On December 28-29, 2023, Russian propaganda media, including Россия 1, Regnum, Комсомольская Правда, Аргументы и Факты, Susanin, Radiosputnik and other news agencies (1, 2, 3, 4) reported that Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought a villa near Berlin for eight million EUR, which previously belonged to Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. The articles mention that this villa was personally given to Goebbels by Adolf Hitler on his birthday. The Russian propagandist, Pavel Zarubin, and other Facebook accounts (1,2) have disseminated identical information on Facebook.
The story that Zelenskyy bought the villa previously owned by the Propaganda Minister of the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels, for 8 million EUR was published by the Russian Embassy in the Republic of South Africa on X (former Twitter).
The claim that the President of Ukraine bought Goebbels’ former villa is false The source of the information, who pretends to be an employee of the real estate company that owns the villa, is allegedly acting under a fictitious name and the documents presented by him are fabricated. The company that owns the area also denied the information about the sale of the villa.
Information about Zelenskyy’s purchase of the villa previously owned by Goebbels for 8 million EUR was first reported on December 27, 2023, by the Nigerian publication The Intel drop. According to the article, “Haus am Bogensee” was given by Hitler to the Propaganda Minister of the Nazi regime, Joseph Goebbels, for his 39th birthday. Since 2000, Berlin authorities have been trying to find a buyer for the 70-room lakeside complex, believed to be the only surviving property once owned by the most famous Nazis.
The same article features a video of Sabine Mels, a “former employee” of BIM Berliner Immobilienmanagement (the real estate agency that owns the estate), who identifies herself as a member of the “Anti-Fascist action.” In the video, the woman claims that the villa was bought by Film Heritage Inc. in October 2023 for more than 8 million EUR. The video further claims that the company Film Heritage Inc is connected with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The article also suspects that the decision may have something to do with the rise of the Nazi regime in Ukraine: According to the terms of the contract, “After ten years, the buyer can do with the property almost anything that comes to mind, including turning it into a gathering point for the extremists or a shrine to the former propaganda minister.”
Sabine Mels uploaded the video to her personal YouTube channel on December 24, 2023. In the video, the woman speaks German and has an anti-fascist logo on her T-shirt.
What is suspicious in this case is the fact that Sabine Mels uses a photo of another person, a fitness instructor and YouTuber, on her Twitter account, which Alyssa Gadson uploaded to Facebook in 2016.
According to a BBC employee, the contract showing that the villa is owned by Film Heritage Inc is also fake. Notary Dr Friederike Schulenburg, whose signature appears on the document, is indeed a real person, although she has not worked as a notary for 10 years, as notaries in Germany retire at the age of 70, and she is already 80. It should also be noted that on the contract shown in the video, we cannot find the note “Certified copy.”
Ukrainian and German fact-checking platforms StopFake and tagesspiegel also studied the claim about Zelenskyy’s alleged purchase of Goebbels’s former villa.
This is not the first attempt to discredit Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The president of Ukraine is often accused of owning villas and yachts, but lately, the Kremlin propaganda has been targeting Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government through foreign media. For example, a few weeks ago the same media (The Intel Drop) released a software-edited audio recording of Volodymyr Zelensky and Olena Zelenska, in which they seem to curse Western leaders. Earlier, Ghanaian and Nigerian media reported that the American organization GSMSG, with Zelenskyy’s help, is trading the organs of the Ukrainian military, and that Olena Zelenska’s foundation is allegedly involved in child trafficking. It should be noted that the distribution of this information has the same anatomy: an anonymous person on YouTube, who in many cases identifies himself/herself as a former employee of some organization, spreads the video and presents “evidence”. After that, some foreign media with a dubious reputation distributes this recording together with a long article, and then this information gets into the Russian media under the name of foreign publications.
For more information on the topic, see the articles prepared by “Myth Detector:”
- DISINFORMATION, AS IF THE AMERICAN NON-PROFIT GSMSG IS ENGAGED IN THE ORGAN TRADING OF THE UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS
- A SUSPICIOUS AUDIO RECORDING OF VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY AND OLENA ZELENSKA CIRCULATING ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Various false and manipulative claims regarding the issue of Zelenskyy’s property were amplified especially after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The discrediting campaign exaggerated Zelensky’s wealth to several hundreds of millions and billions and claimed that he had accumulated this wealth through corrupt means after becoming president. “Myth Detector” verified similar false claims in the past as well.
- DOES VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY OWN A USD 35 MILLION VILLA IN MIAMI?
- WHAT IS THE ACTUAL NET WORTH OF ZELENSKYY AND IS IT LINKED TO HIS POLITICAL CAREER?
Archive:
Россия 1, Regnum, Комсомольская Правда, Аргументы и Факты, Susanin
Topnews.ru, Nsn.fm, Radiosputnik, osnmedia.ru
ijevsk.bezformata.com
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