Is it true that Zelensky bought a car belonging to Hitler?

In October 2024, the media and Telegram channels reported that the President of Ukraine acquired a black Mercedes-Benz, where the leader of Nazi Germany traveled. We checked the reliability of these publications.

October 8 Telegram channel "Mordor's voice”(115,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) with reference to the Seattle Tribune publication wrote:“ The car belonging to Hitler was used by him at the Parade in Berlin after the surrender of France in 1940. After the war, the US Army confiscated the car. In 2018, he surfaced at the USA in the United States, but was not sold, since the rate of $ 7 million was lower than expected. In early October, the car was seen in the center of Kyiv, Zelensky arrived on it to the building of the Presidential Administration on the street. Bankova, 11. This happened shortly after Zelensky returned from an American tour, during which he signed shells and met with representatives of the White House. During his trip, the United States announced a new package of assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $ 8 billion. The amount that Zelensky paid for the Mercedes-Benz 770K, previously owned by the Nazi dictator, was unknown, but, according to experts, could be about $ 15 million. ” As evidence, the authors give a video that shows a photo of this car standing at the office of the president of Ukraine.

At the time of writing this analysis, according to the TGSTAT service, at least 550 Russian-speaking Telegram channels, whose records in total scored more than 4 million views, reported about the alleged purchase of Zelensky. Among the most popular are channels posts "Sanya in Florida"(494,000 views),"Russia now"(201 000),"Observer"(183 000),"Uncle Glory"(173 000),"Putin in Telegram"(164 000), Voblya (130,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(122 000), Rus_criminal (121 000), Zergulio (117 000), "Kirill Fedorov / War History Weapons"(101 000),"Ostashko! Important"(96,000) and"Tsargrad-TV"(73,000). Also, newspapers told about this story "Moscow Komsomolets" And "Arguments and facts", Edition"FederalPress"And numerous publics on VKontakte (examples here, here And here).

Most of the resources mentioned above in their notes and posts referred to the site, as expected, the American edition Seattle Tribune. There really published The material under the heading "Hitler's front car was bought by the Ukrainian leader Zelensky." There is no direct indication on the site when this news was posted, but, according to others notesThis happened on October 7th. In its text, Seattle Traibune also cites a half -minute video, which was accompanied by Russian -language subtitles in Runet:

"This is the Mercedes-Benz 770k Grosser Offener Tourenwagen of 1939, often called the Super Mercedes. He was ordered by Adolf Hitler, created for him and used by him. In July 1940, he was used by Hitler at the Victory Parade, passing In Berlin after the defeat of France. The "Mercedes-Benz" of the Nazi dictator, captured by the US Army after the war, is one of the five [such] surviving cars. It was this car that was auctioned in 2018 in Scottsdele, Arizona, but was not sold, since the application for $ 7 million did not correspond to the minimum price. Later he was noticed in a super -fighting suburb of Seattle, where Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates live, according to the newspaper Seattle Times, nearby. Later, representatives of the auction house announced that they had finally found a private buyer. According to several Ukrainian Telegram channels, Vladimir Zelensky was recently seen leaving this car in Kyiv, directly opposite the building on 11 Bankova, where located Office of the President of Ukraine. This happened just a couple of days after his return from his successful diplomatic Trips in the USA. United States announced About the new package of assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $ 8 billion during the visit of Zelensky to Washington. It remains unclear who this mysterious seller and how much Mr. Zelensky paid for the car of the Nazi dictator, although the estimated price of the sale is believed to be about $ 15 million. It also makes you think about why someone needed to buy this relic, the history of which was originally so gloomy. ”

This video uses visual materials and excerpts of articles of different media. For example, there is a video of the British Daily Mail tabloid with archival personnel. In December 2017, the publication reportedThat next month in Arizona there will be an auction for the sale of the Mercedes-Benz 770k Grosser Offener Tourenwagen car-the German super- Mercedes, created by Hitler and used by him during the Victory Parades, including France. According to the publication CNBC, at the end of World War II, the car was confiscated by the American military, and in total, by January 2018, only five such cars were preserved in private collections and museums. The identity of the owner of the Mercedes was not disclosed at that time, although the German media in 2009 Approvedthat the last time he bought an unnamed Russian billionaire for several million euros and Hitler's car went to Moscow.

Also in the video Seattle Tribune with reference to the Arizona edition Azcentral It is said that the Mercedes-Benz 770K was not sold at auction in January 2018, since the amount of $ 7 million proposed for it was lower than the minimum price set by an anonymous seller. At the same time, the representative of the Worldwide Actioneers said that the sale may still take place, and negotiations with the buyer will be continued in private. In February 2018, The Seattle Times actually Reportedthat a local resident noticed this car in the city of Medina, who located not far from Seattle (and, indeed, according to American Media, billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have at home there). One of the Worldwide Actions Auctions, Rod Egan, then told the newspaper that the transaction was concluded shortly after the auction, but refused to call the buyer and the cost of sale due to the non-disclosure agreement. “The final destination is not in this country,” he said. “This is very, very far away.”

At the beginning of 2022, there were reports that the Australian billionaire and politician Klave Palmer bought the Hitler Mercedes-Benz from the Russian seller for his automobile museum. At the end of February of the same year about this acquisition told The Courier Mail newspaper, saying that Palmer was negotiating for two years. In early March, the deputy of the Australian Parliament Patrick Gorman wrote The Minister of Internal Affairs Karen Andrews is a letter with a request to investigate the alleged transaction. The minister, in turn, She saidthat "categorically condemns any glorification of Nazi history." According to Gorman and Andrews, such a deal with a Russian, whose name was not disclosed, could also violate the sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation in Ukraine. “He (car. - Approx. Ed.) Many times passed from hand to hand, last time in 2017, when he bought a Russian tycoon for more than $ 7 million,” - clarified The Times, although the auction mentioned above took place in 2018. Representative of the party founded by Palmer, first He called it The whole story is fake, but to the question of whether there were ever negotiations on the potential purchase of such a car, he did not give a direct answer. Also a billionaire himself saidthat Hitler did not purchase a car and what Start The trial against Andrews for the "spread of outrageous fake news." “This outrageous lie caused significant damage to my reputation, and I will call the perpetrators to answer through the court,” - declared He. In mid -March in The Courier Mail Wrotethat another Mercedes-Benz vintage car was seen on the territory of the resort belonging to the resort Palmer. However, the representative of Palmer again did not directly answer the question of whether Hitler's car was among the recent purchases of a billionaire.

The statement from the second part of the Seattle Tribune video that the buyer of this car has ever been the president of Ukraine is not confirmed by open data. For example, the video says that several Ukrainian Telegram channels at once wrote that in 2024 Zelensky was noticed leaving this car in Kyiv. In this case, the video shows the screenshot of the post of only one channel - “Real Viina", And on the site Seattle Tribune, a link to this publication is not given. "Checked" Not found Such a record is absent in the TGSTAT service base, where you can see the remote posts. Moreover, using the reverse search for the picture in the service Tineye We found out that the photo given as evidence was mounted from two images. First from the pictures used, which captures building The administration of the Ukrainian president was made in August 2021. On the second photo, shot in August 2014 at the Pebable Beach Concours, according to the author’s signature, another car is shown-Mercedes-Benz 770K W150 Offener Tourenwagen, released in 1941.

The Seattle Tribune newspaper, according to the library of the US Congress, was Created In 1931, but ceased to be produced in the last century. Until 2022, there also existed the same name Blog. “Checked” the website of Seattle Tribune, who first told about the acquisition of Hitler’s car by the Ukrainian president, and did not find notes that were released before October 7, 2024. According to specialized services, the site seattle-tribune.com was registered Just four days before, on October 3. It has no data on the social networks and the composition of the Seattle Traibune editorial office, and the other content studied “verified” is the slightly modified texts of notes of real media. All these factors indicate that the site was created (probably with the help of a neural network) only to spread news about Zelensky.

Specialists of Newsguard, studying the spread of misinformation on the Internet, They saythat Seattle Tribune is associated with network Russian disinformation sites controlled by John Mark Dugan, a former American military and policeman, now living in Russia. He is already mentioned V parsing "Checked." According to Newsguard, Dugan leads a network consisting of more than 170 sites mimicing for news resources and used to promote false statements, including Zelensky. The BBC Verify journalist came to the same conclusion Shayan Sardarizade. “The same IP addresses, e-mails, and video and video, the image of the action, etc., are just so many evidence left throughout the network, although I'm not even sure that it (Dugan.-Approx. Ed.) In general, the secrecy of operations is generally concerned.” wrote He. Dugan himself in the commentary "Voice of America" saidAs before communicating with journalists, I did not know about the website Seattle Tribune: “I have never heard of it. But I looked for and found out that there is a lot of useful information. A real pillar of journalistic honesty along with the New York Times and CNN and MSNBC TV channels. ”

Previously, “verified” was disassembled by many similar fakes that were distributed according to a similar scheme. Their authors claimed that Zelensky, his wife and close ones became the owners of expensive real estate objects and luxury items. If you believe these publications, since 2022, a couple of Zelensky, in addition to Hitler’s car, has already bought or received for use:

• Clothes from Parisian boutiques for € 40,000;
• Cartier jewelry for $ 1 million;
• Villa in Egypt for $ 4.8 million;
• Bugatti Tourbillon car for € 4.5 million;
• Goebbels House in Germany for € 8 million;
• 300 kg of cocaine from Argentina;
• Florida mansion for $ 20 million;
• the mansion previously belonging to King Charles III for £ 20 million;
• Two yachts for $ 75 million;
• Winging Sting in Italy for € 75 million;
• casino in Northern Cyprus for £ 150 million.

The case of Hitler’s car differs from many other such fakes in that it initially did not spread in the Russian -speaking segment of Telegram, as usually happened earlier. For example, the Telegram channel “Voice of Mordor” was the first to tell about many transactions mentioned above. However, this time, according to TGSTAT, it was only the second - an hour and a half earlier, on October 8 at 12:56 pm Moscow time, the post with the mention of Seattle Tribune appeared in Telegram channel Center for Combating Disinformation in the Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine. There the news about the purchase of Zelensky was called a fake. The fact is that before that there are many English -speaking tweets, repeating the same fake statement, appeared on the social network X. The earliest post that was able to find “verified” was published on October 7 at 20:25 in the profile @Alertchannel (4.1 million views) marked "Interesting and exclusive." Then the fake was replicated, in particular, Unkensored USA (@Carlossimancas, 759,000 views), Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddecetal, 174 000) and Texas Patriot (@Texasbrn, 3.5 million).

Disinformation that Zelensky bought Hitler’s car repeats the same narratives as in the case of similar fakes previously common. So, she puts up the Ukrainian president with a corrupt politician who not only lives out of means, but also assigns financial assistance allocated to Kyiv by the countries of the West. She also supports the thesis about the “Nazi” leadership of Ukraine, which the Russian authorities and propaganda are used to justify the invasion of a neighboring country. “History with Hitler's car is an obvious element of propaganda of those who seek to undermine Ukraine - explained Forbes Analyst of social networks Greg Sterling. - But, unfortunately, many people are too ignorant or poorly informed to admit it. More and more Americans, it seems, are ready to believe in anything that corresponds to their views and prejudices, regardless of how implausible or outrageous. ” The publication noted that the leadership of the social network X, where the fake about Hitler’s car was actively distributed, does little to counteract such misinformation. “[Similar large platforms] are engaged in the moderation of content and a factory -checking as a hobby, until this interferes with their main business - to receive advertising income. Moderation, which should be a legal requirement, today is actually only PR, ”Sterling concluded.

Photo on the cover: collage from social networks

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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