Posts sharing a black and white photograph online claim to show former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a teen, sitting beside former British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The text on the photograph states, “How likely is it that three childhood friends grow up to govern three different countries?”.
This is not the first time that the picture has surfaced online and spurred confusion, amassing 725,000 views in a post shared on X on 25 July.
However, although the photograph is a real one, the allegations are fake.
Apparent inconsistencies
To begin with, there are a number of inconsistencies which serve to discredit the claims made.
Although the post’s caption lists Merkel, May and von der Leyen as featuring on the picture, the photograph on the bottom-right is in fact a headshot of the former Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė and not of von der Leyen.
Additionally, although von der Leyen served as a member of Merkel’s cabinet between 2005 and 2019, she has never led a country, contradicting the text on the photograph.
Tracing the picture
By conducting a reverse image search, Euroverify found that the photograph originates from an article published by Time Magazine in 2015. At the time, Merkel had just been handed the publication’s prestigious Person of the Year prize.
The caption of the picture featured in the Time Magazine article states that Angela Kasner — Kasner is Angela Merkel’s maiden name — is featured on the left of the picture, at a 1972 New Year’s Eve party in Berlin.
Although Euroverify was unable to identify who the other girls featured in the picture are, the European Commission has previously confirmed to the media that von der Leyen is not in the photograph.
On Reddit, one user shared a picture of von der Leyen as a teenager, which Euroverify can confirm is authentic, having featured in other articles published by outlets including the Daily Mail.
Meanwhile, Lithuanian officials told Euroverify that Grybauskaitė is not present in the picture either.
Additionally, childhood pictures of Theresa May featured in the Daily Mail and other outlets do not resemble either of the other two teenage girls in the photograph.
Where did these leaders spend their teen years?
Euroverify was able to detect the photo on social media being shared with false claims circulating on social media as early as 2018.
Back then, users made no mention of von der Leyen, instead asserting that it was Grybauskaitė, who grew up in the former Soviet Union, who was featured in the picture.
The leaders who allegedly feature in the photograph grew up in different countries and locations.
Born in 1958 to German parents, Ursula von der Leyen spent her early years in Brussels before her family moved back to their homeland in 1971, after her father became involved in national politics.
Meanwhile, although Angela Merkel was born in Hamburg, her family moved to East Germany when she was three months old.
Theresa May, who served as the UK’s Prime Minister between 2016 and 2019 — namely tasked with negotiating the UK’s exit from the European Union — spent her childhood years in Oxfordshire.
These kinds of false allegations bear the risk of discrediting European institutions and member states through unfounded claims.
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