GERMANY: Germany is caught up in its very own Lindbergh Baby affair - or rather Lindbergh Babies affair - after three siblings have come forward claiming they are the illegitimate children of the legendary aviator.
Mr Dyrk and Mr David Hesshaimer, 44 and 36, and Ms Astrid Bouteuil, 41, have produced letters they say Charles Lindbergh wrote to their mother, Ms Brigitte Bouteuil, that prove he is their father.
"I found love letters and old pictures at home. I asked my mother about them. When I guessed it was Lindbergh, she started crying," said Ms Astrid Bouteuil. "She never told us who our father was." Their birth certificates list their father as "unknown".
Mr Lindbergh met Ms Brigitte Bouteuil, then the 33-year-old hatmaker, during a visit to Munich in 1957, exactly 30 years after he became the first man to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic from New York to Paris. Despite a two-decade age difference, he apparently maintained an intimate relationship with her until his death in 1974.
The siblings went to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper with over 100 letters signed "C", apparently written by Lindbergh.
A forensic analyst who studied one letter on behalf of the newspaper said it was likely to be genuine. One 1958 letter, apparently in Lindbergh's hand, seems to be a response to a photo he had received of the newly-born Dyrk.
"Isn't he a wonderful baby! And naturally you deserve great credit for it, although I deserve a little bit too. You couldn't have done it on your own!"
As far as the children were concerned, Mr Lindbergh was an author named Mr Careu Kent who visited them for a few days every year.
But after Ms Bouteuil travelled to England aged 21 and found no books by Mr Kent, she confronted her mother, who she said confessed everything.
The aviator's apparent secret family will add another twist to Lindbergh's eventful life. Five years after he landed in triumph in Paris, he was caught up in the crime of the century, the Lindbergh Baby drama, when his infant son was kidnapped. The sensational crime ended in tragedy 73 days later when child was found murdered.
Mr Lindbergh's reputation suffered because of his tacit support for Nazi Germany and opposition to US involvement in World War II. He was married to author Anne Morrow, who died two years ago, with whom he had six children.
Ms Bouteuil, who now lives in France, agreed with her brothers not to go public until after the deaths of their mother and Ms Morrow.
Yesterday they announced at a press conference in Munich that they will undergo DNA tests later this year after two fruitless years of trying to establish contact with the Lindbergh family.
Ms Reeve Lindbergh, a daughter of the aviator, told Bild newspaper: "What the three Germans are claiming is nonsense."
Lindbergh's biographies say that he spent the late 1950s and early 1960s "travelling", which does not contradict the three siblings' story. However, Mr Lindbergh's biographer, Mr A Scott Berg, said he doubted the claims of the siblings.
"Is it chronologically or geographically possible? Yes. Does it fit his character? No," he wrote in the New York Times.
However, Ms Bouteuil said she was hopeful of soon meeting the Lindbergh relatives in the US. "We are not making any kind of financial claims," she said. "We just want to be recognised as his children too."
