Talk:Ursula von der Leyen

Why is there so much text devoted to discussion of her ancestors/relatives?

I understand why the trajectory of her life is influenced by her father's life. But of what influence is it on HER life that her father's father was the kind of psychoanalyst that he was? I think there can be a sentence saying that she used the last name "Ladson" for a time (to evade communist terrorist groups) because that was her father's father's mother's maiden name, but there's no relevance beyond that. Why is it pointed out that some of this German citizen's American ancestors were prominent governmental officials and another of them owned 200 slaves at one point? I mean, we ALL have ancestors. I KNEW my biological grandfathers, my biological mother's biological mother, and my biological father's step-mother. Knowing them affects who I am, but not because of their own impact on history. And I never knew any of THEIR ancestors, so they're meaningless on the trajectory of my life. If my ancestors weren't that PARTICULAR random set of people, they'd be some OTHER random set of people but it wouldn't change ME. The past doesn't extend infinitely into the future. Anyone who knows any history at all should know that. Civilizations, and the currents of thought they created, have been wiped out overnight by disease or conquest. If this woman's father's father hadn't been a psychoanalyst, perhaps he'd have been a college-professor, or a cleric, or a mayor, or a fire-chief, and what of it? She'd still be who SHE is. Instead of being COINCIDENTALLY related to that psychoanalyst, she'd be no less COINCIDENTALLY related to someone ELSE. And the discussion of her AMERICAN ancestors is quite beyond the pale. And who is to say that just because her father was an Albrecht that she is related to everyone in history with the surname "Albrecht"? And the interminable

'The Albrecht family was among the hübsche ("courtly" or "genteel") families of the Electorate and Kingdom of Hanover—a state that was in a personal union with the United Kingdom—and her ancestors had been doctors, jurists and civil servants since the 17th century. Her great-great-grandfather George Alexander Albrecht moved to Bremen in the 19th century, where he became a wealthy cotton merchant, part of the Hanseatic elite and the Austro-Hungarian Consul from 1895. He married Baroness Louise Dorothea Betty von Knoop (1844–1889), a daughter of Baron Johann Ludwig von Knoop, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the 19th century Russian Empire'

simply has nothing to do with HER life and who SHE is. EVERYONE has wealthy and/or high-status ancestors, because we have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etcetera, while the further you go back in time the population of the Earth is smaller and smaller. Given that the count of your ancestors double going back each generation (unless you're something like a Spanish Habsburg or something), but the population of prominent people gets smaller, everyone is BOUND to hit someone, sooner or later, who has some Wikipedia article. My grandfather knew of a story of a man who bragged that he was a 23rd cousin, thrice removed, of George Washington. Someone else present congratulated him on that relative uniqueness, since the average U.S. citizen of predominantly northern-European ancestry at the time had overwhelming odds of being no further related to George Washington than 16th cousin, and to be so DISTANTLY related to George Washing was distinction indeed. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the genealogical computations there but you get my drift. [(Genealogy=Identity)=(Stuff-and-Nonsense that shouldn't be in an encyclopedia).]2600:8804:8800:11F:1C64:8308:33BC:E2D6 (talk) 04:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson

It is fairly typical in countries ruled by elites that these families are considered the betters of ordinary citizens. Whoever wrote this article want us to be in no doubt that Ursula von der Leyen is really important in the Prussian fashion. She has the prefix "von der" which she uses in her name to let the rest of us know that she is a born leader. Her aristocratic status is in her Aryan blood and anyone who dares criticize her will soon be reminded to know their lower place. I did notice that those who expressed an unfavorable attitude toward Ursula von der Leyen in the article had their names discolored to let us know that they can no longer be found with an entry in Wikipedia. I also notice that the article will highlight her family going back to the 17th Century and continues until the Third Reich years when all mention of her family disappears between 1933 and 1945, as if this prominent family of Junkers just vanished with no trace of them and then picked up again after WWII. What happened with this family during the Third Reich, I wonder. I smell a rat. SanVitores (talk) 11:08, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Scandals

Should be mentioned also when in Sofia she suggested to “get around the rules..” and the scandal with Pfizer. 124.197.58.138 (talk) 11:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Do reliable sources talk about these scandals? Feel free to drop links. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:23, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Image

@83.137.6.164: Hi, could you explain why you think the 2020 portrait is an incorrect representation? Thanks, Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 16:11, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Consultants topic

It seems wrong for this to feature twice in a chronologically ordered list.

The 'chronological list' layout is also hard to follow when you have [Time Period][Political group she was in][random topics for events during that time related to that group]: I think it deserves a table of contents, and once that makes the organization easier to see, it might benefit from some re-organizing. Future Contributor (talk) 06:40, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it is wrong to feature it twice. I propose merging both sections into the latter one, so that the affair features at the time it came to light, not at the time the events actually happened, since it was the coming to light that had impact on/was relevant to her life. JackTheSecond (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Ursula Von der Leyen's father was a Nazi sympathisant

A black dress as appears in this article would be more suitable for Ursula Von der Leyen's facist governance of Europe. 83.137.6.162 (talk) 12:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)