Jean-Marie Loret - The Loret-Hitler Connection

The Loret-Hitler Connection

The story of "Hitler's son" was first revealed to the public in the 1970s, most prominently in various illustrated magazines such as Bunte, but also in more reputable publications, such as the historical journal Zeitgeschichte and the news magazine Der Spiegel. The latter published the most influential story on Loret to date under the title "Love in Flanders".

The ultimate origin of the story of Hitler's son, first spread only by word of mouth, was up until then not determined, though written accounts maintaining that the illegitimate son of a French girl and a German soldier was Hitler's son had already been around for a fairly long time in Loret's hometown when Loret became known to German historian Werner Maser. Whether the rumors had been put out into the world by Loret himself or by others has never been determined.

Maser maintained that he had heard of a reputed son of Hitler for the first time in 1965 while doing research in Wavrin and surrounding cities. He followed up on these reports, in the process meeting Loret, and was able to convince him to let the story be published. Thenceforth, Maser exerted great effort to gather evidence to support it. Critics, such as, for example, Anton Joachimsthaler, criticised him, alleging that he was subordinating the scholarly pursuit of truth in order to pursue commercial motives such as sensationalism and enjoyment of scandal.

According to Maser's portrayal, the Loret-Hitler connection occurred as follows: Hitler had met Charlotte Lobjoie in 1916 in the city of Wavrin, in the German-occupied part of France, while stationed there as a soldier, and had begun a romantic relationship with her. Loret had been conceived in the summer of 1917 in Ardooie or, according to other sources, in the fall of 1917 in Le Ceteau. The latter is the less likely variant since it would require a premature birth.

Maser wrote in his Hitler biography on the relationship of Hitler and Lobjoie:

At the beginning of 1916 the young woman had met the German soldier Adolf Hitler for the first time. She stayed first in Premont, allowed herself to fall into a sexual relationship with him, and followed him until fall 1917 to, among other places, Seboncourt, Forunes, Wavrin and Noyelles-lès-Seclin in Northern France – and, in May, June, July 1917, also to Ardooie in Belgium (p. 528).

The critics of this account pointed out that Maser had no evidence of this, beyond Loret's own claims, which were secondhand at best.

A genetic certification of his biological inheritance, done at the University of Heidelberg, resulted in the findings that "at best, Loret could be Hitler's son", but that he need not be such.

Maser claimed that evidence for Hitler's paternity included Charlotte Lobjoie's commitment to a French sanatorium (allegedly at Hitler's instruction) after the German invasion of France, and a protracted interrogation of Loret by the Gestapo in the Hotel Lutetia, the Gestapo headquarters in Paris, as well as Loret's alleged collaboration with the Gestapo as a policeman.

Maser's questioning of Alice Lobjoie, Loret's aunt and Charlotte's sister, whom he had wanted to bring into play as "crown witness" for his claim, rendered, instead, a negative result: Alice Lobjoie stated that her sister had indeed entertained a love relationship with a German soldier, but she disputed vehemently that this soldier had been Adolf Hitler. She stated that she could remember the man's face quite well and knew that this face had no resemblance to Hitler's. In addition, she stated for the record:

"Jean is a nutcase. Only the Germans talked up that Hitler story to him."

Maser later attempted to minimize Lobjoie's statements in more recent editions of his book Hitler, pointing out the aunt's alleged anger at her nephew.

In addition to Alice Lobjoie's assertion, critics of Maser's thesis, such as historian Joachimsthaler, among others, introduced into the debate testimonials from Hitler's war comrades, who, in their recollections of Hitler in the First World War, unanimously noted that he was absolutely against any relationships between German soldiers and French women. So, for example, Balthasar Brandmayer, in his memoir Two Dispatch-Runners, reported that Hitler had reacted in the most violent terms against the intent of his regiment-mates to get involved with French girls and had reproached them for having "no German sense of honour".

In addition, the critics asserted logical inconsistencies in Maser's story: that it is highly improbable that any soldier in the war, let alone a private ranking low in the military hierarchy, would have been able to take a lover with him through all the relocations of his regiment, as Hitler had done with Lobjoie, according to Maser's account. Free movement would scarcely have been possible in the occupied areas, and having Charlotte travelling along with the regiment is very doubtful.

During the course of the 1979 Aschaffenburger Historians' Moot, Maser at first kept quiet on the matter. Finally, in his own contribution to the discussion, he abruptly declared a possible illegitimate son of Hitler to be a marginal matter. Joachimsthaler designated this Maser's "own private end goal".

The Daily Express claimed, in an article dated 15 February 1985, that a portrait of Loret's mother had been found, after Hitler's death, among the latter's possessions, but had no evidence for this claim. In point of fact, a portrait done by Adolf Hitler in the year 1916 that purportedly depicted Charlotte Lobjoie with head-scarf and with fork in hand was tracked to a Belgian entrepreneur in the 1960s and was published in an issue of the journal Panorama at the beginning of the 1970s. It is therefore unlikely that this same portrait was found among Hitler's possessions in 1945. One should in this case trace the origin of the claim to a misunderstanding.

In more recent time Maser reaffirmed in an interview with the extreme right-wing-oriented National-Zeitung that he stood by his thesis, just as before, and he maintained Loret "was unambiguously Hitler's son", and that this had been "acknowledged in France on the part of officials". The 12th edition of his book Adolf Hitler: Legend, Myth, Reality—according to Maser, the most translated Hitler biography in the world—contains a comprehensive appendix on this subject.