Was Hitler a Jew? Since the 1920s, but especially since the fall of the Third Reich, this question has been a subject for idle gossip and even scholarly debate. While the claim that Hitler was of Jewish, not Aryan, descent seems ridiculous at face value, there is actually some evidence to support it. We should be critical of this evidence, however. Hitler had many supporters as well as many enemies, so we cannot trust any one particular source. We should, instead, look a look at the whole body of evidence and

All serious questions about Hitler's paternity begin with the fact that the identity of his paternal grandfather is not entirely certain. Hitler's father, Alois Schicklgruber was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The official birth certificate did not name the father, although Hitler identified his grandfather as Johann Georg Hiedler whom Maria married five years after Alois was born.

Some scholars have doubts about the veracity of these claims, however. Maria died five years after her marriage to Georg and by that time, Alois had been sent to live with his uncle. Johann Nepomuk Hiedler raised Alois like a son and eventually convinced Alois to change his name to Hiedler (though Alois preferred to spell it Hitler). Some suggest that Nepomuk was actually, Alois' biological, not adoptive father. There is no hard evidence to support this, but scholars have questioned why Nepomuk adopted Alois even before he became an orphan and why Nepomuk waited many years, until after his own wife had died, before he encouraged Alois to adopt the family name. Some suggest it was because Alois was really his son, although Nepomuk was loath to admit it while his own wife was alive.

Whether or not Johann Nepomuk was Hitler's paternal grandfather, he was Hitler's maternal great-grandfather. This has been well established. It means that if, as Hitler claimed, Johann Georg was Hitler's paternal grandfather, Hitler's parents where second cousins. If, on the other hand, Johann Nepomuk was Hitler's paternal grandfather, Hitler's parents were uncle and niece. Obviously, which brother sired Alois has certain implications of Hitler's genes as well as his reputation.

While one could easily imagine a vast Nazi conspiracy to hide the extent of the incest in Hitler's family from the German people, it is quite difficult to imagine that Nepomuk would have knowingly allowed his son to marry his granddaughter. It is possible that Nepomuk was not sure whether or not

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