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You no doubt have already read that DNA tests on a sample of blood from Hitler’s underground bunker suggest that he had Kallmann syndrome. It also suggests that he had a “high predisposition for autism, ADHD, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

Dispositions are not fate, of course, and there has been plenty of pushback on the association of people with these conditions as somehow more likely to be “evil.” What I do think is interesting is that if you take the findings along with the revelatoins within the book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany then it’s no wonder that he was so messed up.

The bloodied swatch of fabric - now 80 years old - was cut out of the sofa in Hitler’s underground bunker, where he killed himself when Allied forces descended on Berlin at the end of World War Two.

While inspecting the bunker, Colonel Roswell P Rosengren of the US army saw an opportunity to get a unique war trophy and he pocketed the fabric. It’s now framed and on display at the Gettysburg Museum of History, in the US.

The scientists are confident it really is Hitler’s blood, because they wereable to perfectly match the Y-chromosome with a DNA sample from a male relative that had been collected a decade prior.

The results, which are now under peer review, are indeed fascinating.

It is the first time Hitler’s DNA has been identified, and over the courseof four years, scientists were able to sequence it to see the genetic makeup of one of the world’s most horrific tyrants.

What is certain, experts say, is that Hitler did not have Jewish ancestry - a rumour that had been circulating since the 1920s.

Another key finding is that he had Kallmann syndrome, a genetic disorder that, among other things, can affect puberty and the development of sexual organs. In particular, it can lead to a micropenis and undescended testes - which, if you know the British war-time song, had been another rumour flying around about Hitler.

Kallmann syndrome can also affect the libido, which is particularly interesting, said historian and Potsdam University lecturer Dr Alex Kay, who is featured in the documentary.

“It tells us a lot about his private life - or more accurately, that he didn’t have a private life,” he explains.

Historians have long debated why Hitler was so completely devoted to politics, “to the almost total exclusion of any kind of private life”, and this could help to explain that.

These kinds of findings, the experts say, are what make them both fascinating and useful. As Prof King puts it: “the marrying of history and genetics”.

Source: BBC News

Image: CC BY Freenerd