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DNA samples taken from Adolf Hitler’s relatives show that the Nazi leader might have been of Jewish descent.
A Belgian journalist, Jean-Paul Mulders, and a historian, Marc Vermeeren, worked together to locate 39 relatives of Hitler and collect saliva samples, in order to determine his genetic background.
An analysis of the samples revealed a chromosome known as Haplogroup E1b1b1, which the Daily Telegraph reports, “is rare in Western Europe and is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.”
The results were published in the Belgian magazine, Knack, where Mulders wrote that the study’s findings indicate “that Hitler was related to people whom he despised.” (via the Daily Telegraph)