German Chancellor did not make a post that COVID was a psyop

What is the claim?

Social media users are sharing a screenshot of what appears to be a post on X (formerly Twitter) by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In the post — allegedly published to the official Bundeskanzler account — Scholz seems to admit that the COVID pandemic was staged to test people's willingness to accept lockdown measures.

"Covid was a psy-op to test compliance with mRNA and lockdowns. There was no pandemic," the post says. 

However, the post is fake. It originates from a website known for spreading fabricated and misleading stories. 

In fact

Logically Facts could find no trace of such a post on the official @Bundeskanzler X account, nor could we find any mention of it in any reputable news outlet. We did find a post from December of last year in which Scholz announced he had been infected with COVID.

The X post appears to originate from a People's Voice article published on April 2. ​​The People's Voice, formerly known as YourNewsWire, has a history of spreading false, fabricated and misleading information.

The article claims that the German government has admitted that there was no pandemic and that "so-called 'conspiracy theorists' were right about everything during the COVID pandemic."

Logically Facts contacted the German government as asked if Chancellor Scholz had really called the COVID pandemic a psyop, and whether the government had indeed admitted that there was no pandemic.

"This alleged X post is not authentic. The claim is complete nonsense," a government spokesperson told Logically Facts. 

NewsGuard, a media watchdog organization, has also warned about the post being fake. 

According to the People's Voice article, German government data show "there was no pandemic" and it was all "just a tightly choreographed military grade psy-op to brainwash the masses into accepting an experimental vaccine with disastrous consequences."

The article refers to some 2,000 pages of documents released by the Robert Koch Institute, a German government agency, earlier this year. The documents showed that German officials had warned back in 2020 that lockdowns could cause more harm than good in some parts of the world and that the officials believed evidence for mask mandates was lacking.

Experts told the German news show Tagenschau that there is no big scoop in the documents showing that scientific evidence – e.g. on the effect of wearing masks - was lacking early in the pandemic. "A lot of time passes before scientific evidence can be assumed. It certainly wouldn't have helped the population to take no measures at all and wait for study results," Hajo Zeeb, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Bremen, told the outlet. 

When asked for comment, the Robert Koch Institute pointed us to a statement on its website published at the time the documents were released. The statement (translated from the original German) said the documents "reflect the discussions and decisions of the [RKI's COVID-19] crisis team at the time and according to the current state of knowledge" but that "the context and data basis are not always mentioned."

"The logs must therefore always be seen and interpreted in their context," the statement said.

The verdict

Logically Facts could find no trace of the alleged Olaf Scholz post on the chancellor's official X account or in any reputable news outlet. A government spokesperson said it was fake. The documents referenced in the People's Voice article do not show that the German government has admitted there was no COVID pandemic. Therefore, we have marked this claim as fake. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19, including symptoms, prevention, and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organization or your national healthcare authority.