Facts check: Photojournalist Thomas Victor and the Nazi in Chemnitz

The far-right often claim that they are not so vulgar and violent, instead they claim that the left-wing is responsible for it. Evidence are the pictures of „undercover agents“.

Current example: Thomas Victor. Thomas Victor is a photojournalist. He has been in Chemnitz in this function for the last few days. There are footage and photos to prove that Thomas Victor „played“ a right-wing man himself, to encourage people and put the right-wing in a bad light.

This is only one of the many articles that circulate on the Internet and which we received many inquiries about:

„The Nazi salute by Thomas Victor,a freelance journalist for SZ, Spiegel, Stern und die Zeit in Chemintz. He also provoked with phrases like „Our motto is killing“ and similar slogans…“

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Question 1: He photographed himself?

As mentioned before, Thomas Victor was in Chemnitz and took some photos there.

However, he must have had a camera with a self-timer on a tripod, otherwise we cannot explain this photo, which was taken by Victor but allegedly shows him on the picture at the same time:

Question 2: The similarity

Let us compare these two people again.

If you look at the two faces very superficially, with a lot of imagination you can see some resemblance. The best way to look at it is with crossed-eyes so you see blurry.

We will point out the differences once again:

Hairs

Hair can be grown long (only takes a little longer) and dyed.

However, it becomes difficult when it comes to the parting of the hair, which is on the right in the unknown man’s hair, but on the left side with Mr. Victor. There should have been a professional make-up artist at work.

Eyebrows and eyes

The unknown man has very bushy, brown eyebrows, while Thomas Victor has very thin eyebrows. You cannot see the eye colour of the man at the protest, but they look brownish, while the photojournalist has bright eyes.

The eye shape must also be taken into account, which is straight in the lower right picture, bent up with a swing downwards, whereas Thomas Victor has an evenly curved eye shape.

The nose

The unknown man’s nose has a bulging shape, which widens downwards; the photographer’s nose bridge is evenly straight.

The chin area

At first glance, both men have the same chin shape. However on the left picture, you can see a chubbier chin and neck, which makes the lower head area rounder overall, whereas one does not see that on the right picture.

Question 3: What does Thomas Victor say about the allegations?

We asked Mr Victor to comment on the allegations. He was kind enough to send us this text:

„My name is Thomas Victor. I am a freelance photojournalist and I am often booked for reports and documentaries in Eastern Germany. On Monday, the 27.08.2018, ZEIT ONLINE hired me to photograph the demonstration of Pro Chemnitz. The resulting pictures were used for various articles on zeit.de and in the print edition of ZEIT on August 30, 2018. A friend informed me on Wednesday, 29.08.2018, that there is a rumour on Twitter and Facebook that I am an “undercover agent”, who showed the Nazi salute at the protest on Monday. My zeit.de author photo is compared with the picture of a man who shows the Nazi salute but has no resemblance to me. In the meantime, I got a call asking how much money I got for the Nazi salute, various mails with similar content and threats and several threats and insults on Facebook.
These actions against me as well as the inconsiderate sharing of obviously badly made Fake news, disappoints my faith in the intellect of people. I will take legal action against it with the help of the police and a lawyer and continue to report where reporting is necessary.“

Conclusion

No, the man on the protest is not Thomas Victor. The work of journalists, especially at such demonstrations, is already difficult enough. Whether a (former) LKA employee ensures that a camera team is held for 45 minutes, you are abused as a „Lügenpresse“ (German word for Lying press) or otherwise molested And then there are these slanderous allegations.

Let us be very clear about this: the right-wing malicious campaign here is irresponsible! Someone takes a picture, claims that it is person x, and it is passed around (on Facebook page of certain parties!) as if it is a proven fact.

In short: What the…?!

You people, who spread those pictures and memes and put a photojournalist, who has no resemblance to the slogan-boaring man on the protest, in the sights of your tirades: Do you even realize what you are doing?

You tolerate that human lives and livelihoods are destroyed, that people have to live in fear, because at any time one of you could be lurking around the next corner with a baseball bat!

Weren’t you there to „mourn“? Is this how your grief looks?
Mooning the camera, shout out slogans, using the Nazi salute and accusing innocent people.

That is neither grief nor a protest. That is pure hatred and contempt for humanity.