Is German Chancellor Angela Merkel actually the daughter of Adolf Hitler?

On the surface, it sounds like the kind of ridiculous conspiracy theorizing that gives the internet a bad name. Hitler had no known children, and Merkel was born a decade after Der Fuhrer put a bullet in his face. And while the Nazis have been speculated to have developed all sorts of fantastical technologies, from moon bases to anti-gravity bells to time travel, none of those things are anything but the domain of pulp science fiction and “Fourth Reich” conspiracy theories.

And yet, the idea that Merkel could have been spawned from the seed of history’s greatest monster is surprisingly (or not) popular in the darker corners of the internet.

A Google search brings up nearly a million hits and a score of memes claiming the two have strong facial similarities. And while no mainstream source has ever made such an allegation, the fact that the popular media has ignored it has only fueled those who believe it.

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After all, what better way for the Fuhrer to continue his monstrous legacy after his death than by having his daughter take control of a prosperous, modern Germany? Sure, he didn’t take control of the world, but couldn’t he have had a backup plan?

While Merkel has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005, the rumor didn’t emerge until a 2007 article by an anonymous journalist on the Russia-based garbage website “What Does it Mean,” a source of thousands of hoaxes and fake nonsense.

Entitled “Daughter Of Adolph Hitler Vows To Complete European Union,” the piece theorizes that secret papers from East German intelligence prove that Eva Braun’s sister Gretl was inseminated with Der Fuhrer’s frozen sperm to create a daughter who could be groomed to take control of Germany – Angela Merkel.

Sometimes a conspiracy theory can take root simply because it’s been around for a while, gaining traction only by virtue of its existence.

It’s certainly not because of the source, as the Russia-based “What Does it Mean” might be one of the worst hoax sites on the internet, the home of countless fake stories and ridiculous conspiracy theories. A quick glance at its high tech for 1995 layout shows countless stories about the glory of Russia, the looming collapse of America, and the decadence of the west.

For the record, Angela Merkel was born in 1954, and her early life has been extensively documented. She’s the daughter of a pastor father and teacher mother, grew up in East Germany, and ran in the first election after the German unification. She entered politics in 1990, and rose to the rank of Chancellor in 2005, and is likely to hold the post until the next German federal election in 2021.

There’s also no evidence that Adolf Hitler had his sperm frozen, nor that he fathered any children in any capacity. Artificial insemination with frozen sperm was first carried out in 1953, meaning that if Hitler did have the procedure done, he would have been so far ahead of the curve as to be counting on a technology that didn’t exist yet.

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The doctor accused by What Does it Mean of impregnating Gretl Braun was notorious Auschwitz surgeon Carl Clauberg, who did indeed carry out horrific experiments on pregnant women, except at the time Merkel would have been conceived, Clauberg was in a Soviet POW camp, not to be released for two more years.

There’s no record of any such technology being used in Germany anywhere around that time, and keeping sperm frozen (and hidden for eight years) in the bombed out hellscape that was post-war Berlin would have been extraordinarily difficult. Finally, there no record of Gretl Braun having had more than one child, born in 1945 to and SS officer executed in the last days of the Third Reich, and that child wasn’t Angela Merkel, but Eva Barbara, who killed herself in 1971.

Despite all of this very real evidence against the conspiracy, it somehow got sucked into the QAnon engine of madness in March 2018, when the conspiracy avatar alleged that Angela Merkel was actually named after Hitler’s half-sister Angela, and that the “Truth will shock the WORLD.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that this nonsense got lumped in with QAnon, since it’s a “conspiracy theory of everything.” Nor is it surprising that people inclined to believe it, do believe it. After all, there’s a strain of conspiracy theory that puts Hitler as a member of the Rothschild family thanks to a connection that doesn’t exist and a few rumors from the Munich cafes in the 1930. So if Hitler can be the spawn of a Jewish banking family, he could also be the spawner of the de facto leader of the free world. Why not?

But why would people believe something so ridiculous and contrary to everything we know, which has literally no compelling evidence behind it? Because it dovetails with their previously-held belief that the leadership of the most powerful countries in the world is hopelessly compromised by evil.

Then they work backwards, using pictures of a young Merkel to declare that she “bears a resemblance” to Hitler – a matter that’s entirely subjective. Finally, they discard the “official history” of Merkel’s life as made up to throw us off the “truth.”

We’ve also gotten into a bad habit of comparing everyone we disagree with to Hitler, and every policy that we find negative to the Nazis. Say whatever you want about Angela Merkel’s reign in the German big chair, but she’s no more Hitler than Donald Trump is, George W. Bush was, or whoever the next US president will be.