks like any other small German city. On May afternoons, locals sit along the banks of the Danube, easing into the first sun of spring with coffee, beer, and Aperol spritzes. It is quiet and quaint. Younger residents complain there is little to do, apart from go to an Irish bar that stays open after midnight.
And yet, Ingolstadt was not always so placid. You would not know it from the souvenir shops, but 250 years ago, these cobbled streets produced one of the most potent conspiracy theories in modern history.
In its original form, the Illuminati was an Enlightenment project that sought to reshape Europe by overthrowing monarchies and clerical power. But over time, it mutated. Today, depending on who you ask, it is a secret cabal of elites made up of bankers, lizard people, Beyoncé and Emma Watson, responsible for everything from the assassination of JFK to the orchestration of 9/11.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is no anniversary celebration in Ingolstadt this year. There is, however, a growing sense of paranoia about the state of the world.
Every so often, history finds itself at a crossroads: a moment when a new era lurches to be free, escaping from the grip of history and the old order. Germany, in the late 18th century, found itself at one of those moments.
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