Russia needs all of Ukraine’s territory or the region will remain a breeding ground for war and Nazis, said Alexander Tikhansky, a professor at the Russian Academy of Military Science Speaking on the YouTube show “PRO Army” on SB TV on April 18, he claimed that this same ideology, in places like Germany, survived even after 1945:
“About 10 years ago, I wrote an article called ‘Europe Is Ruled by the Grandchildren of Nazis and Collaborators.’ I was a little off: The thing is, Merz isn’t a grandson — he’s a son. Yes, his father served in the Wehrmacht and was a member of the Nazi Party. That’s where things stand today. Take Baerbock, take Ursula — really, take any of the prominent German politicians except for Alternative for Germany — they all have grandfathers or roots that bring back memories of 1941, of how strong they were, how they marched on the Soviet Union.”
The grandfather of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was a National Socialist, according to his personal file in Wehrmacht records. However, Germany’s Federal Archives noted that such descriptions were standard for that era. Waldemar Baerbock apparently stood out in combat — he received the War Merit Cross. But there’s no information confirming his membership in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP).
The father of future German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Joachim, was born in 1924 in the city of Breslau, now Wroclaw, Poland. At 17, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and ended up a prisoner of war for four years. After returning to Germany, he became a judge and presided over cases involving former Nazis. There’s no information indicating he was a member of the Nazi Party. Merz’s grandfather, however, was a party member and served as mayor of Brilon during the Nazi era.
The WTF team has already debunked claims about a Nazi past in the family of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. We found that two high-ranking Nazi Party members with similar names were falsely identified as her relative. But the politician’s actual grandfather was a psychotherapist.
The Russian professor’s claim that there are no descendants of Nazi Party members among the leadership of Alternative for Germany also turned out to be false. Journalists from Welt am Sonntag found that the grandfather of co-chair Alice Weidel, Hans Weidel, was a military judge who sentenced opponents of the Third Reich. He was appointed personally by Hitler. Alice Weidel said she knew nothing about her grandfather’s past because her family had no contact with him.
Archives also revealed a membership application to the Nazi Party written by the grandfather of Maximilian Krah, a Bundestag lawmaker from Alternative for Germany. He was the party’s top candidate in the European Parliament elections.
