Skeptics Question Hitler's Jewish Bona-Fides

After a week in which news of Hitler's possible Jewish ancestry spread like wildfire over the Web, a few skeptical minds are pointing out that this rumor may be too incredible to be true.

Many journalists saw the perfect 'man bites dog' story in the revelation of Hitler's link to the people he most despised. "The results of this study are surprising," Ronny Decorte, a genetics expert, told the Belgian magazine Knack, "Hitler would not have been happy."

Others seized on the tired pop-psychological trope of Hitler projecting hatred of his rumored half-Jewish father, or his own self-hatred, onto the Jews themselves.

But in fact, writes Razib Khan in Discover Magazine's Gene Expression blog, Hitler's E1b1b haplotype is not so rare in Europe after all, and is certainly not a foolproof indication of Jewish ancestry. "There’s probably an easier way to find out if he had such ancestry," Khan writes, "Sequence his relatives' autosomal DNA. Ashkenazi Jews are genetically distinctive."

Meanwhile, reader Rachel Tabachnick wrote in response to JTA's coverage of the story that the rumor of Hitler's dad being the illegitimate son of his grandmother's Jewish employer has long ago been discredited by historian Ian Kershaw.

"It is irresponsible to promote this discredited myth, which is widely used in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories," she wrote.

"For example, in his 2006 book Jerusalem Countdown, Pastor John Hagee claims that Hitler was the product of these 'half-breed Jews.' Hagee also states that the anti-Christ, who he claims is alive today, is 'partially Jewish, as was Adolf Hitler.'"