Germans have expressed their concern that a drawing tweeted out by the Federal Police in Bavaria is not what it claims to be – a child’s drawing juxtaposing the Syrian war with the safety and security of Germany, according to Der Spiegel.

The paper reports that while the police claim they were given the drawing by the child of a migrant, that observers have cast doubt on its veracity, claiming it is a piece of propaganda distributed by the police in order to calm the rising tensions over the migrant crisis.

The police have hung the picture (above) in a registration centre for refugees.

They claim it was given to them by “a seven or eight year old girl”.

One officer said: “We sat on Monday evening in the entrance area of ​​the clearing house in Passau at a table when the girl came to me, gave me the picture and went away again”.

“The picture was never painted a child,” commented one user on Facebook, asserting that the figures were drawn deliberately in childlike way.

“In addition, a child paints no roof in perspective”, they continued, claiming “propagandistic staging by the police”.

But the tweeted imaged has indeed gone viral, with over 8,000 people retweeting it.

And while the Washington Post seems to have accepted the police version of events, Der Spiegel, the original source, doesn’t seem convinced, stating: “Whether the girl painted the picture alone or whether she got help from an adult, or whether perhaps only handed over the drawings of another child, is still unclear.

“Perhaps the signature on the paper is that of a boy, because the first part could mean Mohammed. There you will find the letters MHMD which are in Arabic for the first name Mohammed.”