George Franchi’s blog

To the disappointment of the conspiracy theorists out there, the short answer is no. Absolutely NO.
Several waves of this accusation cropped up over the years, none of them truthful. The first was in the 1920s, early in Hitler’s career. As one can imagine, Hitler’s detractors and enemies at the time couldn’t resist taking such potshots at him. Considering his extreme anti-Semitism, little to no proof was needed to set tongues wagging and the people making the accusations had absolutely none of it. Nevertheless, so many people wanted to believe it that the myth was established.

One of the many fascinating aspects of studying history is reading about circumstances that existed in the past that are difficult for us to comprehend today and seeing how they dramatically altered the events of their time. Such is the case of a Dutch war fleet being captured by a French cavalry detachment on 23 January 1795.