Since he served in the First World War and was mocked by his fellow soldiers, rumours have circulated about Adolf Hitler’s sexual abnormalities.
Now, fresh research conducted by an international team of scientists and historians is said to finally shed light on what exactly was wrong with the Nazi leader.
After analysing a strand of his DNA, they say there is a high likelihood he suffered from some form of Kallman Syndrome, a genetic disorder that prevents a person from starting or fully completing puberty.
Contrary to another myth, however, they also found that the German dictator had no Jewish ancestry.
The findings include the discovery that a gene named PROK2, which is related to the development of sexual organs, was depleted for Hitler.
Its absence is associated with lower-than-normal testosterone levels and can result in a micropenis, which is typically just a few centimetres long.
Professor Turi King, who is the lead geneticist on the research and previously identified the remains of King Richard III, told Sky News: “If you’d told me a few years ago I’d be talking about Hitler’s genitals, I would never would have believed it.”
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She said she “agonised” over the decision of whether to examine his DNA but decided to because thousands of other archaeological remains had been subjected to the same process.
“Why should Hitler be any different?” she asked herself. “Why should we not do him? That would be to put him on a pedestal.”
The team’s findings, Professor King said, would add “another layer of information” to our understanding of one of the most studied men in history.
It also offers insight into the central theme of the famous wartime song Hitler Has Only Got One Ball, which was popular among Britons as part of efforts to malign the German leadership.
The DNA studied came originally from a bloodstained sofa in Hitler’s bunker.
When Soviet forces let in General Dwight D Eisenhower after the fall of the Nazi regime, his communications officer, Colonel Roswell P Rosengren, cut off a piece and took it home with him.
After sitting in his safe for decades, it was eventually sold to the Gettysburg Museum of History.
The research also found that Hitler had a high polygenic risk score – a measure created by examining an individual’s DNA against the genetics of the population at large – for autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
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The findings are due to be broadcast in a two-part documentary that will air on Channel 4 from 15 November, called Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint Of A Dictator.
Professor King cautioned against reading too much into the findings, however.
“Genetics are one part of the picture of your personality,” she said.
“Hitler’s father was an alcoholic who beat him. He had four or five siblings die. His mum dies. He has gone through a lot of adverse life events, the time he’s living in, his society: these all affect him.”
Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, an autism expert, told the programme: “We can’t reduce his behaviour to these diagnoses. Autism is a disability and a difference. It’s a disability in the sense that people who are autistic struggle with social relationships and communication. They struggle with that first kind of empathy.
“The vast majority of these individuals do not do bad things. We’ve just got to keep that in mind so that it doesn’t become out of balance.”
Another expert, Professor Thomas Weber of the University of Aberdeen, also cautioned against extrapolating the dictator’s role in history from his DNA, adding: “I was concerned what damage the analysis of his DNA might do… Yet now that Hitler’s DNA has been analysed, it would be wrong and even unethical to attempt to put the genie back into the bottle and to ignore the results of the analysis.
“The genetic make-up of extremists and non-extremists is on average the same. There simply is no dictator gene. Nor is Hitler’s DNA, or the DNA of any other tyrant for that matter, the blueprint of a dictator.
“What we need to do with the results of Hitler’s DNA analysis is what we as historians do with any source: apply source criticism, use them extremely carefully and soberly, compare them with other accounts and calibrate them.”
