DNA backs Lindbergh family claim

DNA tests last night confirmed that the dashing aviator and rugged all-American hero Charles Lindbergh had a secret second family in Germany, fathering three - and possibly more - children outside his marriage.

The German offspring's lawyer, Anton Schwenk, last night said that he was "99% certain" that Lindbergh - who became internationally famous after making the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1927 - was indeed their father.

Speaking from Munich, he said: "They never had any doubt about the question."

Scientists from Munich university had compared their DNA with a sample from Lindbergh's family in the US, he said. Lindbergh's three German children - Astrid Bouteuil, 43, and her brothers Dyrk and David Hesshaimer, 45 and 36 - made their beliefs known in August.

The children said they had learned of the identity of the man they knew as Careu Kent after his death in 1974. They said Lindbergh fell in love with their mother, Brigitte Hesshaimer, a 24-year-old German hatmaker, on a visit to Germany in 1957. He continued to visit them until his death.

The children were born between 1958 and 1967. They were listed in official records alongside the category "father unknown", but Lindbergh went on to support them financially.

The existence of Lindbergh's German offspring adds an extraordinary twist to the life story of a man who was apparently happily married to an American, Anne Morrow.

The couple had five children. In 1932 the world was gripped by the kidnap and murder of their baby son, who was taken from the family mansion.

This summer Lindbergh's German children told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that they had only felt able to come forward following the death of their mother two years ago.

Initially the claim that Lindbergh had a secret German family provoked deep scepticism in the United States.

The Hesshaimers, however, produced a trump card: 150 letters from Lindbergh to their mother, all of them affectionate, signed with a letter C.

After the story broke three months ago the German magazine Focus claimed that Lindbergh had two further children outside his marriage, the fruits of a relationship with Brigitte Hesshaimer's sister Marietta.

Marietta was still alive and living in Switzerland in a house built for her by Lindbergh, it said.

Last night Mr Schwenk said that Marietta and Lindbergh's secret Swiss family were not interested in publicity.

Marietta, who lives in the Swiss canton of Wallis, is believed to have had two sons with Lindbergh.

Over the past few months the German Lindberghs have got to know their American half-siblings, Mr Schwenk said.

"The establishment of family relations will grow naturally," the lawyer said. "The gap of so many years cannot be bridged in a few hours."

The children themselves declined to comment yesterday. They are known to be working on a memoir about their father, as well as a TV documentary film entitled The True Lindbergh Story.

The programme is likely to be broadcast on August 26 2004, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Lindbergh's death.

Astrid Bouteuil, who lives in Paris, and her two siblings, who are in Munich, bear a strong resemblance to their father.

According to Ms Bouteuil, Lindbergh would drop in on his secret German family about twice a year. He did not learn German and always spoke to them in English, she said.

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