Propaganda Researcher EXPOSES Europe's Path to Self-Destruction | Dr. Jonas Tögel

## - Preview & Introduction Europe stands at a crossroads where choices about war, information, and public consent are merging into an existential test. The conversation with Dr. Jonas Tögel exposes a worrying dynamic: Western democracies are not merely fighting an external conflict, they are waging an intensive information campaign that reshapes what citizens perceive as reality. That campaign—framed in official documents as “cognitive warfare”—aims to secure unity behind state policy by managing fear, framing enemies, and delegitimizing dissent. The result is a media ecology in which strategic messaging, institutional incentives, and legal tools work together to narrow the range of permissible public thought, with profound consequences for democratic self-government and the continent’s future. ## - Starting the German Propaganda Analysis Channel What began as a pointed critique of a single television segment quickly evolved into a broader project of media analysis. The initial spark was a short program that urged parental readiness to “sacrifice” children for national mobilization—an image that, for many viewers, echoed the darkest chapters of modern European history. That clip prompted systematic scrutiny of mainstream outlets and, crucially, galvanized public feedback. In Dr. Tögel’s recounting, the reaction he received—both supportive and hostile—underscores why grassroots media critique resonates: viewers sense when narrative frames are being stitched together to produce consent rather than inform judgment. This episode also reveals an important methodological point. Propaganda research, as practiced here, is not about conspiracy-hunting; it is about pattern recognition and context. Isolated phrases or emotional footage become meaningful when placed within sustained editorial habits and geopolitical incentives. Turning that attention to Germany’s most-watched news program produced an immediate sense of scale: when framing techniques repeat across prime-time broadcasts, they stop being anomalies and become a system. ## - Is German Media Propaganda at an All-Time High? Comparing present coverage with earlier eras, the conversation concluded that the intensity and sophistication of propaganda is unprecedented. Two features set today apart. First, the professionalization of influence: messaging is crafted and amplified with data-driven precision. Second, institutional entanglement: military, intelligence, political, and journalistic actors collaborate—formally or informally—on narrative priorities. Together these trends create an environment in which fear and moral urgency are continually reinforced. This does not mean all reporting is false or uniformly manipulative. There remain outlets and journalists trying to report rigorously. But the dominant flow—especially in high-reach outlets—tends toward a one-directional presentation of the conflict: clear villains, unambiguous moral asymmetries, relentless imagery of suffering attributed to the adversary, and experts marshaled to validate the chosen policy. The net effect is not just persuasion; it shrinks the space for reasonable skepticism and alternatieve strategic reasoning. ## - NATO's Cognitive Warfare on Its Own Population One of the most unsettling themes to emerge is that “cognitive warfare” is no longer solely a foreign-policy term; it has become a doctrine about how to manage domestic populations. NATO documents and national strategic papers describe cognitive techniques designed to make populations “resilient” against opposing narratives—that is, resistant to messages that contradict official policy. Dr. Tögel highlights how such thinking reframes citizens as objects to be defended against misinformation rather than as agents capable of assessing competing accounts. The practical implications are wide-ranging. Intelligence services reportedly monitor daily narrative trends and flag problematic frames. Legal and regulatory tools—ostensibly designed to combat disinformation—create incentives for platforms and institutions to suppress or de-prioritize content deemed destabilizing. At the same time, the psychological environment is deliberately shaped: sustaining a sense of threat is a recognized lever for maintaining public support for difficult policies. In short, cognitive warfare institutionalizes the management of belief and fear as an instrument of statecraft. ## - How Does Media Propaganda Work: Intentional vs. Natural? A central analytic distinction in the discussion is between intentional messaging and “natural” propagandistic effects. Not all bias is the product of conspiratorial coordination; much of it flows from routines, heuristics, and institutional incentives. Editors respond to political pressure, audience expectations, sourcing networks, and professional norms. At the same time, there is clear evidence of deliberate framing: selective sourcing of experts, repetitive deployment of emotionally charged imagery, and strategic omissions that together create a coherent, persuasive narrative. Recognizing the interplay of the intentional and the structural matters for how citizens respond. If propaganda were purely top-down and overt, pushback could focus on exposing coordination. But when manipulation is bolstered by routine editorial practices and legal frameworks—when fear is the currency of the newsroom—resistance requires broader cultural and institutional repair. That repair has to address both the mechanics of message production and the regulatory architecture that rewards conformity. ## - Has News Reporting Changed Since the Cold War? News reporting has certainly evolved since the Cold War, but not simply in ways of technology or speed. The Cold War featured intense ideological struggle, but it also fostered a kind of professionalism around understanding adversaries. Analysts were valued for discerning the logic of Moscow’s moves; comprehending an opponent was seen as a necessary part of policy debates. In contrast, the current environment punishes the “understander.” Terms that once signaled analytic skill have been recoded as moral failure—think of the stigma attached to anyone described as someone who “understands” a rival leader. More fundamentally, the Cold War’s ideological split was explicit; competing narratives were openly contested. Today’s cognitive battles are embedded within the institutions of the democratic state and are presented as necessity. The result is a subtler suppression of debate: not overt censorship in most cases, but social and professional ostracism, algorithmic de-amplification, and legal pressure that make certain forms of inquiry risky. The shift is from a world of competing publics to one where the terms of legitimate discourse are more tightly policed. ## - How to Know If You're a Target of Propaganda Detecting when you are being targeted by propaganda requires a mix of skepticism and method. Several practical signs emerged from the exchange: high repetition of a simple frame across outlets; narratives that insist on fear without offering proportional evidence; consistent demonization of an adversary paired with omission of their strategic logic; the frequent use of emotional imagery without corresponding analytical context; and the rapid delegitimization of alternative voices, labelling them disloyal or factually contaminated. Beyond checklist items, a deeper habit is needed: a willingness to reconstruct context. Ask who benefits from the prevailing frame, what other plausible interpretations coexist, and what counter-evidence is being omitted. Where possible, examine reporting patterns over time and across outlets. Resilience is built less by finding a single alternate source and more by cultivating a pluralistic information diet and a reflex for causal thinking: what are the material interests, institutional incentives, and psychological levers shaping the message? ## - Where to Find Jonas Tögel's Work Throughout the

Propaganda Researcher EXPOSES Europe's Path to Self-Destruction While European leaders claim their support for Ukraine is a rational defense of democracy, their policies appear increasingly self-destructive. Is this a coherent strategy, or the result of a sophisticated propaganda campaign targeting their own citizens? And is the human mind becoming NATO’s next official battlefield? To discuss all this, today I’m talking again to Dr. Jonas Tögel, a German propaganda researcher working for the institute for psychology at the University of Regensburg. He is the author of the German-langauge books "War Games: How NATO and the Pentagon Simulate the Destruction of Europe” and “Cognitive Warfare: The Latest Manipulation Techniques as a NATO Weapon Category”. We explore NATO's official doctrine of "cognitive warfare" and its aim to make every citizen "resilient" to unapproved narratives. We break down the specific propaganda techniques used in mainstream German media, the dangerous irrationality driving European foreign policy, and why simply trying to understand an adversary is now treated as a thought crime. Finally, Jonas provides practical tools for citizens to identify and resist these pervasive manipulation campaigns. e Links Jonas: Website: https://www.jonastoegel.de/ Channel: @DrJonasToegel X (Twitter): https://x.com/JonasToegel Neutrality Studies: Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Goods Store: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall. com Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Preview & Introduction 00:01:58 - Starting the German Propaganda Analysis Channel 00:14:50 - Is German Media Propaganda at an All-Time High? 00:22:12 - NATO's Cognitive Warfare on Its Own Population 00:30:25 - How Does Media Propaganda Work: Intentional vs. Natural? 00:40:28 - Has News Reporting Changed Since the Cold War? 00:47:19 - How to Know If You're a Target of Propaganda 00:54:51 - Where to Find Jonas Tögel's Work #M2 What you have right now is sort of an unconditional support for whichever madness seems to be the official direction of politics and the military. And you have almost no criticism. Again, you have people who are criticizing, or even people who are analyzing what's going on—they are being shunned, they are being attacked. And isn't it interesting, what you said, that during the Cold War there was professional study of how Russia works, right? People were trying to understand Russia. Right now, it has become a smear word if you have intellectuals who say, "I think I understand what Vladimir Putin thinks, what he wants. I understand his strategy." In Germany, after this word Putinversteher—it's just someone who understands Putin. And that is a smear word, that is to put someone down, where in fact it should be a highly valued profession. #M3 -- 1 of 16 -- Hello everybody, this is Pascal from Literality Studies, and today I'm talking again to Dr. Jonas Tögel, a German propaganda researcher working for the Institute of Psychology at the University of Regensburg. He's the author of the German-language books War Games – How NATO and the Pentagon Simulate the Destruction of Europe and Cognitive Warfare – The Latest Manipulation Techniques as a NATO Weapon Category. Jonas, welcome back to the channel. Hello Pascal, it's a pleasure talking to you again. Yeah, pleasure talking to you too. Last time we had the conversation in German, but we said this time we're going to cater mainly to our English-language audience, so we're going to speak in English. I just want to point out that for the German speakers, you are actually now also doing your own German-language channel on YouTube, where you have started analyzing propaganda in the German TV media. When did you start this? #M2 That was a couple of months ago when it all started with me criticizing a part of a German Freisat. It is, well, it's state media, so to speak, and there was coverage on a war—basically, the mobilization of the German military. And we now have, you know, young boys and girls who are possibly being recruited into the army. There was a TV show on this, and there was one person on the show who said that what is lacking in Germany and in Europe is the will of the parents to sacrifice their children. And that was what got me into this propaganda analysis. I watched the whole episode, and I took this part out and said, well, this is an example of blatant war propaganda. This reminds me personally—and I know many people who've heard it thought the same—of, well, the darkest times of German history, that you say, you know, parents need to be willing to sacrifice their children again for the greater good, so to speak. And then the filmmakers criticized me; they approached me. I got an angry email, sort of, "How dare you criticize our media coverage? You haven't understood it at all, and you probably haven't even watched it." So those were the kinds of comments that I got. I was attacked on X as well. But I had watched the whole episode, and I thought, well, okay, I'm going to make an analysis of this short film that they made. It was about 15 minutes, and I analyzed it in detail. I uploaded it on my channel, and there was quite a bit of feedback. I got a lot of positive feedback, a lot of emails, and it's great to see that many people have understood that there is war propaganda, which is a very important first step to understanding what is going on and to being ready for this ongoing battle—this constant battle for our hearts and minds. I received a lot of positive feedback, and people asked me, "Could you analyze this? Could you analyze that?" I had a lot of intelligent feedback from people who are very smart and very aware of what's happening. They said, "Look at this, please look at that." Another request I received was to please look at the German news—the biggest news program we have in Germany, which is the Tagesschau, broadcast at 8 p.m. And it has roughly 10 million people on average every day who watch the Tagesschau. So I said to myself, well, I haven't watched it for a long time because it just puts you in a bad mood. You know, -- 2 of 16 -- you have like 15 minutes of death, destruction, corruption, war crimes, whatever. And, you know, it's not healthy, I'd say. It's not good for your mood. And so I said to myself, I'm going to do this now. I'm going to watch one week of Tagesschau, and I'm going to try and use my analytical tools for detecting propaganda. But I had to stop after three days of watching the Tagesschau. So we had 45 minutes of these news coverages, because there was so much material that I thought, okay, if I'm going to do one whole week, it's going to be too much. And so that was the second analysis. And once again, the feedback was very positive. What I could show—and this was also a surprise for me, not having watched the Tagesschau for such a long time—was just how cleverly, but also how blatantly, the propaganda actually appears in the most viewed German news broadcast we have in this country. And that's supposed to be a neutral source—a German information tool for the public to be aware, to be educated. What I looked at was, for example, a meeting between Trump and Zelensky. It starts very neutrally, and then, in the aftermath, you have a lot of framing, a lot of one-directional news coverage. And it was sort of, well, how dare we, you know, think of peace? Of course, we want peace. Yeah, we always have to say, of course, we want peace. But, and then in this spot, you have the whole package of "Russia is the aggressor, it doesn't want peace, it's still killing people." Then you have these heartbreaking, these moving images of civilians who are being killed, of buildings that are being destroyed, but it's all the Russians who are doing this. Then you have experts who say, well, the demands of Russia in these peace negotiations are exaggerated and they want way too much and it's an insolence and no one could ever agree to their terms. And so we have to keep sending weapons to Ukraine. We have to keep fighting. And then you start to realize—and I'm sorry if I'm taking too long on this answer—but what really moved me, and what I understood, was that you have to realize that the news coverage cannot be considered isolated from what is going on in the geopolitical landscape. So you have to take into account the geopolitical landscape. And if you look at what is going on at the moment, I mean, in this Ukraine conflict, you have a couple of actors who are more or less, you could say, rational. You have Russia, which is acting more or less rationally because the Russians say, "Okay, we have NATO expansion eastwards, and we have to draw a red line somewhere." And it's always been clear that for the Russians, a possible NATO membership of Ukraine is a red line. Because, you know, then you have possible missile systems and soldiers, etc., very close to their border. We know now, because of news coverage from The New York Times, that there were roughly a dozen CIA covert bases in Ukraine operating right at the border. So this could have been a possible reason for the war. So for the Russians, it's clear they have a red line where they say geopolitically, "We can no longer tolerate this." We had the coup d'état in 2014 in Ukraine. We know that on your channel this has been abundantly discussed. So for the Russians, it is rational and it is in their own interests. It is brutal, it's illegal, but it's rational to say, "Okay, we have to stop this, we have to react, and we want to prevent Ukraine from -- 3 of 16 -- being a possible NATO member." Then we have Ukraine, which is also acting more or less rationally because they say, "We are attacked and we have to defend ourselves." It's not each and every Ukrainian who says that, because we know that in Germany alone, there are 200,000 men who could fight in the war who say, "We don't want to give our lives for this madness. We just want to live." And this is absolutely understandable. So this side exists as well. But for the Ukrainian side to say, "Well, we want to continue, we want to defend ourselves," this is more or less rational. Whether Zelensky is a rational actor, I would highly doubt that. But still, this part could be understood. Then we have the Americans, and they say, "OK, we have tried to weaken Russia as best as we could. We have tried to isolate Russia internationally. We have spent a lot of money to try and weaken Russia." And all this is understandable as well. And now they say, "Well, we need this pivot to Asia. Our upcoming biggest contender won't be Russia; it's going to be China." So let's get out of this conflict. We cannot win this one. Let's withdraw and try to regroup our forces and be ready for the coming conflict with China. That's rational. And the only actor in this whole conflict—and that is directly reflected in what the media are telling us—is Germany and Europe. It is, from my point of view, and I know that many spectators share the same view, complete madness. The Europeans are the only ones who say that our great plan is to keep this war going because it's a war for democracy and for freedom, and we are being directly—as Germans, as Europeans—directly threatened by an imperialist Russia which just wants to expand and probably take over Berlin. That's what some German politicians say. And you ask, okay, so what's your plan? Well, our plan is to continue supporting Ukraine. Really? So is that working well? Well, there are maybe a million, maybe more, Ukrainians dead already, but we think it's going to work out. We just send more weapons. Really? So what's your end goal? Well, our end goal is to defeat Russia. And you say, really? You want to defeat the biggest nuclear power on this planet? You think that's a good idea? Well, we don't know, but we're just going to keep going. So that's sort of the battle plan. And what Europeans don't realize is that in the end, if this war continues, and if it possibly escal