For years, social media users have shared a photo allegedly showing a U.S. soldier during World War II swapping out a German street sign reading "Adolf-Hitler-Str." for another reading "Roosevelt Blvd."
On Aug. 27, 2024, one Reddit user included the image in a post (archived) on the r/USHistory subreddit alongside the caption: "Adolf Hitler Street becomes Roosevelt Boulevard (1945)."
Adolf Hitler Street becomes Roosevelt Boulevard (1945)
byu/Creepy-Strain-803 inUSHistory
The picture has also appeared — sometimes in black and white (archived) and sometimes colorized (archived) — in posts on Facebook (archived) and on X (archived), as well as in multiple (archived) other Reddit posts (archived).
Numerous Reddit users have noted the soldier's apparent resemblance to two American celebrities — "It's Always Sunny in Pennsylvania" actor Rob McElhenney and Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz.
Others had questions about the photo's origins and authenticity. For example, one Reddit user commented:
Can someone explain this to me? What city is this? Is it a joke? Explain it like I'm five please
In short, a reverse image search showed it was indeed an authentic photo of a U.S. soldier taking down a German street sign reading "Adolf-Hitler-Str." and replacing it with a sign reading "Roosevelt Blvd."
The original picture was captured in black and white, while the colorized versions (archived) that have circulated (archived) online were digitally retouched.
One copy of the photo is currently in the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), which described the scene depicted in the image as:
An American soldier replaces an "Adolf-Hitler-Str." street sign with a hand-made one, "Roosevelt Boulevard".
USHMM identified the man in the image as George A. Kaufman, a sergeant in the Ninth U.S. Army (the insignia visible on the arm of Kaufman's uniform suggests Kaufman in fact held the rank of staff sergeant at the time the photo was taken). The museum also said the picture was taken in the German city of Krefeld, not in Berlin, as some (archived) social media users (archived) claimed.
The photo was dated March 9, 1945, around a week after Allied troops captured Krefeld. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for whom the street was temporarily renamed, was still the U.S. president at the time. He died April 12, 1945, around a month after the photographer snapped Kaufman changing the street signs. The German Third Reich unconditionally surrendered to the Allies in May 1945, around two months after the picture was taken.
Various U.S. newspapers published the image in the spring of 1945 and corroborated the same details. For example, on March 21, 1945, New York City's Daily News included the image in a roundup of recent photos from the war effort in Germany.
https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-news/156376847/
Article from Mar 21, 1945 Daily News (New York, New York)
The headline and caption accompanying the photo read:
'Strasse' Is Passe
As Yanks Yank Nazi Sign
OUT-DATED. Sign proclaiming street in the Adolf Hitler Strasse, in Krefeld, Germany, is given the old heave-ho by Sergt. George A. Kaufman, of Fort Smith, Ark. Kaufman, of the U. S. 9th Army, replaces Hitler sign with the Roosevelt Boulevard.
The same image, paired with similar captions, also appeared in the Times Herald (Olean, New York), the Seminole Producer (Oklahoma), and the Alton Democrat (Iowa), among numerous other newspapers.
Although the identity of the photographer was unclear, they appeared to have worked for the U.S. Army. The credit line accompanying the image in the Daily News was "Official Signal Corps foto," referring to the Army's communications branch, while the credit line that appeared in the Alton Democrat was "Released by U.S. War Department, Bureau of Public Relations." Meanwhile, USHMM credited the photo to the National Archives and Records Administration. Snopes contacted the museum for more specific source information and will update this story if and when they respond.
As noted in articles in the German-language newspapers Westdeutsche Zeitung and Rheinische Post, the Krefeld street in question had originally been named Rheinstrasse, but was renamed for Hitler in April 1933. The March 1945 change to Roosevelt Boulevard was not permanent, and the street's name ultimately reverted to the original Rheinstrasse.
Because the authenticity of the image has been well-documented, through its inclusion in the USHMM's collection and its publication in numerous newspapers in the spring of 1945, we have rated this claim as true.