Sometimes referred to as “The Lindbergh Baby,” Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was the real-life son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. When Charles was scarcely two, he disappeared from his bed in the middle of the night; weeks later, his remains were found on the side of a highway in New Jersey. A German man was arrested for the kidnapping and murder, which was seen by many as a ransoming gone wrong. The incident was often referred to as the “Crime of the Century.” In the world of The Plot Against America, Roth suggests that Charles Jr. was kidnapped by Nazi spies in America and sent to Berlin—the Nazis, Roth implies, used the child as leverage with which they could blackmail Lindbergh into enacting their fascist, anti-Semitic agenda in America. Though Rabbi Bengelsdorf and Aunt Evelyn both believe this scenario is the truth, many denounce their account as crazy or sensational.
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Charles Lindbergh, Jr. Character Timeline in The Plot Against America
The timeline below shows where the character Charles Lindbergh, Jr. appears in The Plot Against America. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8: Bad Days
...the headline “AGAIN!” accompanied by a picture of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s two-year-old son, Charles Jr. , who went missing in 1932.
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...a Chicago Tribune article reports that President Lindbergh has been reunited with his missing son, Charles Jr. , in Berlin. According to the article, Charles Jr. is now 12 years old and...
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...from the First Lady. According to Bengelsdorf, the Nazis were behind the 1932 kidnapping of Charles Jr. They smuggled him out of America, planted a fake corpse, and told the Lindberghs of...
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...that if she did anything other than vacate the White House in silence, her son Charles Jr. would be sent to fight on the front lines in Stalingrad.
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...Morrow Lindbergh’s radio speech—and her call for the end of Wheeler’s presidency—meant that her son Charles Jr. came to harm (or whether the child the Nazis presented to the Lindberghs as Charles...
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