Adolf Hitler Apparently DID Have Jewish Ancestry
It's long been suspected that Hitler had a Jewish ancestor, possibly one of whose existence he was aware. Now, genetic research has provided support for this theory.
From "DNA tests reveal 'Hitler was descended from the Jews and Africans he hated'", by Allan Hall in the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1305414/Hitler-descended-Jews-Africans-DNA-tests-reveal.html).
Journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren used DNA to track down 39 of the Fuhrer's relatives earlier this year.
They included an Austrian farmer revealed only as a cousin called Norbert H.
A Belgian news magazine has reported that samples of saliva taken from these people strongly suggest Hitler had antecedents he certainly would not have cared for.
A chromosome called Haplopgroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) in their samples is rare in Germany and indeed Western Europe.
'It is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews,' Mr Vermeeren said.
Now, the question is just why a man born in Northern Austria would have this gene complex. It's impossible to say for sure, but the likely inference is that he had a fairly recent Jewish ancestor, as Jews were fairly common in 19th-century Austria, but Berbers a bit thin on the ground. This has been long suspected. As the article itself points out
His father, Alois, is thought to have been the illegitimate offspring of a maid called Maria Schickelgruber and a 19-year-old Jewish man called Frankenberger.
This would have made the man who inspired the Holocaust one-quarter Jewish.
... and thus "Jewish" under his own racial laws, though hardly "Jewish" by any sane biolological, let alone cultural, definition of the term.
The article is slightly dishonest, in that it plays up the "African" part of the ancestry as well. While it's true that (all) Berbers and (some) Sephardim are of "African" ancestry, this is only true in the geographic sense of the word. As the picture in the article clearly shows, the Berbers are a Caucasian race, and so, alas, Hitler is not recently decended from Negroes, which would have been even more amusing given his racialist theories.
The significance of this? Mostly a matter of curiosity, unless you actually believe that Jews or Berbers are racially inferior to Germans. OTOH, if Hitler knew about any of this growing up (and the Frankenberger connection would have been recent enough that it might have entered family or even local gossip) it might have made a deep impression on him growing up. Certainly, if true it might have even more deeply affected Hitler's father, Alois, whose cruel rigidity and abuse of Hitler's mother had a very major and negative effect on Hitler's personality development.
In other words, this could actually be one of the reasons why Hitler was mad enough to carry out the Holocaust, and in general to lead Germany on a disastrous war against much of the rest of the world. Not because there is anything inherently evil about Jewish (or Berber) ancestry, but because of how the 19th-century Austrians would have seen it, and thus treated the young Hitler, or even his father as a lad.
Something to think about.
From "DNA tests reveal 'Hitler was descended from the Jews and Africans he hated'", by Allan Hall in the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1305414/Hitler-descended-Jews-Africans-DNA-tests-reveal.html).
Journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren used DNA to track down 39 of the Fuhrer's relatives earlier this year.
They included an Austrian farmer revealed only as a cousin called Norbert H.
A Belgian news magazine has reported that samples of saliva taken from these people strongly suggest Hitler had antecedents he certainly would not have cared for.
A chromosome called Haplopgroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) in their samples is rare in Germany and indeed Western Europe.
'It is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews,' Mr Vermeeren said.
Now, the question is just why a man born in Northern Austria would have this gene complex. It's impossible to say for sure, but the likely inference is that he had a fairly recent Jewish ancestor, as Jews were fairly common in 19th-century Austria, but Berbers a bit thin on the ground. This has been long suspected. As the article itself points out
His father, Alois, is thought to have been the illegitimate offspring of a maid called Maria Schickelgruber and a 19-year-old Jewish man called Frankenberger.
This would have made the man who inspired the Holocaust one-quarter Jewish.
... and thus "Jewish" under his own racial laws, though hardly "Jewish" by any sane biolological, let alone cultural, definition of the term.
The article is slightly dishonest, in that it plays up the "African" part of the ancestry as well. While it's true that (all) Berbers and (some) Sephardim are of "African" ancestry, this is only true in the geographic sense of the word. As the picture in the article clearly shows, the Berbers are a Caucasian race, and so, alas, Hitler is not recently decended from Negroes, which would have been even more amusing given his racialist theories.
The significance of this? Mostly a matter of curiosity, unless you actually believe that Jews or Berbers are racially inferior to Germans. OTOH, if Hitler knew about any of this growing up (and the Frankenberger connection would have been recent enough that it might have entered family or even local gossip) it might have made a deep impression on him growing up. Certainly, if true it might have even more deeply affected Hitler's father, Alois, whose cruel rigidity and abuse of Hitler's mother had a very major and negative effect on Hitler's personality development.
In other words, this could actually be one of the reasons why Hitler was mad enough to carry out the Holocaust, and in general to lead Germany on a disastrous war against much of the rest of the world. Not because there is anything inherently evil about Jewish (or Berber) ancestry, but because of how the 19th-century Austrians would have seen it, and thus treated the young Hitler, or even his father as a lad.
Something to think about.