Russia falsely claims in its propaganda that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis. In social media, some are now trying to denigrate German politicians with this scam.
To justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to cast German politicians in a bad light, relatives with an alleged Nazi past are attributed to some on social networks. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach or Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz can be seen next to members of the SS (Schutz-Staffel) in image combinations that are circulating in networks. It is claimed that the National Socialists depicted are the grandfathers of the politicians.
The aim of the widespread images is not only to discredit politicians. It is also about supporting the arguments with which Moscow is trying to justify its attack on Ukraine, political scientist Josef Holnburger told the German Press Agency (dpa). He is one of the managing directors of the CeMAS (Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy) in Berlin, which monitors, among other things, radicalization tendencies and the spread of conspiracy tales in social media.
Massive defamation campaign on Telegram
The image combinations were massively distributed via Messenger Telegram, where they were viewed almost 290,000 times on a pro-Russian, German-language channel alone. In this way, the Russian government’s war propaganda is being taken up and even continued, according to the political scientist. An alleged denazification must therefore “take place not only in Ukraine, but even in the whole of Europe”.
Holnburger explains the fact that National Socialists were used for the image combinations as follows: a “malicious group” is to be portrayed, which has a comprehensive power structure at its disposal to achieve its goals. The supposed NS reference denigrates the politicians. A disseminator of the images could thus “represent their own position all the more as the supposedly good,” explains Holnburger.
The author of the pictures probably wanted to establish a supposed connection between German politicians and Nazi leaders by using similar-sounding names. “However, these connections do not make sense at any level,” says Holnburger. These politicians are affected:
Karl Lauterbach: The Health Minister is said on social networks that his grandfather was in the SS. “That’s not his grandfather,” says a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health about circulating images. The supposed grandfather’s name isn’t Lauterbach at all, in the picture next to the Minister of Health you can see Hartmann Lauterbacher, Chief of Staff and Deputy Reich Youth Leader of the Hitler Youth.
Christian Lindner: Another image combination shows an older photo of Finance Minister Christian Lindner next to Gerhard Lindner. During World War II, he served in the Wehrmacht and was on the staff of an SS division. He is portrayed as the grandfather of the finance minister. A spokesman for the ministry said when asked by dpa that the two were not related and that it was false information. Even research on the Internet does not provide any indication of a supposed relationship. Gerhard Lindner was born in Bautzen (Saxony) in 1896 and died in 1982 in Aurich, Lower Saxony. Christian Lindner was born on January 7, 1979 in Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia), where his paternal grandparents owned a bakery.
Olaf Scholz: The Federal Chancellor can be seen in a picture combination together with Fritz von Scholz, Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS. When asked whether this was Olaf Scholz’s grandfather, the Federal Press Office said: “That’s complete nonsense.” Documents in the Federal Archives viewed by the dpa also show: Fritz von Scholz died on July 28, 1944 and left no children. He was born in Pilsen (today Czech Republic) and lived at the Wörthersee. Olaf Scholz’s grandparents, on the other hand, come from Hamburg and were railway officials.
Ursula von der Leyen: In the case of the EU Commission President, there is an SS man with the same name as her grandfather: Karl Albrecht was sentenced to life imprisonment for Nazi crimes after the end of the war. Von der Leyen’s grandfather, however, is Karl (partly also: Carl) Eduard Albrecht, who was born in 1902 and comes from an influential north German family. Albrecht studied medicine in the 1920s and worked as a doctor even during wartime. There is no evidence of SS membership – neither for him nor for his son, Ursula von der Leyen’s father Ernst Albrecht. He was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony from 1976 to 1990.
Source: Stern
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