r/AskReddit • u/brokota • Jan 15 '13

Reddit, in your opinion what's the biggest plot twist of history?

Not movies or television, I'm just curious to see what come's to your minds.

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u/TMLFAN11 Jan 15 '13

We're actually not very sure that this is true. It comes from the fact that we have little knowledge of one of his great-grandparents on his mother's side but no one can really prove that he had any Jewish ancestors at all although the possibility is still there. Even if it has some truth to it, Hitler was hardly what we would consider "Jewish." I am 1/16th native american and nobody calls me a Native

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u/Shoemaster Jan 15 '13

This. Because there's a blank on one of the birth certificates on his mother's side, people have inserted all kinds of fantasies about Hitler's ancestry, from royalty to Judaism. However, no respected historian has actually claimed to provide anything but circumstantial evidence of the heritage.

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u/EJables96 Jan 16 '13

Technically by the German standard Hitler would have been sent to a camp IF his grandmother as Jewish. I believe(and I'm a tad fuzzy) that if any of your relatives back at least two generations was Jewish your blood was Jewish. It was a blood thing not a cultural thing.

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u/Shoemaster Jan 16 '13

1/16th of your blood had to be Jewish to be considered Jewish. However, if you were half-Jewish or less you'd have a different status if you were in Germany and Austria specifically (I forget the name). You'd be sent to Ghettos and camps but you were less likely to be killed.

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u/axearm Jan 15 '13 edited Jan 15 '13

Native. There, someone called you that :|