Hitler May Have Married a Jew

A British documentary airing next week makes an astonishing claim: Hitler inadvertently married a Jew in one of his last acts before suicide, reports the Telegraph. The Channel 4 show, Dead Famous DNA, maintains that hair from Eva Braun's brush suggests she had Jewish ancestry on her mother's side. One caveat is that producers were unable to get DNA swabs from Braun's living relatives to confirm that the hair belongs to her, reports the Independent. But the circumstantial evidence is strong: It comes from a hairbrush taken from her apartment by a US Army officer, and it was inside a cosmetics case monogrammed with her initials.

In analyzing the hair, researchers found a DNA sequence associated with Ashkenazi Jews that is passed from mother to daughter. The Times of Israel explains that many Ashkenazi Jews converted to Catholicism in Germany during the 19th century. Braun attended Catholic school, and Hitler had her background carefully vetted before pursuing a relationship with the woman 23 years his junior, notes the Independent. The show suggests that neither she nor Hitler would have known about her Jewish roots. They were married in Hitler's bunker on April 29, 1945, and committed suicide ahead of advancing Soviet troops the next day. (Click to read about why some Jews fought on Hitler's side during the war.)