Did the Rothschild and Rockefeller families sink the Titanic by setting up mines underneath the ship, to get rid of their business opponents? No, that's not true: The Titanic sank because it hit an iceberg near Newfoundland, Canada. The collision damaged the ship together with its watertight compartments. With a limited number of lifeboats, many passengers could not escape the ship.The Titanic sank hours after the crash, drowning about 1,500 passengers.
This claim appeared in a video (archived here) where it was published by @dannykollar on August 4, 2023, without a title. It stated:
Titanic was the beginning of the Western world's financial terror, when the Rothschilds and Rockefellers boarded the Titanic with all of their business foes, then got off in time to undermine the Titanic and everyone there died.
(Translated from Slovak to English by Lead Stories staff)
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 8 14:13.02 2023 UTC)
This is an uncommon spin on a prevalent conspiracy theory in which J.P. Morgan was behind the mass murder in his effort to get rid of his business opponents, who were among Titanic passengers. The alleged killings aimed to eliminate people opposing Morgan's attempt to create the US Federal Reserve Bank. His intentions were supposed to be opposed by his rivals - millionaires John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Macy's Isidor Straus. There's no evidence for this theory, which is often spread by the QAnon conspiracy-theory group, although according to the Washington Post, it's been echoing inside Internet rabbit holes for years.
This video puts a different spin on the baseless story though, saying the Rothschilds and Rockefellers were in the driver's seat of the violent operation. In this scenario, representatives of both families even hopped on the ship temporarily, undermined it, and left the deck, escaping for safety before sinking the Titanic.
The Rothschild family is a Jewish European banking dynasty, with a banking house dating back to the 18th century. They had considerable economic influence in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Conspiracy theories about this family have been present in Europe since the 19th century and are driven by antisemitism and anti-Zionism. These theories, some of which claim that Hitler was a Rothschild or that the family owns many of the world's central banks, have been the subject of many conspiracy theories, debunked routinely.
There is no evidence that the Rothschild family stands behind historical events such as the Titanic tragedy. "TikTok is just the latest recycling bin for false narratives about the Titanic, which began circulating almost as soon as the ship had sunk," writes the New York Times. And it's true, other videos with similar claims in the English language have appeared on the social networking app (like here and here).
A Slovak extremist spread the debunked claim. Daniel Bombic, also known as Danny Kollar, is the subject of three European arrest warrants. The arrest warrants are based on accusations of disseminating extremist material, engaging in cyberbullying, and revealing personal information about individuals who have incurred his disfavor. According to Dennik N, Bombic is attempting to present himself as the most prominent radical among Slovak purveyors of disinformation. His videos routinely contain profanity, anti-Semitism, or homophobia. During the current Slovak election campaign, Bombic became an ally of several politicians, including the party leading the Slovak public opinion polls, Smer-SD.
