The local link to the Lindbergh kidnapping case of 1932—dubbed “the crime of the century”—was first made public in a series of Problem Solvers reports aired on WKMG-TV in November 2002. This is the second of a continuing series of articles and updates on the ongoing investigation.

After making headway in increments small and large, Robert Aldinger’s seven-year quest to prove once and for all that he is part of the Lindbergh legacy has hit another frustrating delay.

A new letter from Anton Schwenk, the Munich attorney representing Lindbergh’s three German children, puts business ahead of the answer Aldinger so desperately wants. In the letter dated August 18, 2004, Schwenk makes it clear that he must protect the market impact of a book and movie deal for his clients. “Due to my primary commitment to the German Hesshaimer children,” he writes, “I have to determine the point in time [to release information], in order not to endanger our projects. I have to ask you to accept this precondition.” In other words, Schwenk is withholding key information—specifically, the DNA results Aldinger believes Schwenk already has.

And that’s a large part of the reason Aldinger refused to sign three unfavorable one-page contracts Schwenk sent to him this year, and regards Schwenk as nothing more than a “conniver.” “I think if there was nothing there, he wouldn’t have written back so many times,” says Aldinger. “The contract wants me to keep quiet. I’m not gonna do that.”

Aldinger’s skepticism is the product of countless dead ends, and ongoing ridicule from researchers who saw his claim as an old man’s distorted view of the facts. What keeps him going is his unexplained life in a Bronx orphanage and the conviction that the real Robert Aldinger was swapped in a back-alley deal to keep Charles Lindbergh, Jr., alive but erased from his heritage. Simply put, Aldinger thinks he is “Charlie,” the kidnapped Lindbergh baby, and that the real Robert Aldinger died before the kidnapping took place but was preserved until the crime could be staged. “I know I’m right,” he says.

The physical evidence
Aldinger’s theory has been blasted before. Records show that Lindbergh himself identified the tiny body discovered by a truck driver on May 12, 1932, as his son Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. But Aldinger argues that at that time, DNA as evidence was unknown—the police (led by Col. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr., father of the Gulf War general) didn’t have access to DNA profiles as they would today. As for motive, Aldinger suggests the fortune that Dwight Morrow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s millionaire father, left to the baby in a trust fund. A “fortune” in the offing is a powerful motive at any time, and arguably more so during this, the Depression era.

Dozens of conspiracy theories suggest that the famed aviator was in on it all along. The most nagging fact was his refusal to allow the police full involvement in the case. Dr. Lloyd Gardner, author of The Case That Never Dies, writes: “Schwarzkopf followed Col. Lindbergh’s wishes and did not pursue the kidnapper until the body was found . . . To many, Lindbergh’s behavior was understandable but regrettable.” In one of the most comprehensive studies of the case to date, Gardner mentions an unspoken rivalry between Schwarzkopf and J. Edgar Hoover: “At times, they even kept evidence from each other.”

Is it possible Hoover and Schwarzkopf just wanted a quick conviction, and found a suspect to hang it on? Did they miss Hauptmann’s co-conspirators because they were blinded by ego?

The Hauptmann-Aldinger connection
Aldinger’s unlikely claims brought me to The Lindbergh Museum in Trenton, NJ. With the help of Museum archivist Mark Falzini, I found 1930s police interrogations conducted when investigators were closing in on Bruno Richard Hauptmann as the prime suspect.

In 1934, police detectives interviewed the New York family that raised Bob Aldinger. Hauptmann was a boarder in the same house with Aldinger’s grandmother Lena, his uncle Rudy, and Fred Aldinger, the man Aldinger would know as his father. Records show that Hauptmann lived with the family in 1923 and part of 1924. In fact, Lena Aldinger introduced Hauptmann to Anna, his future wife. There is an eight-year gap between the time they met and married, and the night the Lindbergh baby was whisked away in the night. There is no paper trail or other police evidence to suggest the Aldingers were ever considered suspects.

But Aldinger’s theory does strike a chord with researchers who are convinced that Bruno Hauptmann could not have acted alone. That a group of financially strapped German friends at the height of the Depression target a rich American hero and the daughter of a wealthy businessman for ransom is certainly plausible.

One prominent supporter of the idea that Hauptmann was involved but not guilty of murder was Harold G. Hoffman, then governor of New Jersey—one of the few high- profile personalities still open to Hauptmann’s declaration of innocence. Hauptmann asked to meet with him, but instead of a confession, he asked the governor why he was taking Hauptmann’s life for something someone else had done. Hauptmann even offered to take a lie detector test or truth serum. Hoffman was governor but as Gardner writes in The Case That Never Dies, “The governor still had only one vote [on the matter], however, and not the power to commute the sentence.” But he did hire several private investigators to track down leads that could save Hauptmann from the electric chair. One such investigator that Governor Hoffman hired was New York investigator Julius B. Braun. Braun's independent findings haven't been made public until now.

According to Lindbergh researchers we contacted, most of Braun’s letters to the governor promised information that would be delivered face to face—very little was offered in writing. But in a letter dated March 5, 1937, Braun tells the governor he is convinced that Fred Aldinger may have ties to the kidnapping plot, and reports spotting Aldinger with a woman who “requires money to keep.” “I judge his salary to be far too insufficient for his present needs, and the deficiency is made up through some source or other,” he wrote. Fred Aldinger was a truck driver yet drove a car, bought expensive gifts for a mystery woman, and took “frequent trips out of town”—hardly typical for a truck driver in the ’30s. And something else: Braun’s letter is a running report of Fred Aldinger’s activities that day. Braun followed Aldinger and his girlfriend to the home of Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s wife, Anna. Braun suspected Aldinger, the man who took young Bob Aldinger out of a Bronx orphanage and raised him. Yet there is no additional mention of Aldinger in the Hoffman files. Whatever Braun may have discovered about Fred Aldinger wasn’t in the records and was never made public, but it does offer a new possibility that Bruno Hauptmann had help in orchestrating the crime of the century.   

Nancy Aldinger’s secret
Bob Aldinger calls three times a week to fill me in on new developments or just go over his theories. I met with him a few days after Hurricane Jeanne. The steady hum of a generator filled his backyard as we looked at documents tracing his life and the people he knew as family. One of them was Nancy Clarke Aldinger, the woman he knew as his mother. Aldinger always believed Nancy, too, was part of the Lindbergh kidnap conspiracy, but this time he admitted having mixed emotions about her. “Nancy probably saved my life—yet the only person I remember was still a part of the scam.”

Aldinger showed me old medical records neatly filed in white three-ring binders. It turns out that she was diagnosed as manic-depressive, and institutionalized right after the kidnapping and spent her life in hospitals. During therapy sessions she talked about losing her baby, of her baby’s limbs having been cut off. The doctors’ notes, however, only speak of a patient who is confused and unhappy—not of someone with clues to the crime of the century. Nancy died on June 11, 2002; and Aldinger is convinced she took the Lindbergh secret to her grave.
 
The DNA revelation
Robert Aldinger’s perfect ending may come from science, not history.
 
Late last year, the Hesshaimers—Dirk, David and Astrid—stunned the world with the announcement that Charles Lindbergh, Sr., was in fact their father (they knew him as Carou Kent). Through the years, the American Lindberghs endured countless claims from men (and even women) who were sure they were the Lindbergh Baby. Aside from having been adopted, these Lindbergh “pretenders,” as the family calls them, had no proof. But the controversial claim from Germany was very different: There was proof.

Click on the image to see a larger version. This contract from Anton Schwenk, the attorney representing Lindbergh’s “secret” German family, arrived two weeks after Aldinger submitted DNA. Could it be that a “brotherhood” has already been confirmed?

The Hesshaimers produced romantic letters to their mother written in Lindbergh’s hand; photographs of Lindbergh with the Hesshaimer children; and a challenge to use science—DNA testing—to prove their claim. Morgan Lindbergh, Lucky Lindy’s grandson, agreed to provide the DNA, and the tests were conducted at the Munich Institute. The results were conclusive, the answer clear: Lindbergh had a secret past.

The story grabbed headlines across Europe and in The New York Times, but barely gained mention on American TV networks. Morgan Lindbergh, now living in Washington state, is writing a book on the experience. He declined our request to compare his DNA to Robert Aldinger’s until the book is published. “I don’t want to reveal the results on this side [the U.S.],” he said. His cooperation in Europe caused friction with his family, he said, and he doesn’t want to anger them again. 
 
A question of truth
When the Hesshaimer story first broke, Aldinger contacted Schwenk to request a DNA profile comparison. Schwenk agreed, and Aldinger sent money to cover the expense of the lab tests, plus a previous DNA profile documented by Gene Tree Inc. Schwenk’s contract is short but the leverage goes to Schwenk, and Aldinger refuses to bend on the stipulation of silence that Schwenk continues to press for. As if baiting Aldinger to sign, Schwenk writes, “As soon as the attached authorization is in my hands, the DNA test can be carried out,” and closes by expressing a “willingness to help Aldinger develop a solution to the crime of the century question.” But Aldinger is convinced that the contract would keep the truth from ever being told. Aldinger’s reply? “If I don’t have proof, who is going to believe me anyway?”

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Mike Holfeld is an investigative reporter for WKMG-TV Local 6 News.

Ed. note: Aldinger’s theoretical link to the Lindbergh case was first made public in a series of Problem Solvers reports aired on WKMG-TV in November 2002. The Problem Solvers are following major developments in Aldinger’s possible connection to the Lindbergh family, and expect to air their findings in the next few weeks.