Three German siblings said last week that DNA tests have proved what they long suspected: Charles Lindbergh was their father. The three, Dyrk Hesshaimer, Astrid Bouteuil and David Hesshaimer, were born in 1958, 1960 and 1967. They are not seeking money from the Lindbergh family — their father visited them once or twice a year during their childhood and took care of them financially. But their mother hid his true identity from the children, a ruse that was made easier by the language barrier. Last summer, a grandson of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Morgan Lindbergh, traveled to Europe to meet the Hesshaimers and agreed to take a DNA test, which proved their lineage. The rest of the U.S. family has had no public comment but reportedly has met amiably with their newly discovered relatives and exchanged friendly letters and phone calls. The German siblings have over 100 letters Lindbergh wrote to their mother, and plan to publish a book about their parents’ secret affair. Lindbergh married Anne Morrow in 1929, and remained married until his death in 1974. They had six children together, but during the last decades of his life he traveled widely and only rarely visited the Connecticut home they shared.
