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According to research published in 2004, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany during 1933–1945, likely belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup E-M35 ("E1b1b1"), a haplogroup which originated in East Africa about 22,400 years BP.[62]

In 2010, journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren publicised analysis of samples taken from 39 patrilineal relatives of Hitler, supporting the above finding and pointing out this haplopgroup was now common among Berbers, Somalis and Jews. Mulders contradicted interpretations of his research by some media outlets, which claimed that Hitler definitely had Jewish ancestry. Mulders commented:

I never wrote that Hitler was a Jew, or that he had a Jewish grandfather. I only wrote that Hitler's haplogroup is E1b1b, being more common among Berbers, Somalian people and Jews than among overall Germans. This, in order to convey that he was not exactly what during the Third Reich would have been called 'Aryan.' All the rest are speculations of journalists who didn't even take the trouble to read my article, although I had it translated into English especially for this purpose."[63]

The accuracy of some of the coverage arising from this study was questioned. Professor Michael Hammer of Family Tree DNA said that "scientific studies as well as records from our own database[,] make it clear that one cannot reach the kind of conclusion featured in the published articles." Citing Family Tree DNA's own data that shows that more than 9% of the German and Austrian population has the identified haplotype, and that about 80% of these are not Jewish, Hammer concluded, "[t]his data clearly shows that just because one person belongs to the branch of the Y-chromosome referred to as haplogroup E1b1b, that does not mean the person is likely to be of Jewish ancestry.