'Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator' airs this weekend on UK screens and apparently vindicates a famous British WWII song which mocked the Nazi dictator.
“Hitler has only got one ball / The other is in the Albert Hall / His mother, the dirty bugger / Chopped it off when Hitler was small.”
So goes the British World War II ditty, sung to the tune of the ‘Colonel Bogey March’. Now, a new documentary set to air on UK screens this weekend apparently gives the song some extra potency.
The Channel 4 produced documentary Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator features DNA specialist Professor Turi King, who has analyzed samples extracted from a bloodstain found on fabric from the sofa on which Hitler killed himself.
Failing to get fresh DNA samples from any of Hitler’s surviving relatives in Austria and the US, the samples were tested against the DNA swab of a Hitler male-line relative, previously collected by Belgian journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren. It yielded a perfect Y-chromosome match and reveals that Hitler carried a mutation in the PROK2 gene.
This is strongly associated with Kallmann syndrome – a genetic disorder which can lead to delayed puberty and in some cases, a micropenis. The mutation also usually causes either one or both testicles to not develop normally, which would support the rumour that the Nazi dictator was missing a testicle.
Discussing the findings, King told BBC Radio 4: "I have some wonderful colleagues at the Pasteur institute who found that he has a deletion in a gene which we know is strongly associated with a condition known as Kallmann syndrome, which is characterised by low testosterone levels, by abnormal development of the sexual organs, and in 5 - 10 per cent of cases, a micropenis.”
Elsewhere, the documentary reportedly reveals that genetic markers show that Hitler had a propensity for antisocial behaviour, and that he was not of Jewish origin, therefore debunking the persistent myth.
Hitler's father, Alois, was an illegitimate child and because of the uncertainty regarding the identity of his father, a conspiracy theory grew that the dictator’s grandfather was Jewish.
This unproven claim was even repeated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a 2022 interview on Italian TV programme Zona Bianca.
When asked how Russia can claim that it is fighting to "de-Nazify" Ukraine when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is himself Jewish, Lavrov said: "I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood. [That Zelensky is Jewish] means absolutely nothing. Wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews."
The comments were met with outrage, with Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid calling Lavrov's words "unforgivable" and US State Department spokesman Ned Price stating that Lavrov's comments showed "the lowest form of racism".
The two-part documentary Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator starts on Channel 4 on 15 November.
