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Brussels, Belgium - DNA tests have revealed Adolf Hitler may have been related to both Jews and black people that he earmarked for extermination.

Brussels news magazine Knack has claimed that DNA obtained from the Nazi leader’s relatives living in America led to the discovery.

Journalist Jean-Paul Mulders garnered the DNA from a serviette dropped by one of three known Hitler descendants who live on Long Island, New York.

That led earlier this year to the tracking down in Austria of a farmer known only as Norbert H. who was found to be a cousin of the German dictator.

Mulders used the services of historian Marc Vermeeren to find the cousin, in the Waldviertel region, and another 39 distant relatives of Hitler, who killed himself in his bunker in Berlin in April 1945.

Norbert H. gave Vermeeren and Mulders a sample of his saliva.

Vermeeren in particular wanted to see if rumours of Hitler fathering a child to a French peasant woman during World War I were true.

Using both the Austrian sample and the serviette DNA, Mulders claims the link between the two men was ‘irrefutable - the Y-chromosome was identical’.

But the particular form of the DNA - Haplopgroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) - is rare in Germany and indeed western Europe. 

‘It is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews,’ he said.

‘One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised,’ said Mulders in the magazine.

Haplogroup E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6 to 30 per cent  of Sephardic Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.

‘This is a surprising result,’ said Ronny Decorte, a genetic specialist.

He confirmed the test outcome and stressed the probability that Hitler did have some roots in North Africa.

‘It is difficult to predict, what happens with this information, both to opponents and supporters of Hitler,’ he added.

The magazine says the DNA was tested under stringent laboratory conditions to obtain the results.

The original DNA on the serviette in America came from Alexander Stuart-Houston, 61, a grand-nephew of Hitler.

He was trailed for seven days before he dropped the litter which Mulders said led him to the relation in Austria - and now to this link with Hitler‘s sworn enemies.

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