Charles Lindbergh had seven secret children in Germany, confirmed by DNA 29 years after his death

Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic alone in 1927. In 1941 he led the America First campaign against entering the Second World War and, in a speech at Des Moines, blamed "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration." From 1957 he had relationships with three women in Germany: Munich hatmaker Brigitte Hesshaimer, her sister Marietta, and his private secretary, Valeska. Seven children were born between 1958 and 1967: three to Brigitte, two to Marietta, two to Valeska. The children knew him as "Careu Kent." Ten days before he died he wrote to all three women asking for "utmost secrecy." He died of lymphoma on Maui and was buried there. Brigitte's daughter Astrid found 112 of his letters. In November 2003 a DNA test at the University of Munich confirmed he was the father of Brigitte's three children. His American daughter Reeve Lindbergh described "absolutely Byzantine layers of deception." The journalist Rudolf Schröck published the full story in a 2005 book. In 2026 the German children have made no claim as legal heirs; in 2003 they said they had no plans to.