The heir that never was

The late Jean-Marie Loret was a French railway worker who lived most of his life in the town of Saint-Quentin. On the face of things, there is nothing in his biography that could point to a life that was anything but ordinary. But in 1970, a German historian by the name of Werner Maser went public with the claim that Jean-Marie, the balding man with the bristly mustache, was none other than the product of a war-time fling between Charlotte Lobjoie, the daughter of a French butcher, and Adolf Hitler, then a corporal fighting in the German army during the First World War.

Forty two years later, Maser’s revelation made its way to news rooms around the world, and media outlets in Israel and abroad began speculating on the possible existence of a biological heir to the evil dictator.

It is important to note that Loret isn’t the only individual associated with the dubious title: throughout history, several characters came forward claiming to be Hitler’s descendants. The question of Hitler’s heir was often shrouded in mystery, like in the case of a nameless British man whom reporters claimed was the product of the unrequited love of British socialite Unity Mitford for the German tyrant. As aforementioned, no one ever learned the man’s name, and he likely never knew the truth, if Hitler really was his father. But all that didn’t stop the British media from digging into the affair over and over again.

Why does this question, and the unfounded answers it yields, make headlines in serious news publications, even in Israel? The answer lies in the public’s perception of Hitler, who, besides symbolizing absolute evil, deviated as a leader from the boundaries of normal historical discourse. Over the years he has become a cultural icon. A very negative one, yes, but an icon that represents absolute evil more than any other.

As such, stories are often spun in efforts to explain how the failed Austrian painter became a mass murderer and monstrous dictator. It is difficult to understand and so humanity keeps searching for reasons – even through supposed offspring.

It’s worth mentioning the myths, propagated by anti-Semites as well, that Hitler’s father or grandfather were of Jewish origin, or that he had only one testicle or that he harbored oedipal feelings toward his mother (who died of cancer and whose death he blamed on her Jewish doctor).

These myths also stem from humanity’s primal fear of Hitler’s return. It is as though the knowledge that he committed suicide on the eve of Berlin’s fall to the Soviet army isn’t enough – a fear still throbs in us Jews and in others around the world that, like the Amalekite king Gog, whose seed sprouted years later in the form of Haman - something of the evil dictator also lives on.

Despite the occasional flood of news stories about a possible Hitler heir, there is no truth to them. Even Loret, who was believed by the press to be Hitler’s son, wasn’t really his son. Genetic tests removed any such doubt – not from Loret’s mind, who believed it until his death in 1985 – but from the minds of important researchers in the field.

So what does this mean for us? While this latest “son of Hitler” story contains a large element of historical gossip based, among other things, on visual similarities, we can remain calm – the dictator who enslaved, conquered and murdered entire peoples, killed himself with a pistol and left no offspring behind. It seems like we’ll have to make do with the other dictators of our time.