The claim

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Finance Minister Christian Lindner, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, Ursula von der Leyen: Do these leading politicians actually all have ancestors who served with the Nazis?

Our conclusion

The photos are cleverly selected in terms of subject matter in order to suggest a relationship. The biographies and names are sometimes incorrect; there are even Nazi victims among them. The alleged family relationships cannot be proven. Disinformation is specifically spread here.

Photos continue to circulate on social networks suggesting that leading politicians have ancestors who served with the National Socialists. For this purpose, photos are used that supposedly bear a resemblance to the politicians.

  • Olaf Scholz's grandfather is said to have been Fritz von Scholz, a group leader in Hitler's Waffen-SS.
  • Gerhard Lindner, a brigade leader in the SS, is said to be Christian Lindner's grandfather.
  • Karl Lauterbach also had an Obergruppenführer in the SS as his grandfather, Hartmann Lauterbacher.
  • Jósef Tusk is the ancestor of Donald Tusk and would have been in the security service of the Reichsführer. Donald Tusk held the highest offices as chairman of the European People's Party and as former president of the European Council.
  • The father of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is also said to have been a Nazi.

The list can be continued as desired.

If you look at the photos, you can actually see similarities with the politicians at first glance, so much so that you no longer want to doubt them.

But are these people really related to each other?

Fritz von Scholz was actually a lieutenant general in the Waffen-SS.
The Federal Government's Press and Information Office denied the claim of this alleged relationship. Fritz von Scholz had no children and therefore no grandchildren. Olaf Scholz's grandfather, on the other hand, worked as a civil servant on the railway.

No, Fritz von Scholz is not the grandfather of the German Chancellor.

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Gerhard Lindner was born in Saxony and died in Aurich in Lower Saxony. It is said that he was an SS brigade leader. However, Lindner apparently served as a colonel in the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner comes from Wuppertal and there are no family connections.

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Health Minister Karl Lauterbach's supposed grandfather Hartmann Lauterbacher even has a different surname. Lauterbacher is deliberately renamed so that it can be suggested that he is the grandfather.

The responsible Ministry of Health has also denied this.

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In the picture that is supposed to show the grandfather of the former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, we do not see Jósef Tusk. He was not in the security service of the Reichsführer of the SS, but was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 and sent to a concentration camp. A particularly nasty misrepresentation of history.

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Ursula von der Leyen's father was also not with the Nazis. Ernst Albrecht was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and was only born in 1930 and was therefore too young to have served.

Then where do these fake biographies come from?

The question also arises as to who takes the trouble to select such similar images where facial expressions, angles, etc. fit very well visually?

A man named Yeveny Prigozhin reportedly spread the claims on the Russian social network VK. According to media reports, this businessman runs the Russian troll factory Internet Research Agency, which deliberately spreads disinformation.

There is actually a politician, Sigmar Gabriel, the former SPD leader, whose father was a National Socialist. Sigmar Gabriel had openly distanced himself from it. No one is responsible for the actions of others, not even a son for those of his own father.

There is another politician in the German Bundestag whose grandfather was actually a member of the NSDAP and the SA. Her other grandfather even served as Reich Finance Minister from 1932 to 1945 and was convicted as a war criminal in 1949. However, there are no photo montages of this politician online that show this relationship.

Conclusion

You cannot prove family relationships simply by juxtaposing similar names or similar-looking photos of people with photos of government members.

The claims are false, the facts speak against them.

Sources: Correctiv.org ( Scholz , Lindner , Lauterbach , Tusk ), Spiegel.de

You might also be interested in: No, this is not a “Hitler Quarter” in Italy!


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )