Blast from the Past

PBS had an episode the other night about the 1932 Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder and modern forensic methods that could shed more light on the case:

Watch Who Killed Lindbergh's Baby? on PBS. See more from NOVA.

While forensic experts and historians can discuss and debate the issue, I am far more interested in how in the hell Charles Lindbergh was able to be married and have not one, not two, but THREE mistresses and a slew of kids in Europe, which is mentioned in the documentary. Two of Charlie's girlfriends were sisters.

He may have been known as the "Lone Eagle," but he sure as hell wasn't lonely. Here is one of many, many articles about Lindbergh's quadruple life:

Lindbergh was 55 and seemingly happily married to his American wife, Anne Morrow, when he met Brigitte and Marietta at a dinner party in Munich in 1957. He and Anne had six children, their marriage apparently surviving the tragic death of their son, Charles, who at 20 months old was abducted and killed in 1932.

Yet according to Rudolf Schroeck, the book's author, over dinner Lindbergh fell for Brigitte, a 31-year-old hatmaker.

"The sisters were friends of his secretary, Valeska, with whom he was already embroiled in a relationship," said Schroeck, who drew on more than 150 letters and photographs sent to Brigitte by Lindbergh that were discovered years after his death.

Their tempestuous affair ended only with his death in 1974. Although Lindbergh did not live in Germany, he regularly visited Brigitte in Munich and took her to his secret flat in Rome, previously used for trysts with Valeska.

The revelations about Lindbergh's messy sex life were withheld until his widow died in 2001.