Lindbergh 'had illegitimate children with three women'

p>Three siblings who say they are Charles Lindbergh's out-of-wedlock children are releasing a book in Germany on Monday alleging that the American flyer had children with two other European women as well as their mother.

p>Three siblings who say they are Charles Lindbergh's out-of-wedlock children are releasing a book in Germany on Monday alleging that the American flyer had children with two other European women as well as their mother.

The Double Life of Charles A Lindbergh claims that the aviator, who flew solo across the Atlantic in 1927, had three children with a Munich hat-maker, Brigitte Hesshaimer, two with her sister Marietta, and another two with his German private secretary, identified only as Valeska, according to the publishing company.

Brigitte Hesshaimer's children, Dyrk and David Hesshaimer and Astrid Bouteuil, said in 2003 that a DNA test had proved that they were Lindbergh's children. They offered as evidence 112 letters that they said Lindbergh wrote to their mother.

In the book, which the Munich author Rudolf Schroeck wrote with the three, there is no new evidence of Lindbergh's paternity beyond knowledge "inside the family", said Anton Schwenk, an attorney and spokesman for the siblings.

"It's been well known for ages ... to all persons involved," he said. "It's fact, we don't have to prove it."

The mother of the Hesshaimers is dead, but the other women alleged to have had affairs with Lindbergh are alive, although Mr Schwenk said they were not interviewed for the book.

A Marietta Hesshaimer, believed to be the woman referred to in the book, did not answer her telephone in Switzerland. It was not known where Valeska could be contacted.

Kelley Welf, the communications director for the Charles A and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation in Minnesota, said she could not comment on the allegations but would pass a request to the Lindbergh family. They did not immediately respond.

When the Hesshaimers' claim that they were Lindbergh's children was made public in 2003, the Lindbergh family in the US acknowledged it but did not want to comment because "it is clearly a private and personal issue".