The claim that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the daughter of German dictator Adolf Hitler has been circulating for a long time in many social media groups and websites that spread conspiracy theories.
Such a claim has been proven to be untrue, based on several facts.
This claim is based on a photograph showing former Chancellor of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, with a girl, whom conspiracy theorists try to argue is Angela Merkel as a child.
This photo has been circulating on social media for several years and has been widely shared.
These false claims have also been published by several dubious Albanian-language portals, and have been distributed on social media pages with large numbers of followers.
The article published today (June 11) by the dubious portal "klikoshqip.com", titled "Shocking: Angela Merkel is really Hitler's daughter", features a photo of Hitler with his little girl, which the portal intends to present as an argument for the claim made.
Content of the article published by "klikoshqip.com":
Judging by documents from the main intelligence service of the German Democratic Republic known as the Stas, Angela Merkel is the heir of Adolf Hitler.
In 1954, a child was born, a little girl, whom the Stasi identified as Angela Merkel, today's Chancellor of Germany.
Her official date of birth is July 17, 1954, however, according to documents of this secret police currently in the Soviet KGB archives, her real birthday is April 20, 1954.
Link to the article published by "klikoshqip.com":
Although this article shows that the content is partial, through a search engine search, hibrid.info has found that this article has been previously published by several other dubious media outlets. Among the portals that have published this article is “gazetanewborn.co”, which is available in a more complete version than on “klikoshqip.com”.
Link to the article published by "gazetanewborn.co":
http://www.gazetanewborn.co/bota-eshte-ne-doren-e-saj-sherbimi-sekret-gjerman-merkel-eshte-vajza-e-hitlerit-video/
Such claims have also been made by Albanian conspiracy theorist Alfred Cako, who, without any argument, asserts this on Albanian-language shows.
Alfred Cako's claim on the "Kojshia Show" show, at minute 56:
However, these claims are refuted by a single and main argument, which is the date of death of dictator Adolf Hitler and that of Angela Merkel's birth. So Hitler died at the end of World War II, at the capitulation of Nazi Germany, April 30, 1945 (here), while the current Chancellor of Germany – Merkel, was born on July 17, 1954 (here), about 9 years later, and is the daughter of Horst Kasner, a pastor in the Protestant Church (here).
Also, the photograph used as an allusion to argue this claim was taken by Hitler's personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, who was arrested after the end of the war and kept under surveillance by German authorities until his death in 1957.
https://archive.org/details/HoffmannHeinrcih-HitlerAbseitsVomAlltag/page/n25/mode/2up
His active years as a photographer were from 1903 to 1945. So Hoffmann, after the end of the war, was no longer allowed to work as a photographer, as he was arrested. This also serves as an additional argument that denies that the photograph was taken in 1954 (here).
Analyze:
The claims that the girl in the photo with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler is German Chancellor Angela Merkel have no solid evidence. From the fact-checking by hibrid.info, it can be seen that every argument found contradicts this claim, starting from the period when Hitler lived and Merkel's date of birth, as well as the time when this photo could have been taken by Hitler's personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, which is related to the time when he exercised this activity as well as the legal proceedings that had begun against him, until the day he died.
For this reason, hibrid.info evaluates these claims published on several websites with content in Albanian as "Conspiracy Theory".
Reasoning:
"Conspiracy theories" are media reports that disseminate a false or unverifiable description of a phenomenon, event, or person, presenting it as part of or the result of a secret plan ("conspiracy"). A characteristic of these reports is that they present a series of claims, presented as facts, between which cause-effect relationships are established, without providing any credible evidence.