In his 1980 memoirs, Hitler's valet
Heinz Linge states that in mid-1940 Hitler told a number of people that he had associations with a particular French village stemming from World War I but going beyond his duties as a soldier. Then, on 19 July, Linge was in the same room as
Heinrich Himmler when the latter took a call from Hitler. Himmler was tasked with finding someone in that village, and after Linge left the room so Himmler could continue the conversation in private, he overheard discussion of a woman and her son. Linge believed that Loret's account corresponded with these implications. 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, met Loret in the process, and was able to convince him to let the story be published. Historians, including
Anton Joachimsthaler, criticised Maser for pursuing commercial motives and sensationalism. Other historians, such as
Timothy Ryback and
Ian Kershaw, argued that Hitler's paternity of Loret was unlikely to be proven. According to Maser's portrayal, a 28-year-old Hitler had met the 19-year-old Charlotte in the city of
Lille, in the German-occupied part of France, while stationed there as a soldier. She stated that "One day I was cutting hay with other women when we saw a German soldier on the other side of the street. I was designated to approach him." 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 autumn 1917 to, among other places,
Seboncourt, Forunes, Wavrin and
Noyelles-lès-Seclin in Northern France – and, in May, June and July 1917, also to
Ardooie in Belgium. Despite not being able to speak the same language, Hitler and Charlotte purportedly continued their relationship and frequently went on country walks and shared drinks at night. Loret was ultimately conceived after a ‘tipsy’ evening in the summer of 1917 in
Ardooie. Later, Charlotte would recall to her son that the soldier had a short temper and would often rant in German: When your father was around, which was very rarely, he liked to take me for walks in the countryside. But these walks usually ended badly. In fact, your father, inspired by nature, launched into speeches which I did not really understand. He did not speak French, but solely ranted in German, talking to an imaginary audience. Even if I spoke German I would not be able to follow him, as the histories of
Prussia,
Austria and
Bavaria were not familiar to me at all, far from it. My reaction used to anger your father so much that I did not show any reaction. The critics of this account point out that Maser had no evidence of this beyond Loret's own claims. 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". Maser further claimed that evidence for Hitler's paternity included Charlotte's commitment to a French sanatorium which was 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. In addition to Alice'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 during
World War I, unanimously noted that he was absolutely against any relationships between German soldiers and French women. Balthasar Brandmayer for example, in his 1932 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 women and had reproached them for having "no German sense of honour". Furthermore, there were 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 travel 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 to be Maser's "own private end goal".
DNA investigations In 2008, the Belgian journalist Jean-Paul Mulders travelled to Germany, Austria, France and the United States to collect DNA of the last living relatives of Hitler. He also obtained DNA from postcard stamps sent by Jean-Marie Loret. By comparing DNA from the stamps with that of a relative of Hitler's with a common paternal ancestor, Mulders proved that Loret lacked a matching
Y chromosome and was thus not Hitler's son. In 2012, the French magazine
Le Point published a news article, reporting that a study enlisted by Loret carried out by the
University of Heidelberg showed Hitler and Loret were of the same
blood group, and that another enlisted by Loret showed they had similar handwriting. The article also stated that official German Army paperwork proves officers brought envelopes of cash to Lobjoie during
World War II occupation, and described a suggestion by the family's lawyer that they may be able to claim royalties from Hitler's
Mein Kampf. In 2018,
Russian state-owned TV channel NTV interviewed Philippe Loret, the son of Jean-Marie Loret and Muguette Dubecq. The interview was filmed at Loret's home, which was decorated with
Nazi relics. Loret spoke of a
Rothschild family conspiracy == Sources ==