You’ve all heard the rumor, that Hitler’s paternal grandfather was Jewish. But a new DNA study shows that … well, actually, that Hitler did likely have some Jewish heritage. Specifically, a Belgian scientist and a Belgian journalist tested the saliva of 39 of the Führer’s relatives and found one chromosome—Haplogroup E1b1b1, since you ask—which is traceable back to both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.
At the very least, the result seems to demonstrate that Hitler was of mixed race, which was pretty much a no-no by itself, as I recall. “This is a surprising result,” said a Belgian geneticist. “Hitler would not have been happy.” Oh noes!
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.