Highlights

•Independent genetic mtDNA analyses in three laboratories gave identical results

•Hair and blood samples attributed to Kaspar Hauser yielded the same mtDNA

•Kaspar Hauser’s mtDNA is unambiguously different from the “Baden lineage”

•Kaspar Hauser was not the hereditary Prince of Baden born in 1812

SUMMARY

Kaspar Hauser’s parentage has been the subject of research and debate for nearly 200 years. As for his possible aristocratic descent through the House of Baden, there is suspicion that he was swapped as a baby, kidnapped and kept in isolation to bring a collateral lineage to the throne.

In the last 25 years, various genetic analyses have been carried out to investigate this possible aristocratic origin. Previous results using less sensitive Sanger and electrophoresis-based methods were contradictory, and moreover, the authenticity of some samples was disputed, thus leaving the question open.

Our analyses using modern capture- and whole genome-based massively parallel sequencing techniques reveal that the mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in different samples attributed to Kaspar Hauser were identical, demonstrating authenticity for the first time, and clearly different from the mitochondrial lineage of the House of Baden, which rules out a maternal relationship and thus the widely believed “Prince theory”.