Could the greatest mass murderer in history have actually had the same background as the people he exterminated in the Holocaust?
That’s the remarkable finding from a journalist on Belgian magazine Knack, and a historian, the Daily Telegraph reported. The pair tracked down 39 of Hitler’s relatives, including a cousin living in Austria, earlier this year, and took saliva samples.
The samples showed that a chromosome grouping that the Hitlers have is rare in Germany and western Europe, but is common among north African people, particularly Berbers and Somalis, and Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.
“This is a surprising result,” said Ronny Decorte, a genetic
specialist at the Catholic University of Leuven, told Knack.
“The affair is fascinating if one compares it with the conception of the
world of the Nazis, in which race and blood was central.
“Hitler’s concern over his descent was not unjustified. He was apparently not “pure”
or ‘Ayran’.”
For an overview of the genocide under the Nazis (the Holocaust), see this BBC post.
