I was in a conversation the other day and a section of a book by Sven Hassel came to mind. I can’t remember which book but for those of you who don’t know Sven Hassel writes books on WWII from the German perspective. Anyway, to cut a long story short one of the characters was in trouble with the racial purities commission. Apparently he had become his own grandfather on paper and they just couldn’t figure out how that could possibly be legal.
It went like this… The guy married a woman – nothing unusual there. Then his father married the woman’s daughter. So far so good. His father had a son by the woman that he married. Seems straightforward doesn’t it? But, of course, this son had to be his brother. After all, the son of his father has to be his brother.
Now go a little further. The grandmother of the father’s son has to be the mother of the woman the father married. She was after all the woman’s daughter. And as the man married to the grandmother has to be the grandfather. And as his brother’s grandfather has to be his grandfather too then he’d just become his own grandfather.
