The illusionist, psychiatrist and hypnotist Wolf Messing is a man of mystery. Was Hitler really hunting for his head, and Stalin asked for his advice? Much in Messing's life is a hoax, and Wolf himself was often the author of the myths.
Predicting the death of the Fuhrer
Predict the death of Hitler, and even in the capital's Polish theater, in the presence of thousands of people! In the morning, all the newspapers were full of news: if Hitler turns to the East, he will certainly die, - says the great psychic. Of course, this sensation had consequences: “The Fascist Fuhrer was sensitive to such predictions and, in general, to all kinds of mysticism,” says Messing's “autobiography”. - My head was valued at 200,000 marks. I knew: I cannot stay in the territory occupied by the Germans. So, according to the official, or rather the author's version, Messing ended up in the USSR.
“I recognized a billboard posted by the Nazis around the city, which announced the award for my discovery.
- Who are you? - asked the officer and painfully tugged at my shoulder-length hair.
- I am an artist…
- You're lying! You are Wolf Messing! It was you who predicted the death of the Fuhrer …
Promotional video:
He took a step back, continuing to hold my hair with his left hand. Then he sharply swung his right and struck me with a terrible force on the jaw. It was a blow from a great backing master. I spat out six teeth along with the blood …"
A spectacular, vivid story - even modern PR-specialists do not dare to make such inventions. Not a word about Messing was found in Russian, German or Polish archives (including the funds of the Third Reich, state military archives). Hitler did not know his name, as did the entire Polish people.
Escape from the punishment cell
Of course, the next episode in the life of an honest fortuneteller should have been the police station. And so it happened, and Messing, according to him, would have died there if he had not fled using his abilities. Here is how he describes it: “I strained all my strength and forced those police officers who were in the precinct premises to gather in my cell. Everyone, including the boss and ending with the one who was supposed to stand at the clock at the exit. When they all, obeying my will, gathered in the cell, I, who was lying completely motionless, like a dead person, quickly got up and went out into the corridor. Instantly, before they came to their senses, he slammed the bolt of the iron-bound door. The cage was reliable, the birds could not fly out of it without assistance. But she could have arrived in time …"
This story is also a legend: Messing was not imprisoned for a prediction that he did not make, in front of people who had never seen him, about a leader who was unknown.
One hundred thousand rubles for Stalin
This trick is repeated by many telepaths, and there are many attempts to repeat it. The point is to hypnotize the bank employee, who will give you a big sum in response to the blank sheet of paper you hold out. Messing's memoirs describe how he did this with the State Bank at the request of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. And, of course, he got his way: he was given a hundred thousand rubles for a page torn from a school notebook. “Next to me were two witnesses from the authorities, who signed the act of the experiment. As we agreed, after 15 minutes we went to the cashier and returned the money. An ambulance was called to the cashier. The same handwriting - the first person, huge money, supernatural abilities …
Neither in the Central Archives of the FSB of Russia, nor in the archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU, where every meeting of the leader with a visitor is recorded, there is no name for Messing. And the very description of the procedure for receiving money in a Soviet bank raises doubts: the accountant, auditor, cashier, moving along the corridors and filling out questionnaires, which were reality, do not appear at all in the story.
Three hairs from Einstein's beard
This legend is about the sixteen-year-old Messing, who was invited by Einstein and Freud. Add great names to an ordinary story - and you get a great story … Einstein probably attended one of my performances and became interested in it, because one day he invited me to his place , - this is how Messing's story begins. The illusionist boldly describes Einstein's apartment (whose books, of course, are everywhere), as well as the costume and appearance of both scientists. It took place in Vienna. Messing allegedly performed two tasks conceived by Freud about Einstein: first, he pulled out three hairs from Einstein’s luxurious beard with tweezers, apologizing, and then handed he asked him to play the violin, but one of Einstein's biographers established that he never had an apartment in Vienna and did not come to that city from 1913 to 1925. In addition,he never kept books at home, but had only a few reference books.
Telepathy
What Messing did is often called telepathy. He supposedly knew how to read thoughts and inspire them. However, scientists agree, and the "telepath" himself admits that there are no superpowers here, but there is only "overtraining". Both before and after Messing, similar experiments were successfully carried out in different countries. Messing himself said: "… This is not mind reading, but, if I can put it this way," reading muscles "… When a person intensely thinks about something, the brain cells transmit impulses to all the muscles of the body. Their movements, imperceptible to the simple eye, are easy for me I often perform mental tasks without direct contact with the inductor. Here I can use the inductor's respiration rate, the beating of its pulse, the timbre of the voice, the nature of the gait, etc. Experiments like this failwhen the “telepathist” is offered to blindfold not himself, but the inductor - after all, then he cannot send impulses to the “psychic” about whether or not he guesses something conceived (for example, a row and a place in the auditorium).
NKVD
It is known that in the 1940s Messing was imprisoned in the NKVD, and we know a lot of information about him thanks to the recollections of his cellmate, also a Polish Jew, Ignatius Schönfeld. It was the inner prison of the NKVD of Uzbekistan. In connection with this time in the life of the "magician", two questions arise. First, why didn't he escape from there, using his superpowers, as in the legend of the Warsaw punishment cell? And the second - why was he released (through an ordinary door, by the way) so soon: just a few months later? So painlessly easily leave the walls of the NKVD, if they agree to cooperate with the authorities. In addition, it is known that Messing often visited the Moscow apartment of the military diplomat Alexander Ignatiev, a meeting place for secret agents of the NKVD. Whether the "telepath" was an NKVD agent or not is not yet known for certain, and this is another legend about the hoaxer Messing - it is true,no longer valiant and sad.
Book of memoirs
An entertaining autobiography "About Myself" is also a legend, a fiction: it is not about itself, because it is not even an autobiography. The surname of its real author is quite "speaking" - Khvastunov. This man is a journalist of Komsomolskaya Pravda, who decided to mystify Messing and invented a new life for him. The book "About Myself" was published even before the death of the "muscle reader", but he never refuted (as, incidentally, did not confirm) the facts stated in it.
Those who knew Messing say that he was not a decisive person, but rather even fearful. And on such a large-scale hoax would not dare. And about his speeches they said: “Messing always - and until the very last days - put himself in his speeches and just exhausted himself. From the terrible tension he was sweating incredibly on stage: streams flowed right through him."
Messing's riddle is only half solved, and the debunked myths give rise to new ones.