Lindbergh's German Families | Lindbergh Kidnapping Discussion Board (2024)

There seems little doubt that Charles Lindbergh and Brigitte Hesshaimer were deeply in love, as seen in their long-term relationship and approximately 150 letters of affection later brought forward by their children. And having such an opportunity to fulfill personal needs and desires not met within his own marriage during his many wanderlust travels, seems to have led Lindbergh further down the same road with at least two additional relationships and resulting children.

I tend to believe that Lindbergh’s three secret families were borne out of several factors that took root within the growing emotional and intimacy gulf between him and Anne, following her own extra-marital affair with her physician, Dr. Dana Atchley, and that these might have included:

•An inner need for emotional and physical intimacy with a partner, even though any time spent together during travel visits would not have allowed for a mutually complete relationship to develop and grow.

•An opportunity to replace, with a preferred activity, any personal commitments he might otherwise have felt obligated to participate in due to perceived value of his name during business-related trips, and which he would probably have wanted to avoid.

•A scientifically minded curiosity to determine the nature of offspring borne from his own genes, when paired with those of another mate. That Lindbergh had relationships with two sisters, as well as an unrelated woman, perhaps indicates some purpose in establishing parameters and conditions within what would become for him, a personal ‘genetic experiment’ of sorts.

At the same time, I see no evidence to suggest that any of Lindbergh’s extra-marital activities and the deep level of secrecy he maintained around them, were a later effect of any theorized or speculated personal involvement within the kidnapping of his first-born son in 1932, or a rejection for any reason, of the five children he subsequently had with Anne.

During Charlie’s brief life, Lindbergh appears to have fought hard to ensure his privacy by closely monitoring all personal photos and information. Conversely, other precautions which might have better safeguarded him and his parents, were not regarded as necessary, or even overlooked out of complacency. In their tragedy, one in which he admitted having felt humiliated and degraded that their lives had been so violated, I believe led Lindbergh not to reconsider the policy of keeping him and his family ‘walled off’ but to in effect, double down on strengthening that wall.

If Lindbergh learned anything from the kidnapping relative to his later extra-marital affairs, it was to ensure as much as possible, that his German families would never have to face public embarrassment and humiliation over the exposure of these relationships. To the end and well into his death, he exercised an elevated degree of control and discipline when it came to protecting those he loved and considered to be of importance towards his personal wellbeing, perhaps even beyond the extent he felt was necessary for his first-born son.

Hi Joe,
I agree that as Anne and Charles grew apart during the 1950’s and ’60’s the scene was set for extra-marital adventures on both sides. Your hint that Anne’s affair with her physician was the trigger for Lindbergh’s subsequent infidelity sounds like an apologia for his behaviour. Was Anne’s “affair” consummated and did Lindbergh knew about it? Even if he did, it doesn’t excuse his going off and fathering seven children.

That said, I agree that their estrangement with Lindbergh constantly travelling and Anne busy writing was a factor but not a causative one.

Yes, it was as you say Joe “a personal genetic experiment of sorts.” But rather a heartless one knowing that he wouldn’t be around to watch these kids grow, to help and advise them. Its as if producing the children was “job done” for Lindbergh.

It is hard to see how his insistence on total secrecy was to protect his German families from “public embarrassment or humiliation.” These ladies were not producing children out of thin air. There had to be a father or fathers. They were effectively single mothers in a conservative Germany/Switzerland in the 50’s and 60’s. We don’t know what explanations were given to family, friends, and colleagues but as far as embarrassment etc goes, the cat was out of the bag.
His insistence on secrecy was to protect his own reputation, not theirs.

Finally, there is no retrospective link to March 1st 1932. Except that the revelation of Lindbergh’s secret families confirms his capability for deception and secrecy. These elements of his character, although by no means conclusive, are consistent with his involvement in his son’s abduction.

“Nobody knows what I do.” Indeed.

Best regards,

Sherlock

Careu Kent/ Clark Kent/Superman. The imagination goes into overdrive. A Freudian slip in his choice of alias?

Lindbergh would have been very wary of being photographed with any of his mistresses. Is it accidental that in this picture he is not looking directly at the camera? It may have been a candid shot taken without his knowledge.

We know about the 3 German families because Lindbergh's daughter, Astrid, stepped forward 20 years ago to inform the public about the existence of personal letters that her mother kept.

Lindbergh may have other children and grandchildren out there, but individuals may be remaining silent for any number of reasons.

In Rudolf Schrock's book, there is a picture on page 287 of a young girl that Lindbergh is carrying. She looks bi-racial. Could this be another one of Lindbergh's daughters? He spent time in the Phillipines. (The same picture can be found in the photo section of the A. Scott Berg book after page 436.) I know of other pictures of Lindbergh in photos with a child that looks of mixed race that could pass for a child of his own.

There does not have to be a complicated reason for a man wanting to have children all over the place. Look at Nick Cannon.

Superman appeared in the comics later in the 1930s. He flew through the air and was invincible. It would seem
appropriate that Lindbergh would identify himself with Superman since he also "flew through the air" and hoped
he was invincible. Clark Kent was the other side of Superman's personality as a nondescript newspaper reporter.
It's possible that as Careu Kent Lindbergh's other personality emerged when he engaged in his relationships
with German women, the secret side of Superman.

Sue: I agree there does not have to be a complicated reason for a man having many extra-marital children with different partners. But Lindbergh was not a serial womaniser like Nick Cannon. His secret families were in a small area and with women who knew each other. If we factor in his known interest in eugenics it is hard to avoid Joe's description of it as "a personal genetic experiment of sorts."
There may be other hidden Lindbergh offspring but somehow I doubt it. His life was complicated enough, arranging financial support / visits etc.
Later in life he developed a respect for native peoples e.g in the South Pacific, and this may explain the photos which show him carrying native or bi-racial children. They may, as you say, be his however.

Hiram: Clark Kent's secret alter-ego as Superman is too good to ignore in Lindbergh's choice of "Careu Kent" bearing in mind his secretive nature and believing himself the bearer of super genes. Lindbergh certainly had a superiority complex and did what he wanted to do irrespective of social norms etc

I think it needs to be mentioned here that Charles and Anne's relationship difficulties would reach a turning point in 1952 when Anne sought psychiatric help to deal with her emotional problems in her marriage to CAL. When Lindbergh learned of this he was extremely against Anne doing this. He felt it showed Anne was weak. He also felt it was a betrayal of their marriage because she would be sharing intimate knowledge about their marriage. Anne would continue to seek this help anyway with Dr. John Rosen, who had helped Dwight Morrow Jr. with his mental health issues. Lindbergh did not speak to Anne for several months and it was at this point that they began sleeping apart from each other.

Anne would end up in a romantic affair with her physican, Dr. Dana Atchley and Lindbergh would also move on to other relationships in the 1950's. The three German relationships would produce 7 children. Lindbergh would also begin a relationship in the 1960's with a 25 year old American stewardess that lasted 6 years but produced no children. I also believe Lindbergh had an intimate relationship while in the Philippines with a young Filipana woman. It is not known factually whether any children resulted from this relationship.

I do believe that Lindbergh was careful about entering into any extra-marital relationships. Like everything he usual did, there would be a plan for doing so. I do think it was all about having additional children. I agree with Sherlock that he was not your general womanizer with random romantic relationships.

We are lucky that Reeve Lindbergh has been willing to write about her parents. www.vqronline.org/essay/flight-and-life

Sherlock -- I don't think Lindbergh thought through the consequences of being involved with 3 women at one time. I seem to recall there was a lot of jealousy and nasty feelings among those women. I like to reference Frankenstein. In Lindbergh's case, he created a monster without thinking about the consequences.

Yes. Those German women were at each other's throats! Duh. What did he think would happen being involved with 3 women in close proximity to each other?

He may have headed to the Phillipines to get away from the disaster he created in Germany. Filipino women don't ask questions?

So maybe he got away from Anne by going to Germany. Then he couldn't handle the female cat fights so he goes to the Phillipines where women don't answer back?

I just think Lindbergh had a long history of engaging in high-risk behavior. Yes, he was a careful planner, but the flight to Paris was an immense gamble.

Bud Gurney drank from the water jug that Lindbergh filled up with kerosene...

He just seems reckless.

That's why I think more children were born into this world besides the German ones.

Did Charles Lindbergh perhaps have a Romanian connection? 'Careu' in the Romanian language translates into English as the noun 'square.'

The name 'Careu' as a man's name doesn't seem to appear anywhere period, other to reference what we're discussing here, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some word play or a hidden meaning involved within Lindbergh's choice of first name here.

The name "Careu Kent" may have been thought up by one of the Hesshaimer sisters or the translator, Valeska.

During Charles and Anne's courtship, Anne used the name "Robert Boyd" instead of Charles when writing to her sisters out of fear the letters could be intercepted. Boyd was a character in a story from the Saturday Evening Post.

My bet is on the translator, since this was her line of work!

Romanian, interesting. I thought it might be French. www.nameslook.com/careu

I tend to agree with Sue here, I think we may be overthinking this. He was still a celebrity after all, although his star was somewhat faded and tarnished after the war and in his eyes, if not also in reality, his wife had betrayed him by going into therapy. There's still a lot of stigma around therapy and mental illness, I can only imagine what it was like in the 50's.

Also, I think we are putting a lot of the blame on him whereas it may have been these 3 German women who instigated this arrangement. My daughter's former boyfriend works for an A-list celebrity and she's told me there were scores of women waiting outside of the security gates wherever they went just trying to get in, rather embarrassing.

In 2003, the foreign language paper, Draugas, carried an article about Lindbergh and his affairs with the German women.

Draugas is a Lithuanian newspaper published in the United States.

Google translates "Careu" from Lithuanian to English into the word: "charmer."

With a note: "Translate from: Romanian."

I'm sure its no surprise that I am in Sherlock's corner on this one. Lindbergh was always in control of everything because, frankly, that was his nature. Looking at Norma's post, I believe her argument actually supports Sherlock. Why? There can be no doubt that (arguably) Lindbergh had his pick of women. So are we to assume these two sisters instigated it, wore him down, and he simply gave in? Okay, well how many others did he have to choose from that were also doing the same? Quite a lot if you ask me. So, I just don't see it. What we know is there were three women, and all of them stuck to the script. None snitched, slipped up, or double crossed him in any way. And if there are others, they did exactly the same which is why we don't know about them. Was that all accidental? In my opinion, that just doesn't fit in with who I know Lindbergh was. It's like when the Reporters were saying Gow was Lindbergh's "mistress" (V4,P354) I look at it this way.... if she was, he wasn't with her because he "loved" her. There would be a reason, but that wouldn't have been it.

Alexis Carrel. A link( ??) to "carrelage": (French) means "tiling." "Carre" (can't do the acute accent on the final e) means "square." "Careu" derived from "Carre" means "square ."

Tyler Kent was a cipher clerk at the US embassy, London, in WW2. He was also a Nazi spy who gave classified documents to the Nazis.

If anyone can make sense of these random facts, please let the forum hear from you!

Well stated Norma, with good arguments that always provide additional balance and perspective. As well, the fact that Lindbergh carried on intimate relationships with two women who were disabled and could not walk properly, would appear to dispel any notion that by way of a supposed deep-rooted Eugenics orientation as viewed by some, he would have rejected such "imperfect" partners.

A parallel of sorts might also be applied here within Lindbergh's dedication towards the saving of lives within his ground-breaking perfusion pump research and development, at a time in which some also appear to believe he would have been researching and developing ways to eliminate a first born son that apparently "didn't measure up to his standards."

Brigitte and Marietta did not have genetic flaws. My understanding is that both of these sisters had become disabled (walking difficulties) due to contracting bone tuberculosis during childhood. There must not have been a concern about genetic issues, so there must have been some other factor at play here, for Lindbergh, in selecting both of these sisters. I read somewhere on this board that Lindbergh blamed the Morrow side of the family for Charles Jr.'s problems. Could that, in some way, have something to do with choosing these women?

It would have been nice had the Rudolf Schrock book been translated from German to English.

Das Doppelleben Des Charles A. Lindbergh was published in 2005. The title in English is The Double Life of Charles A. Lindbergh.

There is a 2009 documentary about Lindbergh's duplicitous life, but does it accurately depict Lindbergh's involvement with the 3 German women?

Supposedly, Lindbergh met the 2 Hesshaimer sisters at a dinner party in Munich in 1957.

Did the disabled sisters get to the event with difficulty since they both had trouble walking? Were they in any condition to dance? Lindbergh just overlooked their physical limitations because he saw their inner beauty?

I'm with you. I remember hearing there were plans for an English version but unfortunately that obviously that never happened. I don't get that, there is certainly a market for it.

I remember reading about the bone tuberculosis in one of the various articles but couldn't find the source. I don't know where Joe is getting his information to the contrary but I'd like to know about it.

As to Lindbergh blaming the Morrows ... that came from a letter to Governor Hoffman from a man named Dooley. He was a former Secret Service Agent who sometime during his employment got mixed up in removing the seals on train cars or something... I cannot find his file at the moment because its not where it should be so I am going from memory unfortunately. As a result, he was fired and did a brief stint in Federal Prison. Upon his release, he was recruited as an asset for the Treasury Department. There's a letter from Special Agent Burke claiming Dooley helped bring about a huge bust involving numerous people. Anyway, his involvement in this case was primarily on the Purple Gang angle as a PI. Some people liked him and some people hated him.

Michael, I just wanted to first clarify your statement. What information are you implying I've stated to the contrary?

What I did say was that both Hesshaimer sisters were disabled and had difficulty walking. I also questioned why if Lindbergh had really had such apparently deep rooted Eugenics views as is often implied here, he would have chosen to have relationships with women possessing chronic disabilities.

In an overall sense, I don't believe these views you maintain were held by Lindbergh were as strong as you routinely make them out to be, given that he seemed to have no misgivings about marrying into a family with known examples of physical and mental illnesses, and then having six children with Anne Morrow.

Okay, so what I see you now saying is there were no genetic issues with these women which makes your point moot.

All one has to do is read his book to discover I am right. It's all right there. Additionally, just look at what he wrote to his own daughter about it. I don't know, it's like you expect we should all ignore this stuff. Your position can only be taken up if one doesn't believe what the man himself is clearly saying in no uncertain terms. Next, as far as marrying Anne, it all depends on the circ*mstances. What he knew and what he did not prior to the marriage. It also depends on what he believed were the causes once he did become fully aware. For example, if someone broke their arm, and it was never set properly, that is not a genetic defect. If someone is using drugs, impulsive, or moody with no self control, that could be viewed as lack of discipline in upbringing and not one of genetics.