Battle of Hitler’s skull prompts Russia to reveal all

"Deep in the Lubyanka, headquarters of Russia’s secret police, a fragment of Hitler’s jaw is preserved as a trophy of the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany. A fragment of skull with a bullet hole lies in the State Archive.

"So when American academics claimed that DNA tests showed the skull to be that of a woman, they challenged a long-cherished tale of the hunt for Hitler’s remains. Yesterday the chief archivist of the Federal Security Service (FSB) insisted that the bones were genuine and told of how the KGB destroyed almost all traces of the dictator’s corpse."

Battle of Hitler’s skull prompts Russia to reveal all - Times Online


Dave

 

Why destroy the remains? Those could come in handy for something, like now... The bones of Napolean for instance have been rexamined since rumors of his life have become so rampant they had to be "taken care" of since they caused such a stir and misinformation to be spread. And even now, "Hitler was born a woman", "Hitler lived", "Hitler is alive", "Braun made it up", etc. =/

If they were concerned about it become a "shrine", why don't store them inside a government building like that of the KGB? This mystery could take a while, might as well get comfortable!

 

Ever see The Boys From Brazil? DNA technology is improving every day and, if it's not already possible, it won't be long before scientists will be able to extract cloneable DNA from deteriorated remains like Hitlers. Even if they were in the possesion of a government, it doesn't mean that someone could not get their hands on a small piece. A small group of motivated individuals could possibly get someone on the inside or, if they are well financed, could purchase a small piece by bribing somone with access to the remains.

 

Cloning has its issues, even then, nothing beats "the source". The aftermath of a "Hitler 2.0" raises some concern, if the clone is able to think, how would it react? Would scientists simply extract their evidence and call it a day by putting a bullet in the clones head? Making a new one when they need more? All hypothetical of course since such cloning is a long way off.

I never thought of it like that, I guess that is completely plausible especially with the recent Mussolini scare. Although couldn't the same thing have been done with the skull or even jaw?

 

Cloning a human being as an exact replica of an already living and mature individual would take many years, and there is absolutely no evidence that it would be possible to produce and exact replica who acts and thinks like the original. In fact, what evidence that does exist tends to support the view that a cloned individual would be different from the original in many ways. In other words a Hitler-clone could easily turn out to be more like Mother Teresa than Hitler.

The "Boys From Brazil" was, after all, science fiction.

 

Yeah, and it's not like WW2 (part deux) is going to start all over again if Hitler is cloned. I listened to crap like that in my German History class at LSU from some bone-heads during an open discussion one day. Some of them were convinced that if Der Fuhrer was cloned, he would automatically become chancellor of West Germany (before re-unification) his tooth-brush mustache would pop out, and things would fall into place just as they did in the 20s, 30s and 40s. I excused myself early that day and left.

 

The issue with cloning now is that the clone is as old as the "parent" was when the DNA was extracted. If Hitler were to be cloned using today's methods he would be over 100 years old but in the body of an infant!

Perhaps they didn't realize Hitler won by a fluke and series of unfortunate events. To quote Eddie Murphy from Raw "Jackson won that sh*t?!?"

 

The clone would not be "100 years old", but probably the age of Hitler at the time of his demise, if nuclear DNA could be extracted from bone. Not likely. The problem is with the telomeres on the ends of the DNA strands when it comes to aging and the cloning of older DNA strands.

But since there aren’t any nuclear DNA strands in bone (as I understand it), only mitochondria DNA it is a moot point anyway. There may be some new process for retrieving DNA from bone with nuclear strands I am unaware of.

For something on telemeres read this at the bottom of the page;

The now-famous sheep Dolly was cloned using a nucleus taken from an adult sheep cell that had been growing in culture. The cell donor was 6 years old, and its cells had been growing in culture for several weeks.

What about Dolly's telomeres? Analysis of telomere length in Dolly's cells reveals that they were only 80% as long as in a normal one-year-old sheep. Not surprising, since the nucleus that created Dolly had been deprived of telomerase for many generations.

Two other sheep — cloned from embryonic, not adult, cells — also had shortened telomeres although not as short as Dolly's. Perhaps the length of time the cells spent in culture before they were used accounts for this.

Does this mean that Dolly is doomed to a shortened life? She seemed healthy at first and even had babies of her own. But medical problems — probably unrelated to her telomeres — ended with her being euthanized at a relatively young age.

But her short telomeres do add another question to the debate about cloning mammals from adult cells.

See:

Telomeres

So it appears that "Dolly" was born with shorter telomeres than a "natural conception" would have provided, and started at her mother's age when born.

and for more general information, Goto:

Cloning Fact Sheet

 

Even so, if 5 clones were produced and each raised with a right-wing, racist family, there is a good probability that at least 1 clone would exhibit these tendencies. Even if it didn't have the, for lack of a better word, charisma of Hitler, it could be used by right-wing organizations to unite various factions throughout the world. Imagine how skinheads would react if Hitler were to suddenly appear on the scene.

Even if the clone didn't have the personality necessary to lead, a strong leader in the background could use him like a puppet. I don't think that we would face a crisis like the Third Reich if a clone were to appear, but the right-wingers would definately gain some momentum. Even though they would probably never muster the strength to be much more than a thorn in everyone's side, there are enough problems in the world without Adolph Hitler running around.

 

The question is really one of "nature" vs. "nurture" and complicated by the question of just how much of a person's personality is generated by their genetic coding. I seriously doubt that you would get anything more than a right-wing racist if you raised Hitler's clone with a "right-wing, racist" family. A murderous. conniving, maniac such as Hitler would be far more difficult to reproduce. And such an environment might easily result in a person who abhors racism, and is quite liberal, There, of course, would be no guarantees, but resorting to a multiplicity of clones might increase the chances of success.

Perhaps, but in this day and age when most people are fairly sophisticated it would be extremely problematical. I doubt, given the almost universal abhorrence of Hitler, that a clone would have much chance of success in raising a mass popular movement, even counting those whose irrational worship of Hitler as a martyr would predispose them to become followers.

 

No, the DNA extracted would reflect Hitler's genetic coding as of the time of his death. From what I understand, Hitler's health was rapidly deteriorating and he was virtually decomposing psychologically and physically.

A cloned Hitler would then resemble an old man with some physical defects in an infant's body. But his personality and some of his physiological makeup would be affected by the cloning and would reflect the youth of the clone. Just what, and in what proportions is impossible for anyone to say.

To be useful, the clone would still have to pass through infancy, childhood and adolescence. Just what the eventual result would be is very questionable. I think there is some scientific evidence that a clone might have physical or psychological imperfections that would prevent it's survival to a useful age.

 

There ya go, even Dolly the sheep had to be euthanized at a young age due to her ongoing physical deterioration. I believe its donor "mother" lived a normal life-span as did her lambs. But Dolly was a mess and gone while still young (chronologically).

 

So, then the 4th Reich would be a short one....