The TankThink Leaks

Introduction by Maurice Isaacsohn, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago

The hard drive arrived at my office last week. No return address, just a handwritten note: "You know what to do."

Its contents document five students participating in a "job interview" at Pick Hall on December 12th, 2024. It was national news when they disappeared. Also that night, coordinated power station attacks across Bavaria and Brandenburg plunged millions into darkness. The attacks continued to escalate in the run-up to the federal parliamentary elections, which ended with a shocking AfD victory.

These events were not coincidental—they were causally linked, part of a single orchestrated operation.

You already know the outcome. The swift rise of the AfD on the wave of violence unleashed in Germany that December dominated global headlines. What you don't know is how it happened.

TankThink is a private strategy consultancy that emerged in 2021 with a $50 million investment from Schmucks Capital. They position themselves as "AI-forward" specialists in conflict management, promising "predictive conflict resolution" and "automated theater command." Their CEO, Nelly Chen, was previously the leader of the California independence movement that shook the nation in 2020.

TankThink utilizes a particular recruitment scheme designed by an Italian firm called Tardigradi. Their approach induces controlled psychological crises where candidates must deploy specific skillsets to escape increasingly destabilizing scenarios. It's not just recruitment—it's personality complementation.

The documents reveal that the Pick Hall "interview" was actually a live operation. These five students—Jacky Stein-Garde, Mariam Kone, Devin Kaur, Lorenz Storch, and Sharon Moon—were unwitting demolition men set against the global security architecture. The students designed attack scenarios that were then executed by TankThink operatives already embedded in Germany. All five disappeared that night, and the security footage shows nothing of their departure.

I present these documents exactly as I received them: unedited and unredacted. Not from conscience, but pragmatism. The incident was unique and public—changing details would protect no one while obscuring historical truth. I should note, I knew of 3 of the candidates either personally or through the department. I’ve provided notes where I felt it was helpful.

I would like to speak to the idea that publishing these documents is unwise. TankThink is a powerful company with extraordinary resources. In my view it is fanciful to assume that one of their own exfiltrated this much data, arranged so meticulously. I believe that this is a controlled leak, a limited hangout. I am doing what I am told, though I am unsure who is telling me.

I do nonetheless believe the world should know that what appeared as democratic upheaval was in fact engineered with clinical precision by a company most have never heard of, using methodologies few could imagine.

The leaks are organized into 4 different folders concerning the events of December 12 and their immediate aftermath. The first concerns the recruitment of the five candidates. The second concerns the first phase of the job interview. The third concerns the second phase, which spans the campus of the University of Chicago. The fourth concerns the selection of the hire and the aftermath.

I hope that they are all right. I regret that I can’t believe they are.

Maurice Isaacsohn