Jean-Marie Loret

Jean-Marie Loret
Born18 March 1918
Died13 February 1985(1985-02-13) (aged 66)
NationalityFrench
OccupationRailway worker
Known forAllegedly being Adolf Hitler's son
Children10, including Philippe Loret
Parent(s)Adolf Hitler (Claimed)
Charlotte Lobjoie

Jean-Marie Loret (18 March 1918 – 13 February 1985[1]) was a French railway worker and allegedly Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's illegitimate son. According to Loret, his mother revealed to him in 1948 (a few years before her death) that Hitler was the "unknown German soldier" with whom she conceived a child during World War I. Hitler's valet Heinz Linge claimed in his memoirs that he witnessed Heinrich Himmler speak over the phone with Hitler, implying he wanted to find a woman and her son in their French village.

Loret's claim was backed by German historian Werner Maser, who first brought the claim to public attention in 1977 following an article in Zeitgeschichte magazine.[2] Loret published his own autobiography, Ton père s'appelait Hitler [Your father was called Hitler] in 1981. However, the dominant view represented by historians such as Anton Joachimsthaler,[3] Timothy Ryback, Ian Kershaw,[4] and Belgian journalist Jean-Paul Mulders,[5] is that Hitler's paternity of Loret is unlikely or impossible to prove.

  1. ^ "Man who claimed to be Hitler's son dies - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-07-01.
  2. ^ Maser, Werner (February 1978). "Adolf Hitler: Vater eines Sohnes ("Adolf Hitler: Father of a Son")". Zeit Geschichte, February 1978, pp. 173–202. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  3. ^ Joachimsthaller, Anton. Korrektur einer Biographie. Adolf Hitler, 1908–1920 [Emendation of a Biography. Adolf Hitler, 1908–1920], Munich, 1989, pp. 162–64.
  4. ^ Kershaw, Ian. Hitler-Biography; Vol. 1, note 116 to Chapter 3.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference HetLaasteNieuws2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).