Charles Lindbergh: flawed human?

Lindbergh returned to the USA in 1940 and was re­cruited to speak on behalf of America First, an anti-war group who saw WW2 as an aw­ful consequ­ence of WW1. The group attracted a wide range of supp­ort­ers, from celebr­it­ies to pac­if­ists to xenoph­obics. At its peak, it had 800,000 members, many in the Midwest. Lindbergh was the ideal spokesman: charismatic, brave and heroic. 

Charles and Anne Lindbergh
c1968, WWD

In his 1941 testimony at House Committee on Foreign Aff­airs opposing the Lend-Lease bill, Lindbergh proposed that the U.S neg­otiate a neu­­trality pact with Germany. Pres Franklin Roose­velt publicly dis­paraged Lindbergh's views as those of a defeatist and appeaser. So Lindbergh had to resign his commission as a col­onel in the US Army Air Corps Reserve in April 1941. Lindbergh wrote that he saw no honourable alternative, given Roosevelt had publicly questioned his loy­alty.

At an America First Committee rally in Des Moines Iowa in Sept 1941, Lindbergh spoke to a huge crowd. He blamed three forces for driving America into a global conflict that no patriotic American wanted.
1. he rebuked Ch­urchill and the desperate British for turning to America to assist in fight­ing the Germans.
2. he singled out the Roosevelt administration for opposing Germany.
3. and, most of all, he argued the Jews were agitating for war. The greatest danger to this country lies in the Jews’ large ownership and influence in U.S motion pictures, press, radio and government.

There was a backlash in the American press in response to the speech; even the isolationist America First Committee had to apol­ogise for the aviator’s remarks. The end of Charles Lindbergh’s political aspirations was coming.

2 weeks after Lindbergh’s attack on American Jewry’s abuse of power, the SS Einsatz­kommando and their Ukrainian allies murdered 33,000+ Kiev Jews at Babi Yar Ukraine. Meanwhile Lindbergh was still warning the US against the excesses of Jewish power. He had never made a secret of his in­terest in eugenics, nor his racial att­it­udes. Anti-Semitism was well known in Lindberg’s time; his attitudes were not seen as of­fensive by some parts of American community. So I im­agine that Lind­bergh's anti-Communism and anti-Semitism res­oun­d­ed well with many Americans, while his pro-eugenics views enjoyed soc­ial acceptance.

But by 1941 he had gone too far. Because of his fav­ourable reports about Nazi Germany, Lind­bergh was seen as a Nazi sym­path­is­er. Since Lindbergh believed the U.S military's sole role was to defend the Western Hemisphere from attack by foreigners, the attack on Pearl Harbour in Dec 1941 was a terrible shock for him. When the Japanese attacked, Lindbergh asked to be recom­mis­sioned but Roose­velt ref­us­ed. So it is interesting that Lindbergh did take part in fighter bomber raids on Japanese positions in 1944.

Pres Eisenhower nominated Lindbergh 

and Air Force Sec Harold Talbott swore him in as Reserve Brigadier General 

in April 1954, Wiki.

Yet post-war Charles still served as a con­sult­ant to the US Air For­ce and to Pan American World Airways, and trav­elled often. In 1957, middle aged Lindbergh met and fell in love with Brigitte Hess­haim­er, a 31-year-old German hat-maker living in Munich. They began a long-term affair that only ended with his death in 1974. Although Lindb­ergh visited Brigitte 2-3 times a year, introd­ucing himself to his children with a fake name, they kept their relat­ionship a total secret.

Lindbergh was also involved in secret long-term relationships with Hess­haimer’s sis­t­er Marietta, and Valeska, Lindbergh’s German tran­slator and private secretary in Baden-Baden. He had two children with each of these women, again keeping the families secret. Alth­ough Lindbergh did not live in Germany, he regularly visited Brigit­te in Munich and took her to his secret flat in Rome, used for his other assignations. He took the children on trips to the country & told stories of his travels. And he nev­er failed to meet his finan­cial duties towards the Brigitte, for whom he built a house.

Could Lindbergh’s mistresses and chil­d­ren und­erstand the kidnapping tragedy as the main cause for his life­long char­acter disorder? Did they even know about it? Biographers said that the murder of his son certainly did set off something crippling in Charles Lindbergh’s already disturbed personality.

Just before death in 1974, Lindbergh wrote letters to his three mist­resses, asking them to continue utmost secrecy. They did! Even upon learning the truth of their fath­er’s identity in the 1990s, 2 of the 3 families German continued silence, as ordered.

Based on DNA testing in 2003, Lindbergh's children with Anne Morrow were Charles Jnr (1930–2); Jon (b1932); Land Mor­row (b1937); Anne Lindbergh Perrin (1940–93); Scott (b1942) and Reeve (b1945). His child­ren with Brigitte Hesshaimer were Dyrk, Ast­rid & David Hes­s­haimer. With Marietta Hesshaimer, his children were Vago and Chris­t­­oph Hesshaimer and with Valeska (? surname), his children were a son and a daughter.

That year, the American siblings spoke out. They were understandably shocked at the news of the German families and refused to believe it, particul­arly as the Hess­haimer sisters were both disabled. Lind­bergh had followed eugenics science and believed in breeding healthy children from healthy parents. He possibly surprised himself by fath­ering children with two disabled women who were unable to walk prop­er­ly.

While they made no claim to Lindbergh’s estate, the German sib­lings wanted to write about their mot­­h­er’s long-term secret relat­ion­ship with their dad. Their 2005 book The Double Life of Ch­arles A. Lindbergh by Rudolf Sch­röck, was pub­lished in Germany.

Only in 2009 did Charles and Anne’s youngest child Reeve wrote about hearing of her father's infidelities and about her conn­ecting with her Eur­o­pean siblings: Forward from Here: Leaving Middle Age and Other Unexpected Adventures. She thought that by the time he died in 1974, Charles had made his life agonisingly complic­at­ed.