No, Ursula von der Leyen’s grandfather was not an SS general
The Dice takes a take a look at claims the European Fee president’s grandparents had been Nazis and pictured shaking arms with Adolf Hitler.
False claims are circulating on social media that Ursula von der Leyen’s grandparents had been Nazis and supporters of Adolf Hitler, however there’s no proof in any respect to again this up.
This tweet, seen over 30,000 instances as of the time of this truth examine, claims the European Fee President’s grandfather was an SS basic referred to as Karl Albrecht Oberg.
The tweet says he first served in Poland and promoted the extermination of Jews and Slavs, in addition to the purge of Poles, earlier than shifting to Paris the place he led the battle in opposition to the French resistance and took cost of the so-called “Jewish Query”.
He made carrying the yellow star necessary and ordered round 100,000 folks to be despatched to demise camps, based on the tweet.
The submit is accompanied by a black and white picture allegedly displaying von der Leyen’s grandmother shaking arms with Adolf Hitler, with a supposed quote from von der Leyen herself, which says “My candy granny didn’t wash her hand for a month after this valuable event.”
Each claims that her grandparents had been related to the Nazis in any manner are false.
An SS basic referred to as Karl Albrecht Oberg did exist, and he did certainly order the deportation of 1000’s of Jews from France to focus camps, however he was not von der Leyen’s grandfather.
The declare probably stems from the truth that her paternal grandfather was referred to as Karl Albrecht – a typical German identify.
In line with German fact-checkers, this Karl Albrecht studied medication within the Twenties and labored as a health care provider throughout wartime.
They stated there isn’t any proof of him ever having SS membership.
The identical is true of his son, Ernst Albrecht, Ursula von der Leyen’s father, who served as director-general for competitors inside the European Communities, and later turned minister-president for the state of Decrease Saxony. Any hyperlinks to the Nazis would certainly have come to mild throughout that point.
As for the picture of Hitler shaking arms with von der Leyen’s alleged grandmother, it’s not her.
A reverse picture search takes us to numerous articles utilizing the image, which inform us that it comes from varied picture companies.
The picture descriptions inform us it exhibits a younger girl referred to as Hildegard Zantop with Hitler on the third of October 1937 in Bückeburg.
Wanting again at von der Leyen’s household tree, neither of her grandmothers go by that identify, and so far as we all know, Hildegard Zantop isn’t any relation to von der Leyen in any respect.