Was Eva Braun Jewish?

[Karl Radl]

Was Eva Braun Jewish?

To be honest this is one article I never thought I would ever have to write: examining claims made in the last few days that Eva Braun; the wife of Adolf Hitler, was of jewish origin. This claim has recently been aired by several news agencies: the probable origin of the print story however is the British rag; 'The Daily Mail', (1) which has a rather nasty obsession with printing lurid and outright stupid articles (which are quite literally fantasies for the most part) about the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler in particular.

In this article I am not going to recount the details of Eva's life, but rather focus on the claims made by the partisans of this recent claim to have 'DNA evidence' of Eva's jewishness. What I would say is that this article is an unintended companion to my longer article debunking the well-known fairy tales and supposed recent 'DNA evidence' of Hitler's alleged jewishness (also championed by 'The Daily Mail'). (2)

Now the first point to state is that biographers of Eva; of which there are several, as well as those many individuals; both scholars and amateurs, who have done the same for Adolf Hitler: do not agree that there is any evidence of Eva's jewishness.

The most obvious reason for this is that Eva's ancestry was subject to checks by SS genealogists who used the numerous baptismal and death records (which were systematized across Germany from about the 1700s onward but we also tend to have good records before then). Had there been any hint of Eva's jewishness then it would have been in the SS files on Eva and her family: since this of particular interest to Himmler (in other words her ancestry had been traced according to the records and found to be completely non-jewish).

This already makes the claim unlikely, but when we combine this with the fact that mapping ancestry based on genetic material is notoriously difficult in the absence of unique markers or combinations of markers to a particular group of people. The best known of these identifying marks among jews is the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), which is common to nearly all members of the priestly class (the Kohanim) and is unique to jews.

The presence of the CMH would be definitive as there is no other way it could have gotten there than by Eva having had a jewish ancestor. Without any of these unique markers however identifying someone's marginal ancestry is notoriously difficult: precisely because you have to factor for genetic drift and mutation within a population over a significant period of time.

Now since this apparently hasn't been done (other than to claim rather absurdly that N1B1 is 'unique' to jewish populations (3) when it isn't); (4) or more precisely we aren't told what the identifiers used to identify Eva as having some jewish ancestry are (other than making an incorrect claim about N1B1 being 'unique'), then it is difficult to give credence to this claim, because it is very easy to say that someone has some similarities in their genetic make-up to a broad group such as Semites (i.e. North Africans/Arabs/jews etc). It is far more difficult without a unique identifier or preferably several such to say that someone actually has any ancestry from this broad group: let alone a specific people from this group.

What also makes me think this claim is absolute tosh from a genetic perspective is that the claim isn't specific. It doesn't say what kind of 'jewish people'; or put more precisely which jewish genetic cluster (probably one of the main three: Ashkenazi, Sephardi or Mizrahi), Eva is alleged to have had ancestry from (other than to suggest; correctly, that N1B1 is common among the Ashkenazim, but; crucially and not stated, is also found in non-jewish European populations [and is unrelated to jewishness] to a small extent).

Saying Eva had 'jewish DNA' is just stupid, because it firstly tells us what anyone with the ability to read already knows (that jews are a biologically related group [the recognition of which is borderline anti-Semitic by definition]) and secondly it treats 'the jews' as one biological group (as before stated) that are distinctly different to all those around them, but nearly identical within the group itself (which as anyone who reads books on the genetics of jews knows isn't actually true [rather jews are series of related genetic clusters more distant from other non-jewish groups than each other and which roughly correspond to the main three jewish groups mentioned earlier]).

A genetic argument made without these unique identifying markers however has to be discarded, because there is no evidence the person's relevant genetic material is from a Semitic; let alone jewish, source as the issue of probability hasn't been addressed.

As in order to make the claim you have match alleles and then cross-reference the allele frequency across all of the genetic material under consideration in order to match to known population groups at various percentages of genome (which then allows you to work out the probability of certain origins at various levels of confidence).

For a simple example: say a genetic origin test said you had 95 percent Scandinavian, 2 percent Spanish and 3 percent Russian alleles. This would not equate to someone being '2 percent Spanish', but rather that 2 percent of their alleles match those common to; but are not necessarily from, Spanish people. They are two very different statements to make, because when you say you are '2 percent Spanish' it turns a possible percentage of your genetic make-up into being a known percentage of your genetic make-up.

In other words: you don't have any proof that said genetic material is from Spain unless some of those alleles (or certain combinations of them) are unique; or nearly unique, to Spanish people, which allows you to say with a high level of confidence that you had a Spanish ancestor.

Thus with a little knowledge of genetics: it is easy to see that the 'Eva Braun was jewish' argument begins to come apart at the seams, because it is basing the claim on finding one haplogroup in several strands of hair, which they haven't matched to any known living relatives of Eva.

This last bit is of central importance in terms of the genetics, because they haven't demonstrated the hair is actually genetically-related to Eva's family. It is a nice 'theory' and makes for a nice 'lets smear the Nazis' story for increasingly desperate third-rate hacks, but there is no evidence that the hair is actually Eva's and quite a lot to suggest this claim is (probably) a hoax.

We can demonstrate this rather simply by relating the story of how this hair came to be tested.

The monogramed hair brush was stolen (or more correctly: looted) by one Captain Paul Baer; who worked for US intelligence, from Eva Braun's private residence and was apparently kept in the Baer's family until 1970 when it was 're-discovered' by his son Alan Baer and sold to a specialist antiques dealer called Paul Reznikoff. Reznikoff then sold eight strands of hair from this hair brush to Mark Evans: the presenter of Channel's 4 program 'Dead Famous DNA' for £1,200. (5)

Now in spite of the (stupid) claim by Evans that the 'providence is strong': it is actually almost non-existent (as is usually the case when people start harping on about 'how good the providence is'), because while it is reasonable to state that the hairbrush belonged to Eva.

There is no evidence that:

A) Eva ever actually used the hairbrush.

B) Nobody else other than Eva used it (which is the necessary and non-evidenced; therefore unjustifiable, assumption behind the whole claim).

C) Those eight hairs come from the period concerned.

As well as perhaps most importantly: there is absolutely no evidence that those hairs come from Eva.

I will presume the lab checked the sex of the hairs being tested (as a way of validating the sample) as I don't doubt their competence (if they didn't however that is another problem with the claim). However the 'providence' of these hairs is quite another matter given that there is absolutely nothing to tie them to Eva and every reason to think they probably aren't hers.

After all how many women let their friends use their hairbrushes?

Most I should think: certainly I have never heard of women who wouldn't (and nor has my wife).

So why could the hairs not come say from a friend of Eva's (or even one of her maids)?

Or consider that both Baer and Reznikoff are both surnames that are often taken by families of jewish origins (for example Yitzhak Baer and Charles Reznikoff) and that this hairbrush has been in their keeping for a total of some sixty-nine years (and we have no evidence on the use or 'providence' of the hair on the hairbrush during this time). That is rather along time for someone not to touch up their hair even once with such a fancy hairbrush.

That Reznikoff only gave Evans eight hairs to test (whether or not Evans selected or someone a bit more responsible selected them I haven't been able to gather) and that they were all the same is actually suggestive that this is a hoax.

This is for the simple reason that we know Eva had a lot of close girlfriends and it is unreasonable to assume that they do not somewhat occasionally share such common items of female life as hairbrushes. Thus had the hairs been genuine we would have expected several of the hairs to be different from each other: due to having picked up some other hair from other users of the hairbrush.

In other words: the fact that there is no apparent variability in the (very small) sample and that the supposition without that evidence that only one woman; and that woman was Eva Braun, ever used this hairbrush up till 1945 and then it was never used again till Reznikoff plucked those hairs out to sell to Evans is suggestive that this claim is a hoax.

As it simply doesn't tell us anything other than there were eight hairs with a potentially part-jewish origin on a hairbrush that was once owned by Eva Braun and which has been in the possession of potentially jewish individuals for sixty-nine years.

Is that 'evidence' that Eva Braun was jewish?

Nope.

Is it evidence of the gullibility of modern journalists?

Yep.

References

(1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...sh-family.html
(2) This is available at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...jewish-or.html
(3) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...sh-family.html
(4) https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...7_0_07174.html
(5) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...h-family.html; http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news...ectid=11232926

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This was originally published at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...un-jewish.html

[Robert Ransdell]

I can hear it now, our people, WN, wanting to throw up a big protest to this BS and try to debate this kind of accusation.

How can you expect to convince people of anything, of the truth, if they are only interested in throwing whatever shit they can up against the wall to see what sticks, their accusations of this nature constantly contradict what they claimed the week, month, year prior, and is born of the reality that the enemy is overly preoccupied with the last figure in time who stood up against them, and beat them, they smear the man who almost got them, partly because of their almost genetic hatred of him, and of course to try to keep people confused and without a conclusion to this problem we have, this Jewish problem.

New strategy, lets uphold their BS ideas and stories like this one as the truth and turn it around on them where it bites them on the ass.

Ok kike or kike servant who did this "investigation" on Eva Braun, ok sure enough she is Jewish, , (don't see that rat face on that beautiful woman, but hey you are a "respected" non- "Nazi" so what you say certainly trumps what we would come back with, and my friends in this era it does so we have to find ways to make them backpeddle, right?) and of course we "know" from other "researchers" such as yourself that Hitler was Jewish too right?

So a Jewish man with his Jewish wife killed 6 million Jews in Germany during WW2.

So stop the presses and stop the Holocaust reparations swindle right fucking now - it was Jews who were responsible for the killing of Jews, all that money that has been sucked out of Germany must now be returned, with interest, and penalties. You Jews have no one to blame but your own fellow Jews Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun for gassing all those Jews so there is no one to blame but your own people - WHERE IS THAT REPARATIONS MONEY, the Germans want it back.

Also for having fallen under the leadership of these "Jews" they deserve reparations on top of the stolen reparations for having their nation destroyed, for having their people massacred by bombing after bombing on German cities, all because a bunch of Jews were really to blame for the National Socialist government. This is especially true since next week we have some other fine Jew telling us some other NS official (Himmler, Goebbles, whomever the fucking insects decide to smear on that occasion) was Jewish.

I mean you could keep going with this, my guess is if it was kept up you wouldn't even have to go as far as I did here, instead of it being a tool of demoralization and confusion for the enemy, we might try to turn it into a weapon of a sort for ourselves against them, oppose lies and venom with sarcasm, humor, and a steely resistance - I see many of them running back into the rotten hole from which they came.

[SaraT]

The Daily Mail is shameless in its endless campaign of inventing specious claims in an attempt to discredit National Socialism in general and the NS leadership in particular. Next year they will probably "find evidence" that Hitler was having a sexual relationship with a Jewish tranny who was disguised as one of his secretaries/maids.

[Nigel Thornberry]

This paper completely undermines their claims about N1b1:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/13...comms3543.html

[Karl Radl]

Originally Posted by Nigel Thornberry

This paper completely undermines their claims about N1b1:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/13...comms3543.html

Thanks Nigel.

[Hadding]

National-Socialist Worldview was easily the firstest with the mostest on this matter.

More Abuse of DNA-Evidence by Anti-White Media.

Here is a concise statement of the argument against the claim that Eva Braun was Jewish:

Mark Evans blundered. The biggest concentration of N1b in Europe is in Albania, which is not exactly a Jewish population-center. N1b1, which Eva Braun is said to have carried, is 13 thousand years old and not even close to being exclusively Jewish. It's N1b2, only about 2000 years old, that is strongly associated with Ashkenazi Jews. (American Journal of Human Genetics, 10 February 2012)

It is also practically impossible that Eva Braun could have had a Jewish matrilineal ancestor without its being a matter of record, since the Lutheran and Catholic churches in Germany have kept birth-records extending back to 1648 and beyond.

It is amazing that BBC-4 published the claim that Eva Braun was Jewish, and that so many news-outlets ran with it, without checking its credibility or the accuracy of its assumptions.

I expect to have to correct people on this for years to come.

[Kusko J]

Originally Posted by SaraT

The Daily Mail is shameless in its endless campaign of inventing specious claims in an attempt to discredit National Socialism in general and the NS leadership in particular. Next year they will probably "find evidence" that Hitler was having a sexual relationship with a Jewish tranny who was disguised as one of his secretaries/maids.

They'll go so far as a smear in the smaller details, like one of Hitler pet's German Shepards used to lick his wiener on occasions.

[SUNOFSPARTA]

naaaaa

Almost made me drop my bacon sandwich

[Kusko J]

New documentary claims Hitler's wife may have been Jewish

The DNA was taken from Braun’s hair samples from a brush used by Braun and found at Hitler’s mountain retreat by a US army captain.
...

Scientists commissioned by the show’s producers found a DNA sequence passed down through her maternal line – haplogroup N1b1 – that they said was “strongly associated” with Ashkenazi Jews, AFP reported.
...

http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Je...-Jewish-347610

[Karl Radl]

I do love how they forget the rules of evidence when it suits them.

N1b1 does not equal 'jewish'.

And they haven't even actually linked the eight hairs taken to Eva yet (happily forgetting the sixty-nine year period of separation from Eva without forensic controls).

According to their evidence so far: you'd have to believe in the existence of the Yeti and Bigfoot too (both of which have hairs; with little to no providence, to 'support' their cases).

Perhaps rabbis are going to start going squatchin in Israel now?

[Adolf The Great]

Well done for your finding Hadding which refutes all the claims she may have been of Jewish descent.

They don't even know for sure if the hair tested was hers anyways...

Another thing they fail to put into the articles is that even if this was true (lets just presume), she still would NOT have been considered a Jew under Hitler's own racial laws since all the way back to her grandparents were Aryan (Hitler had her family tree investigated).

[Hadding]

Originally Posted by Adolf The Great

Well done for your finding Hadding which refutes all the claims she may have been of Jewish descent.

They don't even know for sure if the hair tested was hers anyways...

Another thing they fail to put into the articles is that even if this was true (lets just presume), she still would NOT have been considered a Jew under Hitler's own racial laws since all the way back to her grandparents were Aryan (Hitler had her family tree investigated).

The investigation of Eva Braun's ancestry surely extended at least as far back as 1648, since Hitler believed, according to his statements in the Table Talk, that even remote Jewish ancestors could produce an atavism.

You are right about the standards of the Nuremberg Laws, which were rather loose.

[Adolf The Great]

Originally Posted by Hadding

The investigation of Eva Braun's ancestry surely extended at least as far back as 1648, since Hitler believed, according to his statements in the Table Talk, that even remote Jewish ancestors could produce an atavism.

You are right about the standards of the Nuremberg Laws, which were rather loose.

Where are you getting this back to 1648 from?

Even SS people were only required to go back as far as 1800 (1750 for others).

The Nuremberg Laws were not loose, how so? The racial part defined anybody of Aryan ancestry (European/White) to be eligible for the citizenship to the state whilst denying non-Aryans primarily Jews but also Gypsies, blacks, etc from citizenship.

[Hadding]

Originally Posted by Adolf The Great

Where are you getting this back to 1648 from?

Even SS people were only required to go back as far as 1800 (1750 for others).

The Nuremberg Laws were not loose, how so? The racial part defined anybody of Aryan ancestry (European/White) to be eligible for the citizenship to the state whilst denying non-Aryans primarily Jews but also Gypsies, blacks, etc from citizenship.

1648 was the end of the Thirty Years' War. Many birth-records were destroyed during that war, but it was generally possible to research any German person's birth-records at least that far back. In the Dead Famous DNA show Mark Evans handles a genealogical chart for Adolf Hitler extending back to 1644.

Hitler expresses the belief in the Table Talk that even a single Jew hundreds of years earlier in the family-tree could produce an atavism, and of course he would not have wanted to be embarrassed with any surprise revelations. It is therefore common sense that he had Eva's ancestry researched as far back as the records allowed.

[Joe_Smith]

Really, who gives a shit. Even the dimmest of media consumers don't believe these accusations.

If Eva Braun had some Jewish ancestor hundreds of years ago, who gives a shit. The system encourages this kind of hair splitting to steer the debate into a pointless direction.

The Nazis were not nearly as neurotic about this stuff as Jews are today, in fact they were very practical and made some individual exceptions when merited. In Israel it's different. Members of the Priest class (Kohanim) must demonstrate extreme racial purity and cannot marry a woman with even a drop of Gentile blood (even if the woman practices Judaism and is mostly Jewish).

[SUNOFSPARTA]

Eva was a one eyed,Porto Rican midget disguised as a Nun

[Hans Norling]

Originally Posted by Adolf The Great

The Nuremberg Laws were not loose, how so? The racial part defined anybody of Aryan ancestry (European/White) to be eligible for the citizenship to the state whilst denying non-Aryans primarily Jews but also Gypsies, blacks, etc from citizenship.

3/4's of biologically aryan make-up made you eligable for citizenship in the 'Reich' no? [i.e, a one quarter arab/semite would be fine]

[Joe_Smith]

Originally Posted by Hans Norling

3/4's of biologically aryan make-up made you eligable for citizenship in the 'Reich' no? [i.e, a one quarter arab/semite would be fine]

The Germans were practical and populist, which the Jews are desperate to hide because it shows the Third Reich acted purely out of self-defense rather than "bigotry". Persons who were 1/4 Jewish were kept under a more watchful eye than those who were not however. This policy paid off, for example Von Manstein was 1/4 Jewish but he was a great man and brilliant general, the Aryan side of him surely overpowered everything else.

That rare instance of Jewish WWI veterans were also pardoned from the Nuremberg laws and some of them were half or more Jewish. It would be hard to convince the nationalist base of the NSDAP that the extreme minority of Jews who showed their loyalty by serving on the frontlines for Germany is an enemy.

Balancing idealism and collective racial interests with practical reality and individual rights is a tricky thing the Nazis sought to achieve. The complexities of a massive country like Germany are not to be taken lightly.

[Hadding]

Originally Posted by Joe_Smith

Really, who gives a shit. Even the dimmest of media consumers don't believe these accusations.

You're wrong.

[Adolf The Great]

Originally Posted by Hadding

1648 was the end of the Thirty Years' War. Many birth-records were destroyed during that war, but it was generally possible to research any German person's birth-records at least that far back. In the Dead Famous DNA show Mark Evans handles a genealogical chart for Adolf Hitler extending back to 1644.

Hitler expresses the belief in the Table Talk that even a single Jew hundreds of years earlier in the family-tree could produce an atavism, and of course he would not have wanted to be embarrassed with any surprise revelations. It is therefore common sense that he had Eva's ancestry researched as far back as the records allowed.

I've read that SS officers had to trace back their ancestry to 1800 (some to 1750) and normal citizens just back to their grandparents. Although Himmler did issue that:

I can so well imagine your position and feelings. So far as our blood is concerned, I have stipulated that the end of the Thirty Years War (1648 is to be the day to which each of us is obliged to make sure of his ancestry. Should there be some Jewish blood after that date a man must leave the S.S. . . . In telling you all this I hope that you will understand the great sacrifice I have to impose on you . . . In your heart of hearts you still belong to us, you can still feel you are an S.S. man.

But yes as far back as records show there is no evidence that Eva had any Jewish ancestry.

Originally Posted by Hans Norling

3/4's of biologically aryan make-up made you eligable for citizenship in the 'Reich' no? [i.e, a one quarter arab/semite would be fine]

One had to prove 4/4 grandparents were Aryan to be a citizen of the state. People with 1/4 of non-Aryan ancestry were classified as Mischling but were eligible to marry Aryans without permission (with the belief that the Aryan blood would be more dominant and wipe out the non-Aryan ancestry).

Originally Posted by Joe_Smith

for example Von Manstein was 1/4 Jewish but he was a great man and brilliant general, the Aryan side of him surely overpowered everything else.

There is no evidence Manstein had any Jewish ancestry.

That rare instance of Jewish WWI veterans were also pardoned from the Nuremberg laws and some of them were half or more Jewish. It would be hard to convince the nationalist base of the NSDAP that the extreme minority of Jews who showed their loyalty by serving on the frontlines for Germany is an enemy.

They were not excluded from the Nuremberg laws but rather there were exceptions into which some Mischling were not restricted to all the laws imposed on non-Aryans; they still were denied citizenship and were forbid from having sexual relations and marriages with Aryans classified as Mischling.