Latest news with #Lindbergh
National Geographic
2 days ago
- General
- National Geographic
Charles Lindbergh was a Nazi puppet—and his famous flight was overrated. Here's why.
Charles Lindbergh standing in front of his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, which he used on his transatlantic flight. Photograph by Bridgeman Images The aviator was so impressed by German propaganda that he grossly overestimated Hitler's airpower. I have to declare a personal stake that shapes my opinion as I write this story. It has its origins in 1940, 85 years ago this month. I was seven years old, living near London. I watched the choreography of a great battle underway, etched in vapor trails high above in the crisp blue sky of summer, the combat that became known as the Battle of Britain. I wasn't scared. I watched with the detached excitement of a child unaware of how perilous those days were for us. That understanding would come later, from my work as a journalist, spending years discovering how closely fought that famous victory was. Had that battle been lost it is doubtful that Britain, then alone as most of Western Europe fell to Hitler, could have survived, as it did, until Pearl Harbor made American intervention inevitable. As things have turned out, one of my most unsettling discoveries has been that a man long hailed as an American legend, Charles Lindbergh, worked avidly with the Germans to undermine the chances of a British victory. Much has long been known about Lindbergh's alliance with American fascists between 1939 and 1941, and particularly his speech in Des Moines, Iowa in September 1941, in which he blamed three groups—the Roosevelt administration, the British and the Jews—for pressing the nation to confront Hitler. Much less known is the role Lindbergh played in England during the 1930s as Hitler's useful idiot, spreading the idea that Nazi Germany had become an invincible air power. The first Nazi to spot and exploit Lindbergh as an effective agent of German disinformation was Hermann Goering, Hitler's deputy and head of his air force, the Luftwaffe. Goering recognized that Lindbergh's celebrity gave him oracular authority on aviation—whether justified or not. Portrait of Charles Lindbergh Photograph by The Stapleton Collection, Bridgeman Images A decade after Lindbergh's epic solo flight across the Atlantic, on October 16, 1937, the Nazis made their master move, allowing him into their secret test field at Rechlin, near the Baltic coast. Virtually all the Luftwaffe's future aircraft were revealed to him. Credulous and convinced that no other European power rivaled Germany in the air, Lindbergh thereafter became a powerful influence on the 'peace at any price' factions in Britain and France. Lindbergh had no background in military aviation, but when he spoke on the subject of anything with wings, a lot of important people listened. There were numerous reports of Lindbergh pressing his views on leading European politicians, some of whom found them unnerving and demoralizing. For example, the British military attaché in Paris, seeing how rattled the French were by Lindbergh's assessments, reported to London, '…the Fuhrer found a most convenient ambassador in Colonel Lindbergh.' Limited Time: Bonus Issue Offer Subscribe now and gift up to 4 bonus issues—starting at $34/year. Lindbergh's impact in Britain was equally effective. In a single meeting he could turn a stern patriot into an abject appeaser. In 1938 a highly influential Tory, Thomas Jones, noted in his diary that before listening to Lindbergh he had been for standing up against Hitler but: 'Since my talk with Lindbergh I've sided with those working for peace at any cost in humiliation, because of the picture of our relative unpreparedness in the air…' (How the Battle of Britain changed the war—and the world—forever) Lindbergh also had a willing ear in the American ambassador in London, Joseph Kennedy. In 1938 he told Kennedy that Germany was then able to produce 20,000 military airplanes a year and gave a dark prediction of likely British defeat in the air. (In October 1938 Goering, on behalf of Hitler, awarded Lindbergh the Service Cross of the German Eagle.) In fact, Lindbergh's numbers were absurdly inflated. They were, literally, being used by the Nazis as a force multiplier. Moreover, Lindbergh's propaganda had masked a systemic weakness in the organization of German aircraft production. It was far from being a model of Teutonic efficiency. Production was dispersed among many manufacturers competing for resources and slowed by supply chain bottlenecks. In contrast, British aircraft production was far more rigorously directed and resourced from a central command. Charles Lindbergh receiving the Service Cross of the German Eagle from Hermann Goering on behalf of Adolf Hitler Photograph by SZ Photo/Scherl, Bridgeman Images More crucially, Lindbergh had no inkling of a game-changing technical leap in the deployment of air power that the British pioneered, the world's most advanced radar-based early warning system. Incoming waves of bombers could be pinpointed and tracked before they reached the British coast. Their size, direction and altitude were precisely plotted on a map in a central operations room, enabling the Royal Air Force (R.A.F) to deploy its precious hundreds of advanced fighters and pilots sparingly in the most efficient and deadly way. Britain's 'finest hour' At the outbreak of war, in September 1939, Germany did have a clear lead in numbers: 2,893 available front-line airplanes versus 1,600 in Britain. But by July, 1940, when the Battle of Britain began, the difference had narrowed. Britain had 644 front-line fighters to 725 German (with their time over England critically limited by fuel). By the end of September, when the RAF's famous victory was achieved, they had 732 fighters available while the Luftwaffe was reduced to 438. Weeks before the battle in the air began, Britain's expeditionary army in France had been nearly wiped out, saved only by the evacuation at Dunkirk. Few foresaw that its air force, the most scientifically advanced of its forces, was actually capable of saving the day. But—a point mostly overlooked by historians—Prime Minister Winston Churchill, fighting off a last-ditch resistance by appeasers, made his confidence in the R.A.F's strengths the bulwark of his case for carrying on the war. (Searching for the remains of two early transatlantic pilots) This is testament to Churchill's remarkable openness, at the age of 65, to technical transformation: As a young man he had served in the army, and had then twice served as First Lord of the Admiralty, in 1911 and 1939, running the Royal Navy. But, as much as he loved Britain's imperial-scale navy, he understood in 1940, ahead of many others, that the island nation's last line of defense was now in the air. On June 18, 1940, in one of his greatest speeches, Churchill warned, 'The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us…if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.' Yet, if Britain prevailed, the world would say, 'This was their finest hour.' The battle engaged remarkably low numbers of men in combat, only a few hundred on each side, almost like medieval knights, each alone in a cockpit. When it was over, Churchill made the indelible tribute to his airmen: 'Never in the history of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few.' Victory in the air ended any chance of Hitler carrying out Operation Sea Lion, his planned invasion of Britain. And it finally laid bare the pernicious extent of the disinformation spread by Lindbergh—swallowed whole by many, including Ambassador Kennedy. Even then, Kennedy, a hardened isolationist, had learned nothing. Unmoved by the victory, he said, 'The British have had it. They can't stop the Germans and the best thing for them is to learn to live with them.' (Charles Lindbergh's wife was a record-breaking aviator in her own right) It's important to note that Lindbergh's crossing of the Atlantic in 1927 was an act of superb airmanship—particularly of navigation—but it did nothing to advance the science of aviation. His airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, was a one-off bespoke model built for only one purpose: for one man to safely cross the Atlantic. It was not in any way a precursor. The science necessary to carry passengers safely across any ocean was an American achievement, developed mainly in a wind tunnel at Caltech in California, where two companies, Boeing and Douglas, created the first twin-engine all-metal airliners. In fact, the need for a larger, twin-engine airplane to cross oceans was foretold by two British military aviators, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, who were the first to actually fly across the Atlantic, 1,890 miles, from Newfoundland to Ireland, in 1919, in a converted World War I bomber. They landed, unheralded, in a field and came to rest, nose down, in a bog, not like Lindbergh on a floodlit runway with the whole world listening on radio. As a result, to this day few people realize who was first. It will fall to President Donald Trump to decide how the nation will mark the centennial of Lindbergh's 1927 flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris. This will confront America with a challenging moral judgment: Can a legendary human endeavor ever be celebrated if the 'hero' turns out to have been so deeply flawed?
Forbes
21-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Le Bourget - A Subdued But Substantial Paris Air Show
Crowds at the 55th edition of the International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, on June 16, 2025. ... More (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP) (Photo by ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images) The Paris Air Show is the largest air show in the world as measured by attendees or exhibitors. It has been held every two years (on odd numbered years) since 1949. The first four days are devoted to industry participants from both commercial and defense sectors representing OEM's and companies down through the supply chain and support services. Originated in 1908 as an offshoot of the Paris Motor Show, it was held at the Grand Palais in Paris until 1953 with flying demonstrations at Paris Orly airport. With the advent of commercial aviation growing to the mass market, the Show was moved to Le Bourget field, the landing site of Lindbergh's historic solo transatlantic crossing in May 1927, where he was greeted by a crowd of over one hundred thousand onlookers. The first "Salon du Locomotion Arienne" held in Paris's Grand Palais, 1909. Bleriot and other ... More monoplanes are seen in the foreground. In years past, Air Shows provided a measuring stick for the two major commercial aircraft OEM's, Boeing and Airbus, to keep score in their competition with each other. This was especially true in the 90's and early 00's as Airbus was gradually accumulating market share and eventually overtaking Boeing in aircraft sales and production. Companies would hold orders that had already been inked in previous months in order to boost their count for splashy headlines during the week of the Show. The Show also provided a world stage for the flight demonstration of a new aircraft model or defense system. In 2025, many of those aspects have changed or receded amidst a backdrop of war, recent tragedy and technological plateau. The ongoing hostilities in Ukraine have placed the spotlight on lightweight, agile offensive systems as opposed to the 'big iron' of new expensive weaponry. The tragic loss of an Air India Boeing 787 days before the Show led to the decision for senior Boeing executives to not attend and for the company to keep a low profile. The duopoly of the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 series continues to build backlog without expectation of a new technology aircraft for at least a decade. A similar development was apparent in the military realm where legacy platforms which were designed years or decades earlier were being adapted to new missions, outfitted with new sensor suites, or positioned as flying 'command posts' for unmanned weapons. Nevertheless, dynamism was apparent in other sectors including Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), space systems and Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO). MRO has continued to be a focus due to the continued demand driven by commercial aircraft that will need to be flown years longer on average, due to the production shortfalls resulting from the pandemic and various Boeing delays. JetZero ("A New Entrant to the Commercial Aerospace Duopoly?" - March 28, 2025) detailed its development plan for it's radical design aircraft that could serve as a next generation airliner or a military tanker. Sustainability, which has been a persistent focus for innovation over the past several years, was still strongly evident in pronouncements and product attributes, but the growing recognition that Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and hydrogen powered aircraft are not near term environmental solutions reflected the recent waning support from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airbus. Several geopolitical forces were also evident in the concerns of attendees. First, the US Administration's pronouncements indicating weakened support for NATO and the need for European countries to contribute more to their own defense has intensified investment in and activities of defense companies within the EU. This coupled with the Administration's increase of the US defense budget amid global tensions resulted in a much more defense focused show than in years past. The mood was amplified by the Israeli attacks on Iran that began over the weekend when many of the initial receptions and gatherings were being held. Second, the Administration's imposition of tariffs has increased focus on the resiliency of global supply chains and the ability to meet production goals in a much more complex environment. On both the commercial, as well as the military side, the ability to deliver against order books was a paramount concern due to the ongoing ramp in commercial deliveries, and the shortfalls in munitions and missiles from wars in Ukraine and the mid-East. Much as the iPhone has continued to improve capabilities on a platform that debuted eighteen years ago, the sense of the show was not on new product announcements but on enhancements to legacy platforms and proving capability to meet demand expectations in a challenging global environment.
Daily Mail
16-06-2025
- Daily Mail
Shock twist in kidnapped baby case that gripped America as experts make horrifying realization: 'Crime of the century'
The mysterious kidnapping of famed American aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby could finally be solved. Experts say one of the envelopes from the ransom notes could hold damning evidence revealing Bruno Hauptmann, who was executed for the shocking crime, may have been the wrong man.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
KU professor joins lawsuit to pressure New Jersey to allow DNA testing of Lindbergh evidence
Jonathan Hagel, an assistant professor of history at the University of Kansas, is among plaintiffs in a New Jersey lawsuit filed to compel opening of a documentary archives tied to the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindburgh's son. Hagel and other researchers seek permission to expose certain documents to modern DNA testing. (Submitted) TOPEKA — An assistant professor at the University of Kansas is a plaintiff in a New Jersey lawsuit seeking modern DNA testing of state archive materials tied to the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of trans-Atlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh. The 200-page Mercer County Superior Court suit was filed amid controversy about decisions by New Jersey State Police to block access to the case archive. The plaintiffs — KU historian Jonathan Hagel, author Catherine Read and retired teacher Michele Downie — said their Open Public Records Act request related the 1932 kidnapping was rejected. Hagel, a New Jersey native who has studied the Lindbergh case, said DNA analysis of ransom notes or envelopes could contribute to understanding whether Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was executed in 1936 after convicted of first-degree murder, acted alone in the high-profile crime. It is among questions that have riveted scholars and investigators since Hauptmann's trial. 'There were more than a dozen ransom letters overall, and they were sent through the post,' said Hagel, a New Jersey native who has studied the Lindbergh case. 'If Hauptmann's DNA is on it, then he definitely is not innocent of being involved. But, if there is other DNA, that would confirm other people's involvement.' Twenty-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr. was abducted from the family estate near Hopewell, New Jersey. The family was contacted through ransom notes and parcels, and a demand for $50,000 was paid. The toddler's remains were subsequently discovered adjacent to a roadside several miles from the Lindbergh home. 'There are those who think we're likely to find Charles Lindbergh's DNA on the materials,' Hagel said. 'They believe there was some kind of accident, and he orchestrated this as a way to deflect responsibility.' At least one previous lawsuit unsuccessfully sought to compel New Jersey to allow DNA testing of documents associated with the case. A state appellate court said New Jersey law didn't guarantee a public right to physically examine archive materials. In 2023, the State Police said access was restricted to preserve contents of case files. 'My take is that states or police organizations, like any bureaucracy, just like to protect their stuff,' Hagel said. 'There are others who think the state police are embarrassed they may have botched it quite badly and been involved in a railroading.'
CBS News
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Book excerpt: "The Aviator and the Showman" by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Viking We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article. Everybody knows about Amelia Earhart's mysterious final flight. But what about the years before she disappeared? In "The Aviator and the Showman" (to be published July 15 by Viking), documentary filmmaker and journalist Laurie Gwen Shapiro draws on newly-uncovered sources to explore the famed pilot's life and her marriage to wealthy publisher George Putnam. Theirs was a relationship that lifted love, publicity and especially risk to mythic heights. Read an excerpt below. "The Aviator and the Showman" by Laurie Gwen Shapiro Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now. Amelia Earhart was sitting across from George Palmer Putnam. He was on the phone, not acknowledging her, taking his sweet time. He was a flamboyant, career-making publisher who liked to be in the news. Putnam was always photographed with famous people: standing next to Charles Lindbergh, first man to fly solo across the Atlantic; posing with Commander Byrd, the man who conquered the South Pole; smiling with Howard Carter, the man who discovered King Tut. Amelia was thirty-one years old, a Boston social worker. She was not a famous person. But unknown to her that spring of 1928, Putnam had decided he wanted to create a new hero—the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane!—the counterpart to the world's most famous man, Charles Lindbergh. Putnam sent out feelers to find candidates for such a heroine, who merely had to be the first female Atlantic passenger to get famous. The idea was familiar: sponsor the wildly risky adventure, find someone physically attractive and willing to imperil their own life, sign them to an exclusive tell-all deal, publicize the thing to the max, and make a fortune on book sales. Soon word came from Boston: George Putnam's old friend, a PR guy named Colonel Hilton Howell Railey, had found a perfect candidate: Miss Earhart was an experienced flier, she was well spoken, and she had pleasing looks. George's response was swift and decisive: "She must be in my office by the start of the next morning!" When George Palmer Putnam wanted things done, there was no room for argument. Railey told Amelia that someone in New York City wanted to see her about a possible flying venture. She was a committed full-time social worker and only a part-time aviator, but Amelia's heart beat faster at the prospect of sponsored flying, a rarity for any woman, even the most accomplished pilot. She agreed to go to New York. Railey escorted her down from Boston by train. At 2 West Forty-Fifth Street, just off Fifth Avenue, a colossal Putnam banner fluttered from the rooftop. A landmark of New York's Jazz Age publishing district, the Putnam Building reached sixteen stories skyward. An elegant retail bookstore graced its lobby, and its prime location was often touted in newspapers as "just 100 feet off Fifth." Times Square, now ablaze with neon, was just a couple blocks west and had recently eclipsed Herald Square as the energetic heart of Manhattan. On the day of Amelia's arrival, thirty skyscrapers had already reshaped the Midtown skyline, transforming the area into a bustling hub aglow with neon lights. The district housed titans like The New York Times, the city's most respected newspaper, and The New Yorker, a sharp-witted rising star on the media scene that, even in 1928, held outsize influence among the cultural elite. Railey brought Amelia to the elegant reception room of G. P. Putnam's Sons and introduced her to George's neat and professional brunette secretary, Miss Josephine "Jo" Berger. Dressed in the day's standard attire for working women in publishing—back-seamed stockings and practical T-strapped low heels—Jo exuded an air of efficiency, and in her respectable brown day dress, with a powdered nose and a touch of rouge, Amelia, too, seamlessly blended into the office's urbane ambiance. Amelia Earhart and George Putnam's official wedding portrait, 1931. International News Photos/Wikimedia Commons Unbeknownst to her at that moment, Amelia Earhart was poised to become his next great triumph. George, the peacock at the handsome desk, was still conducting his power phone call, his deep voice filling the office. Impeccably dressed in a flawless double-breasted suit, he was well versed in commanding the room—and absorbing the admiring glances that often followed. To kill more minutes, Amelia's eyes might have scanned what the bookcase held: there was Lindbergh's famous G. P. Putnam's Sons book, "WE" (those peculiar quotes around all caps), probably signed by the fabled Lindbergh himself. Should she confess to having a clipped newspaper picture of Lindbergh tacked up in her social worker's bedroom? Would that be seen as genuine admiration or as an overly starry-eyed gesture for a woman her age? At last, the publisher ended his call, allowing dramatic silence before inquiring, "And how about you? Do you consider yourself a risk-taker?" Amelia replied, "It depends. I'm here to learn more." Weighing how much to disclose, and after securing her promise of secrecy, he shared glimpses of the confidential project: he was scouting for a female passenger to be the first across the Atlantic. Years later, when Amelia's name rang louder than even George's, Railey candidly admitted—off the record—that he had been in that very room the day the very married George Palmer Putnam met Amelia Earhart. Thinking back to that significant meeting, Railey would muse all those years later: For George, it was undeniably "love at first sight." From "The Aviator and the Showman," published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Laurie Gwen Shapiro. Get the book here: "The Aviator and the Showman" by Laurie Gwen Shapiro Buy locally from For more info:
