Hitler's hate befell races he owes his ancestry to
DNA tests carried out on Nazi leader's relatives establish antecedents he would not have cared for
London: Adolf Hitler is likely to have been descended from both Jews and Africans, according to DNA tests.
Samples taken from relatives of the Nazi leader show that he is biologically linked to the sub-human races he sought to exterminate.
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 Haplop-group 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, Vermeeren said.
One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised, adds Mulders in the magazine, Knack.
Surprising result
Haplop-group E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6 per cent to 30 per cent of Sephardic Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.
This is a surprising result, said Ronny Decorte, a genetic specialist who agreed that Hitler probably did have some roots in North Africa.
It is difficult to predict, what happens with this information, both in Berlin to opponents and supporters of Hitler, he added.
The magazine says the DNA was tested under stringent laboratory conditions to obtain the results.
It is not the first time that historians have suggested Hitler had Jewish ancestry.
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.
DNA was also taken from American Alexander Stuart-Houston, 61, a grand-nephew of Hitler.
He was trailed for seven days before he dropped a used serviette which Mulders said led him to the cousin in Austria and the link with Hitler's sworn enemies.
