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Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME IS SUPERMAN 64

This is pretty much the definition of frivolous pop history, but I've always had a soft spot for any history, even if its trivia, related to the Second World War. It seems that while he was serving in France Hitler may have knocked up a 16 year old French girl. The actual evidence seems incredibly tenuous and even if this were true it wouldn't really change the world or give us any new insights into the war, but its kinda fascinating all the same.

All that having been said, I think that this story can provide us with some insights on our own day and age. Hitler's alleged son wrote a book: "Your Father's Name Was Hitler" some four decades ago, and yet the story has been virtually unknown until now. Suddenly - many years after Hitler's "son" died in 1985 - there is a big buzz about this and a new release of the book with "new evidence" and other supplementary material. I think its an interesting example of how history gets filtered through the lens of marketing as well as a fascinating anecdote in its own right. And who knows, maybe its even true!

quote:

Hitler's Son: Nazi Dictator May Have Fathered Child With French Teenager

Hitler had a son with a teenage French girl, new evidence claims to prove.

The shocking revelations that Adolf Hitler had an affair with a french teenager while he was a soldier in World War One, has been published in French magazine Le Point.

Hitler's 'son', Jean-Marie Loret, never met his father, and served as a soldier fighting against the Nazis during the Second World War. However before Loret died in 1985, he told his story to a Parisian lawyer Francois Gibault.

Loret was given up for adoption by his mother after a difficult childhood, his peers knowing that he was the son of a German soldier. Like many children fathered by German soldiers, his mother was destitute, and he was jeered at, known as "the son of the Boche."

Loret's mother met the young Hitler whilst he was serving as a soldier in northern France. On leave in a rural village outside of Lille, he first spotted Charlotte Lobjoie, as she cut hay in a field.

"We saw a German soldier on the other side of the street," she told her son, years later.

"He had a sketch pad and seemed to be drawing. All the women found this interesting, and were curious to know what he was drawing.

"I was the one chosen to approach him."

After that encounter, 16-year-old Lobjoie and Hitler would often go for walks in countryside. However she told her son that "these walks usually ended badly".

"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 where 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."

After a 'tipsy' night out together in June, the couple slept together. Loret was born in March 1918, by which time Hitler had left the country.

Alone and struggling for money, Lobjoie gave up her son to another couple. However years later, after Loret's mother confessed to him the truth of his parentage, Hitler's son struggled to cope.

"In order not to get depressed, I worked non-stop, never took a holiday, and had no hobbies. For twenty years I didn't even go to the cinema." he told his lawyer.

However Loret began investigating his past. He enlisted an expert in physiognomy (the way faces are aligned) and asked for advice from the Institute of Anthropology and Genetics at the University of Heidelberg. The blood type of the two men are similar, and their faces suggest famial characteristics.

Paintings by Hitler, an accomplished artist, have been found in Lobjoie's attic. A painting of the young Charlotte, signed by Hitler has even been found. Papers from the Germany and French army corroborate Loret's mothers story, showing that the Nazi dictator was serving in France at that time.

It has also been revealed that Lobjoie received packages of money from Hitler, years later.

Loret died in 1985. Four years earlier, he had written the book Your Father’s Name Was Hitler. The memoir is to be republished with the new evidence that corroborates his story.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 21:43

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# ? May 21, 2013 11:54

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Bawk Bawk THERAPY CRANES Baaawk!

I've read both volumes of Ian Kershaw's excellent biography of Hitler, with well over a thousand pages and God only knows how much source material.

He didn't find anything like this. I doubt that HuffPo (or wherever they copy/pasted this thing from) snagged something like this.

B-b-b-b-b-bullshit. Unless you want to count all his genetic clones in Brazil, because those are definitely around.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 21:49

Pipe Dreamer: Sep 2, 2011; by Y Kant Ozma Post

I don’t know about biologically but Merkel is Hitler’s spiritual granddaughter and is finishing the job of conquering Europe that he never could.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Feb 23, 2012 21:51

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME IS SUPERMAN 64

Junior G-man posted:

I've read both volumes of Ian Kershaw's excellent biography of Hitler, with well over a thousand pages and God only knows how much source material.

He didn't find anything like this. I doubt that HuffPo (or wherever they copy/pasted this thing from) snagged something like this.

B-b-b-b-b-bullshit. Unless you want to count all his genetic clones in Brazil, because those are definitely around.

Its a short op. You should try reading it.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 21:51

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; Man you spin around on the roof of a building couple of times and people going to think that some other news company is trying to ape Daily Planet

Junior G-man posted:

B-b-b-b-b-bullshit. Unless you want to count all his genetic clones in Brazil, because those are definitely around.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 21:59

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Bawk Bawk THERAPY CRANES Baaawk!

Helsing posted:

Its a short op. You should try reading it.

Instead of accusing me of not reading the article, which I did, how about doing a tiny bit of critical analysis yourself before defending it. It's all hypothetics and what-if's:

quote:

Hitler had a son with a teenage French girl, new evidence claims to prove.

It doesn't prove anything. It claims to do so.

quote:

"We saw a German soldier on the other side of the street," she told her son, years later.

A German soldier who drew. I'm sure there were a number of them who did so, probably including any number who were yelling about the state of the war.

quote:

physiognomy (the way faces are aligned)

Is this a real science? Because it sounds quite dodgy. I'm genuinely curious. Wikipedia calls it rubbish, and I'm inclined to agree.

quote:

The blood type of the two men are similar, and their faces suggest famial characteristics.

They are similar, and their faces suggest. This is no proof positive, it's a very hedged bet.

quote:

Papers from the Germany and French army corroborate Loret's mothers story, showing that the Nazi dictator was serving in France at that time.

True, but so were many hundreds of thousands of other German soldiers. No one is denying this.

So no, it's complete and utter rubbish. It's a rubbish article that's been inserted into HuffPo by a PR agency that's hyping a rubbish book. This guy might as well have written about how he discovered that he's the last living descendant of Jesus.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 22:01

Cephalocidal: Dec 23, 2005; Water-based lucubrant.

No. Five minutes of searching, shot down four years ago.

http://translate.google.com/transla...%26prmd%3Dimvns

After multiple trips between Germany, Austria, France and the United States, the journalist has tracked down individuals who had a relationship with Hitler.

By comparing their DNA with that of Jean-Marie Loret, it does not share the Y chromosome with the U.S. back nephews that are all males of the same family, the hypothesis of hidden son of Hitler in French is found swept.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 22:01

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME IS SUPERMAN 64

Since the op apparently didn't make this clear enough, this isn't a thread claiming Hitler actually had a son. Its supposed to be an example of overly sensational history being driven by marketing imperatives. Its kinda besides the point to repeatedly point out how unlikely this is to be true when I already noted that in the first post.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 22:19

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME IS SUPERMAN 64

Junior G-man posted:

Instead of accusing me of not reading the article, which I did, how about doing a tiny bit of critical analysis yourself before defending it. It's all hypothetics and what-if's:

You seem to have read the article without reading my comments on it.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 22:19

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Bawk Bawk THERAPY CRANES Baaawk!

Helsing posted:

You seem to have read the article without reading my comments on it.

Yes, you're right. I must have misread:

quote:

a fascinating anecdote in its own right. And who knows, maybe its even true!

# ? Feb 23, 2012 22:21

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME IS SUPERMAN 64

Even taken completely out of context does that read like an endorsement of the article to you?

Either way I'd rather this thread not become the two of us sniping at each other. I'm more interested in talking about the way history gets used as a vehicle for marketing than I am in berating you for bad reading comprehension.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 22:24

lynch_69: Jan 21, 2001; What say you, have we your blessing?

Helsing posted:

Even taken completely out of context does that read like an endorsement of the article to you?

Either way I'd rather this thread not become the two of us sniping at each other. I'm more interested in talking about the way history gets used as a vehicle for marketing than I am in berating you for bad reading comprehension.

Remember the hoopla a couple years back when a company called Steorn posted ads about their free energy machine in the Economist? Of course it turned out to be bullshit, but that ad appearing in a respectable publication like the Economist got a lot of people talking. I even remember quite a few threads about it on this very forum.

This is the same thing, only instead of attaching their product to the Economist they get it embedded as a "news story" in a very popular aggregate site so people can Retweet/Facebook Like/Google +1 it. And yes, post about it in discussion forums complete with a backlink to the Huffington Post, which helps their SEO.

In a world where nobody pays for news any more this sort of thing will be the norm. SEO is everything. Expect to see more and more sensationalist nonsense designed to generate the maximum number of Retweets and Facebook Likes appearing in between real news headlines. The most popular news sites on the Internet don't really do any actual reporting, they just regurgitate wire stories and make millions by slipping in the occasional corporate press releases dressed up as news.

Has the Huffington Post jumped the shark yet? If "Hitler's Long Lost Son Bares All" is the sort of thing they do these days I really hope they spectacularly implode like pets.com or some other dot com disaster from the 90s.

Almost makes me miss the days of Comet Cursor, Punch the Monkey and Bonzi Buddy. At least they were honest.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 22:53

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001; One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously when the decay which leads its to death has already begun

Helsing posted:

Even taken completely out of context does that read like an endorsement of the article to you?

Either way I'd rather this thread not become the two of us sniping at each other. I'm more interested in talking about the way history gets used as a vehicle for marketing than I am in berating you for bad reading comprehension.

I see this is kind of an extension of the business of books about Hitler. Go to any major bookstore and a good 10% of the history section is books on Hitler, Nazis, and the Third Reich. The rest is military history with a few non-Western books for decoration.

It's really embarrassing in Canadian bookstores like Chapters and Indigo. The Canadian history section is predominantly about war, and everything else is written by Pierre Berton. If you want to talk about history as marketing and branding, there's a great example: For a lot of people Pierre Berton is Canadian history. Canadian historians (and publishers) are terrible at marketing.

# ? Feb 23, 2012 23:15