What was claimed
An image shows members of the Nazi party turning their backs in the German parliament.
Our verdict
That is what the picture shows, although some descriptions have details wrong.
An image on social media does show Nazi party members turning their backs during a speech
4 July 2019
We’ve been asked to check a tweet claiming to show the Nazis turning their backs in the German parliament in 1926. We’ve also seen similar claims on Facebook, some of which give the date as 1930. Many of the image captions say that they are turning their backs on the speaker. Altogether the image has been shared thousands of times.
The photo went viral following news that Brexit Party MEPs turned their backs while the EU anthem played at the opening session of the new EU parliament, as UKIP MEPs did back in 2014.
The historic image is listed on two picture agency websites—the German Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo and Alamy. Both listings say the picture was taken in 1930, and shows members of NSDAP (the Nazi party) turning away during a speech. According to both image websites, it was a speech by Dr Fritz Löwenthal, a communist party (KPD) politician who held a Reichstag seat at the time. He was not the Reichstagspräsident (the Reichstag equivalent of the speaker) however, at the time that was the social democrat Paul Löbe.
The German image website says Joseph Goebbels can be seen at the bottom right, in a light suit, leaning on his arm and writing notes.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as true as the image is of Nazis facing away from the lectern during a speech in the German parliament, although the details in some captions are wrong.