Lindbergh Grandson Says Germans' Claim May Be True

Reuters ^ | 8/15/2003 | Erik Kirschbaum

[sjersey]

BERLIN (Reuters) - A U.S. grandson of Charles Lindbergh said Friday it was possible three Germans who say the aviator was their father were telling the truth because in photographs they "look hauntingly familiar."

Morgan Lindbergh, 36, said in a telephone call to Reuters that he wanted to take the Germans up on their offer to submit to DNA tests to resolve the question of whether Lindbergh was their father and that he would also take a DNA test himself.

"I'm not speaking for the Lindbergh family but only for myself -- I believe it is possible (they are Lindbergh children)," said Morgan Lindbergh, whose father Jon, 71, was the second child of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

"They look hauntingly familiar," he said when asked what he thought of photographs of the three Germans, aged 36 to 45, taken at a news conference in Munich Thursday. The Germans told reporters they were willing to submit to genetic testing.

"I would like to have this go forward with DNA testing," he added in a telephone interview from his home in Olympia, Washington. "I would like to, as soon as possible, confirm that or find out the truth. They say they are willing to take DNA tests. I'd be willing to do one in response to compare it."

Charles Lindbergh, the Germans said, led a secretive dual life, raising a clandestine family with a young German woman in Munich for 17 years even though he was married and had six children with his wife in Connecticut. Their first child, a boy, was famously murdered as a baby in 1932.

Dyrk Hesshaimer, 45, Astrid Bouteuil, 42, and David Hesshaimer, 36, said they went public with the family secret now, two years after their mother died, only because they wanted to be recognized as Lindbergh's children -- and erase a blemish of having "father unknown" on their birth certificates.

LOVE LETTERS

They insist they have no interest in his estate nor in tarnishing the legacy of the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic in a daring 33-hour flight from New York to Paris in 1927. They said their motives are to set the record straight.

As evidence, they produced 112 love letters they said were from Lindbergh to their mother written between 1957 and his death in 1974, pictures of Lindbergh with his second family, and their own faces that bear an unmistakable likeness to the famed pilot.

They portrayed Lindbergh as a loving father who generously supported them with trust funds and helped buy a house for them in Munich even though they knew him only as "Mr. Careu Kent." He came to Germany for up to three visits each year, staying between five to 14 days.

The executive director of the Lindbergh Foundation in the United States has said the family would have no comment.

Lindbergh biographer A. Scott Berg said the Germans' story was feasible, because Lindbergh spent a lot of time traveling in Europe, but unlikely because it seemed out of character.

Morgan Lindbergh, a neuroscience student who has five brothers and sisters and two half sisters, said he was 7 years old when his grandfather died. He said he remembered going on hikes with the famed aviator and riding on his shoulders.

[blau993]

Is this the same Lindberg grandchild who is doing the TV commercials for a pharmaceutical company? Sounds like a PR campaign to me.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

He's trading on a long-ago romance if this is true.

[ChemistCat]

I think the young Lindberg is responding with commendable decency and generosity to being thrust into the spotlight, against his will, by three strangers who claim not to want anything except the name. I imagine there is a good-sized estate at stake, and I've no doubt in the world that once a blood connection is established, the Germans will find it hard to resist the temptation to sue for their share.

[Burkeman1]

I don't know about anyone else- but if the Linberg baby thing had happened today- the first suspects would have been the Lindbergs themselves. They had an insane sister hanging around who is the most likely suspect. I don't believe Bruno Hauptmen killed the Lindberg baby.

[GOPrincess]

"They had an insane sister hanging around who is the most likely suspect"

Say what? I've read numerous books on the Lindberghs and have never read a hint of one of Anne's sisters (I assume you're referring to) being insane. With respect, if you don't have serious backup for that it doesn't seem appropriate for a public forum...

[NewRomeTacitus]

Knowledge is always preferable to the pain of never knowing.

[Burkeman1]

I don't have serious backup nor do I care enough on this issue to troll for the info. But I will still say Bruno was wrongly executed.

[oprahstheantichrist]

"...photographs of the three Germans, aged 36 to 45, taken at a news conference in Munich Thursday."

News conference? Anyone have a link to the photo?

[GSHastings]

Is this the same Lindberg grandchild who is doing the TV commercials for a pharmaceutical company?

No. That is Eric Lindberg.

[what's up]

I had heard Gen. Schwartzkoff's (sp?) father made a name for himself either prosecuting or defending Hauptmann...can't remember which.

(BTW I think Hauptmann did it.)

[Burkeman1]

His Father was the head of New Jersey state police and he was active in the frame up of Bruno.

[Irene Adler]

"They had an insane sister hanging around who is the most likely suspect."

This is absolutely untrue. The sister you refer to (Anne's sister Elisabeth) had a very severe heart condition which killed her when she was still a young woman. She was perfectly fine, mentally, and this story was made up out of whole cloth. Anne also had a brother who was a diagnosed paranoid schizoprhenic (though that diagnosis was overused during the early years of psychiatry). Why does no one point fingers at HIM? (He didn't do it, either.)

I have studied the Lindbergh case for years and am convinced beyond any doubt at all that Richard Hauptman was, indeed, the kidnapper/murderer of the child.

[Axenolith]

Spot on dude, I think Hauptman was just an idiot capitalizing on the disappearance.

[Burkeman1]

Despite the witnesses and evidence that were totally tainted? YOu really believe Bruno did it?

[laconic]

Just what "frameup" of Hauptmann occurred and why was Gen. Schwartzkopf's father responsible? Hauptmann was arrested in possession of the certificates paid out as ransom money; the ladder used to steal the infant was made from wood in his attic; he had been arrested previously for kidnapping children in Germany; he could not account for his whereabouts on the night of the kidnapping. I could go on and on; Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping and murder by 12 honest citizens and was rightly put to death by the State of New Jersey for it -- where is the frameup, sir?

[dougherty]

But I will still say Bruno was wrongly executed.

Ditto.

[Burkeman1]

Thanks.

[Burkeman1]

Try reading.

[Chemnitz]

There was a paperback book out on the subject. It said that the wife's crazy sister had already attacked the kid once and was not allowed to be alone with the baby. She was left alone and the baby died.

A lot of the crime scene information was trashed. What was not messed up was suspicious. It is not clear they really found the baby's body. They found A baby's body. There are many strange things involved in the whole affair.