Is it true that the grandfathers of Germany's health and finance ministers were high-ranking Nazi officials?

On January 20, on the Russian Channel One in the program “Man and the Law,” it was stated that German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and Finance Minister Christian Lindner are the grandchildren of famous Nazis. We decided to check if this is true.

Release of the program "Man and law"was dedicated to the rehabilitation of Nazism, which is now supposedly happening in Germany. And one of the arguments given on air sounded like this: “By the way, German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach is the grandson of SS Obergruppenführer Hartmann Lauterbacher, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner is the grandson of SS Brigadeführer Gerhard Lindner.” This statement has been circulating on social networks since the spring of 2022. And the primary source was personally Yevgeny Prigozhin, the creator of “troll factories"and founder of the Wagner PMC. On March 5, the press service of the Prigozhin-owned Concord group published his statement about the Nazi ancestors of two ministers, as well as Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (the latter case has already been “verified” in detail sorted it out). Later German site T-online sent a request to Prigozhin’s press service, in which he asked to indicate the source of this information. The response to journalists said that this was the result of the work of investigative journalists of the Patriot Media Group (it is also controlled by the founder of the Wagner PMC) based on archival documents.

Hartmann Lauterbacher (1909–1988) was indeed one of the prominent Nazi officials. He was still a teenager participated in the activities of Nazi youth movements, and in 1927 joined the NSDAP (National Socialist Party). In 1934, Lauterbacher took the second most important post in the Hitler Youth (became chief of staff of the organization); in Hanover, he oversaw the resettlement of local Jews in the ghetto. After the war he managed to escape, and many years later Lauterbacher returned to Germany.

Only he has nothing to do with the current Minister of Health. The creators of the story in the program “Man and the Law” were not embarrassed by the fact that Lauterbach and Lauterbacher are different surnames. However, the German site Correctiv checked possible family connections between Lauterbach and Lauterbacher. The SS Obergruppenführer's children's names were Jörg, Klaus and Ilse - journalists found this information in the archives Braunschweiger Zeitung, when researching Lauterbacher's biography. And the parents of the Minister of Health Lauterbach name is Wilhelm and Gertrude. Thus, neither the first nor last names match, and no connection can be traced between the minister and the Nazi official. Correctiv also contacted the Ministry of Health for comment and received the answer: “No, Hartmann Lauterbacher is not the grandfather of Federal Minister Lauterbach.”

In the second case, at least the last names match. However, Gerhard Lindner (1896–1982) was presented incorrectly in the program “Man and Law”: he served not in the SS, but in the Wehrmacht and held the rank of major general, not brigadenführer. In January 1945 Lindner commanded 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen", but at the same time held the rank of army colonel. Much less is known about him, unlike Lauterbacher: in 1945, Lindner was arrested by the Allies, tried, and released in 1947. In 1982 he died in the city of Aurich in Lower Saxony.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner wrote a lot about his family: in 2017 he released autobiography, in which he described his childhood years in some detail. His father Wolfgang Lindner taught mathematics and computer science all his life - first at school, then at university. The profile of the minister's father, indicating his education and places of work, can be found at LinkedIn.

Dr. Lindner's parents (i.e. Christian Lindner's paternal grandparents) owned bakery in Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia). In the book, the contents of which are retold in the review of Spiegel magazine, there is excerpt, dedicated to his grandfather and his bakery: the future minister complained that because of his grandfather’s baked goods, at some point he became very fat, which pretty much ruined his teenage years. Even if we assume that the former Wehrmacht general settled down and opened a bakery, neither the dates nor the places match. Gerhard Lindner died in 1982 in Lower Saxony, and Christian Lindner was born in 1979 in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Finally, the Correctiv website in this case too appealed to the ministry with a request. A representative of the department told German fact checkers that the information that Gerhard Lindner is the grandfather of Christian Lindner is not true.

Cover photo: social networks

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Correctiv. Es stimmt nicht, dass dieser SS-Mann der Großvater von Karl Lauterbach war
2. Correctiv. Nein, Oberst Gerhard Lindner ist nicht der Großvater von Christian Lindner
3. "Myth Detector". Were the grandfathers of Germany's health and finance ministers really high-ranking Nazi officials?
4. Is it true that German Chancellor Scholz is the grandson of a former SS Gruppenführer?
5. Is it true that the grandfather of Polish President Andrzej Duda was a fascist punisher?