False: Greta Thunberg is related to the Rothschild family and Klaus Schwab.

By: Christian Haag
February 9 2023

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Context 

Claims have been made that Greta Thunberg is related to the Rothschild banking family and Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum. The claim is based on an article published on July 6, 2022 on a fringe website that in turn, cites a neo-Nazi blog. They state that Greta Thunberg is the great-granddaughter of Lionel Walter Rothschild, who allegedly had an illegitimate son named Joachim, who became one of Sweden's most successful bankers after a bank merger in 1957. The article also claims that the Rothschild banking family has admitted that Greta Thunberg is related to the banking family. The article claims that tabloid media became interested in kinship after the Swedish Bank Handelsbanken received a transfer from the Rothschild foundation. Furthermore, the sources claim that Thunberg is a member of the Illuminati and that Klaus Schwab is related to the Rothschild family through his mother, Marianne Schwab, born Rothschild. 

The claims have been spread on Facebook, TikTok and Reddit. On TikTok, the video has gained 1.3 million views and 56 000 likes. The claims are all completely false. 

In Fact

Greta Thunberg is not related to the Rothschild banking family. On her father's side, her great-grandfather was Fritz Thunberg, born Eriksson, and her grandfather was Fritz-Olof Thunberg, according to Geni, a genealogical and social networking website owned by MyHeritage that is often used in Sweden to research family history. The alleged “Joachim” does not appear in her family tree. 

Logically reached out to the Institution of Economic History at Uppsala University to investigate claims about a supposed Joachim Thunberg or Joachim Rothschild. They confirmed that there is no historical record of any Joachim Rothschild/Thunberg working within the Swedish banking sector, according to Svensk Bankmatrikel in the edition of 1951 or 1955. The books are comprehensive lists of all individuals who worked within Swedish banks during their respective years. The Institute also refutes that any large bank merger occurred in 1957. As such, "one of Sweden's most successful bankers", was never a banker.

Neither has Logically found any evidence of the supposed media interest that Greta Thunberg has received a transaction from the Rothschild Foundation through Handelsbanken. The claimant states that the reports were in Swedish tabloid media, but Logically has not found any such report. Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that the Rothschild family has said that Greta Thunberg is a relative. 

The claim that Greta Thunberg is part of the Illuminati is based upon a range of pictures where one of her eyes has been covered. According to the claimant, this represents the All-seeing eye, a symbol of the Illuminati, but fails to mention that the Illuminati was dissolved in 1787. The group originated from Bavaria and promoted a free world without religious or political authority. However, the group has remained synonymous with conspiracy theories and beliefs that the group still exists as a shadow elite.

The claim that Klaus Schwab is a blood relative to the Rothschild banking family through his mother Marianne has been debunked before by Logically. Marianne was born Rothschild, but she was not related to the more famous family. Schwab is not related to Thunberg. 

Principia Scientific International (PSI), where the claims were republished, is a known disinformation disseminator. PSI is rated as a strong conspiratorial and pseudo-scientific site with low factual reporting by Media bias/ Fact Check. According to the climate science publication Desmog, PSI has frequently disseminated the claim that Carbon Dioxide is not a greenhouse gas. 

The Verdict

Considering the falsehoods in the claims and that no credible evidence has been raised to support them, we have marked this claim as false.