Author: rb809rb

Claim:

A black-and-white photo authentically depicts Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders inspecting a model of a triumphal arch planned for Berlin.

Rating:

In September 2026, a black-and-white photo spread widely purportedly showing Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party officials inspecting a model of a triumphal arch they hoped to build in Berlin.

Beneath one Reddit post (archived), commenters compared the arch, which was never constructed, to U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to construct a massive triumphal arch of his own in Washington, D.C., just outside the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

Snopes readers contacted us to determine whether the picture is real.  

In short, the photograph is authentic.

Among the many unfinished projects of Nazi Germany was a plan to redevelop the capital, Berlin, and rename it “Germania.” Nazi Party chief architect Albert Speer was put in charge of the design and built a model of the planned city.

Among the buildings was a massive, triumphal arch. The black-and-white photo authentically shows Hitler inspecting the model, presumably designed by Speer.

A reverse image search revealed the picture is on stock image website Alamy, which credits the photograph to the archives of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Though the “Date taken” information reads Jan. 1, 1939, Alamy also says the picture is “undated.” Berlin is noted as the location. The “More information” caption reads:

Adolf Hitler inspects a modell of a planned triumphal arch. Adolf Hitler and other party functionaries inspect the modell of the triumphal arch, which was planned to be built after the end of the war in Berlin. Undated picture. Date created: 01/01/1939-31/12/1945

Snopes contacted Süddeutsche Zeitung to learn more about the photo’s history. A spokesperson for the paper said in a statement that it licenses images from its historical archives through Alamy. Therefore, the picture came from the archives of a reputable news publication.

Running the photograph through several tools that detect content generated using artificial intelligence software uncovered no signs that it was AI-generated.

A history of triumphal arches

Historians trace the history of triumphal arches back to ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic, the “triumph” was an extravagant parade the Roman Senate granted to a Roman general (and his army) following a particularly remarkable conquest. Three triumphal arches were built during this period, according to Britannica, but none survive.

During the imperial period, however, Roman emperors frequently declared triumphs for themselves (regardless of their military accomplishments), often building arches as a commemoration. There are three — the Arches of Titus, Septimus Severus and Constantine — still standing in Rome.

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, built to commemorate the conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte, is one of many arches still extant around the world that pay architectural homage to the Roman triumphal arch. They are built for many reasons —  New York City’s Washington Square Arch commemorated 100 years since George Washington’s inauguration, for instance, while New Delhi’s India Gate is a war memorial.

Trump first mentioned the idea of a triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., in October 2025. When CBS News asked who the arch was for, Trump pointed at himself and said “me.” The arch — which has been the subject of multiple lawsuits claiming its construction was not approved in the proper manner or could pose risks to aviation safety and emergency services — would stand 250 feet tall, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States.

The Nazis, art and architecture

The ideology of the Nazi Party, beyond the genocidal antisemitism, homophobia, racism, xenophobia and other assorted discriminatory practices, was built on a vision of completely remaking the nation of Germany. This remaking — or a “rebirth” — aimed to turn the state itself into a sort of religion, warping and twisting every aspect of society along the way.

Attendance at this metaphorical “church,” of course, was mandatory. “Disagreement is a sign of diversity,” Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco wrote in his 1995 essay, “Ur-Fascism.” Diversity, therefore, would not be tolerated under Nazism.

Part of this “spiritual” rebirth involved attempting to influence the nation’s arts and culture. In 1937, the Nazis ordered the confiscation of thousands of modern art pieces the party felt “insult[ed] German feeling.”

The Nazis then had the confiscated works exhibited for the public to see in Munich. The exhibition was called “Degenerate Art.”

The crusade against “degenerate art” also impacted architecture. The influential Bauhaus art school, pioneers in modern architecture, closed in 1933 on the orders of the Nazi regime. Speer, the architect (and Nazi Party member), quickly rose up the party’s ranks and found himself in Hitler’s inner circle. 

While most of Speer’s designs for Germania were never constructed, at least one part of the vision remains. The “Schwerbelastungskorper,” German for “heavy load-bearing body,” is a massive concrete cylinder located in the Tempelhof neighborhood at the corner of General Pape Strasse and Loewenhardtdamm. 

According to the structure’s Information Center website and The Guardian newspaper, it was built as a test for the planned triumphal arch’s northeast pillar, because engineers were concerned that Berlin’s swampy soil would not be able to hold the weight of the monumental structures. The cylinder was built in 1941, at least partially by prisoners of war. 

Sources

Claim:

In September and October 2026, U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Democratic Texas state representative, received treatment at a mental health facility in Ohio.

Rating:

In October 2026, a rumor spread that U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Texas Democrat, had received treatment at a mental health care facility in Ohio. 

The claim erupted after Talarico, a state representative, disappeared from the campaign trail for nearly 10 days. On Oct. 11, the candidate told Dallas NBC affiliate KXAS’s Phil Prazan in a video interview he’d been lying low at home due to a bout of influenza (archived).

Still, social media posts claiming he had actually been hospitalized at a mental health facility the whole time multiplied on Facebook and X, where one post said, for example, “the flu thing was a BIG FAT LIE” (archived):

Many Snopes readers emailed, asking us to verify whether the rumor was true. 

As we outline below, we found no credible evidence to support the claim Talarico had received treatment at a mental health facility. Both the facility named in these rumors and Talarico himself denied the claim on social media. In addition, the timing of his alleged discharge didn’t match Talarico’s schedule. Snopes obtained visual evidence, which we reviewed but aren’t publishing due to privacy concerns, that Talarico was at his home in Austin every day for the entirety of his bout of flu.

For these reasons, we rate the claim false.

Two conservative influencers, Nick Sortor and Rhein Amacher, started the rumor, offering as evidence the recording of an alleged employee of the Lindner Center of Hope in Ohio appearing to say Talarico had just been discharged.

Both Talarico and the Lindner Center of Hope denied he had ever been treated there. 

We reached out to Sorter and Amacher, as well as to Talarico and the Lindner Center of Hope, for clarity and we will update this report should we receive a response.

The rumor originated on X

The rumor spread less than a month before the election, at a time when almost all polls in Texas showed Talarico narrowly ahead of his Republican opponent in the race, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

On Oct. 11, Sortor and Amacher posted a short audio recording on X of a phone conversation between a male voice asking for “James Talarico” and a female voice, allegedly that of someone who worked at Lindner Center for Hope, appearing to say he was discharged earlier that evening. 

Sortor (archived) and Amacher (archived) posted within minutes of each other, just after 1 p.m. Eastern time. Both claimed Amacher had had the exchange with the purported employee. In his post, Amacher wrote that a person who he understood to be an employee of the center said Talarico had been discharged “within the previous 24-48 hours”:

I personally contacted @LindnerCtrHope in Mason, Ohio, to determine whether Talarico was or had previously been a patient. 

During my recorded call, an individual identifying themselves as a female facility employee reportedly stated that Talarico was no longer a patient and had been discharged within the previous 24–48 hours.

In the recording, however, the person tells Amacher the patient was “just discharged this evening.” The recorded exchange went as follows:

ALLEGED EMPLOYEE: I do not find anyone with that name for the last four days that’s been discharged, and they’re not here in the building.

AMACHER: OK, so nothing for James Talarico?

ALLEGED EMPLOYEE: Um… let’s see, looks… well… this is what it’s today… Looks like he was just discharged this evening. That’s why I don’t have it.

Amacher’s post included a purported screenshot of a call log showing he had attempted to contact the facility three times that day: at 8:53 p.m., 8:56 p.m. and 8:59 p.m.

A subsequent X post by Amacher on Oct. 11 indicated the exchange took place “yesterday” — Oct. 10. We reached out to him for more details. 

Talarico’s whereabouts on Oct. 9 and 10

On Oct. 9 — the day before Amacher’s alleged call — Talarico made an appearance at the Austin City Limits festival, as photographs on the reputable image bank Getty Images show. 

The evening of Oct. 10, Talarico attended Kacey Musgraves’ concert in Dallas, according to a post by Talarico’s campaign at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 11, indicating the video had been shot in the hours before (archived):

(An earlier post by another X account confirmed Talarico was at the concert.)

Musgraves played in Dallas Oct. 10 and 11, according to the website of the venue, the American Airlines Center.

In a seeming attempt to justify the discrepancy between the time the alleged employee told him the patient was discharged and Talarico’s appearance in Austin the day before, Amacher posted again on X saying that the time of a patient’s discharge could be registered some time after the person has left the facility (archived):

Mental health facility denies Talarico was a patient

On Oct. 11, in response to the rumors, the Lindner Center of Hope posted on X to say Talarico had never been a patient (archived):

Talarico shared the post, adding that he has never been to Ohio (archived):

Further, Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis posted on X that the claim was a “lie” to “promote a pathetic conspiracy theory” (archived):

Lastly, Snopes obtained visual evidence of Talarico being at home every day from Oct. 1 to 8, the day before he went to the music festival in Austin.

Talarico has long been open about having Type 1 diabetes, a condition that increases the risk of complications when the person comes down with the flu, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For further reading, Snopes has covered several rumors about Talarico, including the claim that he is vegan.

Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration declined to invite observers from Europe’s Organization for Security and Co-operation for the 2026 midterm elections, marking the first time the OSCE had not received an invitation to observe a federal U.S. election since 2002.

Rating:

In October, rumors circulated that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration did not extend an invitation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an international body that aims to preserve democracy and human rights across the globe, to observe the 2026 midterm elections. 

The OSCE explains that its goal in observing elections is to “assess the extent to which fundamental freedoms are respected in the campaign and if the elections are characterized by equality, universality, political pluralism, confidence, transparency and accountability.”

Social media users who shared the claim noted that it was the first time since 2002, when the OSCE first started observing U.S. elections, that the group had not received an invitation. One post featured an image of Trump with text reading, “Trump demands ‘secure’ elections, yet rejects independent scrutiny and offers no explanation. Perhaps security was never the point.”

The rumor circulated after Trump’s Department of Justice said it would deploy its own election monitors, sparking concerns from Trump’s opponents. 

The claim was true. 

In a statement posted to its website Sept. 23. the OSCE confirmed that the U.S. had not invited it to observe the 2026 midterm elections.

“The decision not to invite the OSCE to observe the 2026 midterm congressional elections in the United States is regrettable, particularly given the long-standing co-operation with the country in the field of election observation,” the organization said.

They wrote that the decision was “not in line with the 1990 Copenhagen Document,” which the group describes as an outline of basic human rights and freedoms that “broadens the scope of human rights matters to include election commitments” and “recognizes that the presence of international observers can enhance the electoral process.” 

The OSCE confirmed in its statement that the 2026 midterms marked the first time it was not invited to observe a federal U.S. election since the group first began observing elections in the country in 2002. That year, the OSCE sent representatives to the Florida gubernatorial election. 

The 2002 observation occurred after the contentious 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore that resulted in a recount in Florida. The matter ultimately ended up with the Supreme Court, and the United States didn’t see a president-elect officially declared until that December.

According to a 2004 article by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe about the history of the U.S. inviting OSCE to observe elections, following its 2002 observation in Florida, OSCE observed the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election that actor Arnold Schwarzenegger won. 

OSCE said it has observed 12 federal elections, including six midterms, since 2002. 

The CSCE wrote in 2004 that the U.S. had formally invited observers to its elections in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002, noting that 2002 was the first election that OSCE had observed. 

In the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections in November, Trump continued his attempts to implement voting restrictions and pitched giving Americans $5,000 each if Republicans won, sparking opposition from critics. 

A White House official told Snopes via email that “no other nation has done more to advance the cause of human freedom and representative government” than the United States and added, “American elections will be administered, participated in, and observed by American citizens.”

The White House did not deny that it had declined an invite to OSCE observers and provided no explanation for departing from decades of precedent. 

We reached out to the OSCE and the Justice Department for further comment and will update this article if we receive responses.

For further reading, we fact-checked a claim that Trump thanked billionaire Elon Musk for artificially increasing votes for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms.