He also applied to be one of the fliers on Admiral Richard Byrd/Donald McMillan’s North Pole expedition of 1925, but the team was already chosen.
Life in the Air Mail was exciting. Twice he had to bail out and parachute to land, but both times he managed to locate his wrecked plane and ensure that the mail was delivered—not on time but at least safely. Early in 1927 he went on leave, to oversee the building of his transatlantic plane, Spirit of St. Louis. Financing the project with a loan, a donation from his employers, and his personal savings, Lindbergh was not considered a serious contender for the prize for the first solo crossing.
When he made it, the world sat up and took notice. In Paris the American flag was flown above the Foreign Office, the first time that honor had been accorded a non-president. He was awarded the Lêgion d’Honneur, the highest award the French goverment gives. Back home he got a ticker-tape parade in his honor and was awarded the nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit. He was a hero. The Jazz Age valued its heroes, and he was feted everywhere.
He married well two years later and had six children. He settled in a large mansion in rural East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell. Life seemed idyllic.
Until it all came crashing down on March 1, 1932, when his life intersected with that of a man from a completely different background, with a completely different destiny.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann was just three years older than Lindbergh but born a world away, in the old German empire, in the village of Kamenz, not far from Poland. He had a normal enough childhood, attending school to fourteen and participating in the local scout movement. He trained as a carpenter for a year, and then switched to machine building. But in 1917, his father died and two brothers were killed in the war. Bruno was conscripted the same year. He ended up on the Western Front, where he was gassed, and then hit on the helmet with flying shrapnel during a shelling. The blow knocked him out and he was left for dead by his comrades. When he finally came to, he managed to crawl to safety—but was sent back up the line only hours later.
Many soldiers were traumatized by the war and found settling into civilian life difficult. Hauptmann turned to crime, perhaps looking for the excitement of action. He robbed two women, and then burgled a house, earning himself three years in prison. On his release he continued breaking into houses and was rearrested. To escape a further prison term he stowed away on a liner and entered the United States illegally. He landed in New York in September 1923 and disappeared into the German community in the city. He worked as a carpenter and married a waitress in 1925.
But the economy crashed in 1929, plunging America into the Great Depression. Hauptmann had a wife to support and began to look for easy money. Crime seemed the answer. This time he decided on the big score, a crime so audacious and profitable that if he pulled it off, he could retire on the proceeds. He began to look for a suitable target. One man was in the news all the time. Fame and glamour—he must have money to go with it. And he lived in an isolated rural spot. Lindbergh was the perfect victim.
On March 1, 1932, the family nurse tucked twenty-month-old Charles Lindbergh Junior into his crib. She wrapped him in a blanket and pinned it to the sheets to prevent him moving during his sleep. Charles Senior was often away on business, but that evening he was at home. At nine thirty at night he heard a noise which he assumed came from the kitchen but thought nothing more of it. Half an hour later the nurse discovered that the crib was empty. She ran to check if the baby was with his mother but Anne Morrow Lindbergh did not have him. During the subsequent search of the house, Charles Lindbergh found a white envelope on the windowsill above a radiator. Grabbing a gun, he went around the house looking for intruders, while his wife phoned the police. They arrived twenty minutes later—followed swiftly by the newspapermen and by Lindbergh’s lawyer.
There were clues. Tire prints were found, and a three-piece ladder hidden in a nearby bush. But no sign of the baby. The envelope that Lindbergh had found in the nursery confirmed their worse suspicions. This was a kidnapping. They were ordered to pay a ransom of $50,000; delivery instructions would follow. That was all.
It was, as newspaperman H. L. Mencken described it, “the biggest story since the Resurrection.” Immediately, the full force of the American justice system was mobilized. Even President Herbert Hoover got involved, ordering the Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner of the FBI), the Coast Guard, Customs Service, and Immigration Service, to join the hunt for the missing toddler. Leading underworld figures such as Al Capone offered to help, though their motives were far from pure. Capone suggested that he be released from prison to liaise with the kidnappers—an offer that was rejected as soon as it was made.
This flurry of activity showed how highly Lindbergh was regarded; the president did not make it a habit to involve himself in kidnapping incidents, which were seen as matters for the local police.
A few days later, with no sign of the missing child, the first of a number of ransom notes arrived. The notes appeared to be written by someone whose first language was German. A Brooklyn teacher, John Condon, became the agreed-upon intermediary between the kidnappers and the Lindberghs.
In early March, Condon had his first meeting with the man sending the ransom notes, who said he was a Scandinavian sailor and that the child was on a boat, safe. But, worryingly, he asked if he would “burn” if “the package were dead.”
On April 2, $50,000 was handed over to a cab driver, who gave Condon a note explaining that the child was with two women, who had no involvement in the kidnapping. But nothing came of that—the child was not returned and the agony for the Lindberghs continued. Then, on May 12, a delivery truck driver pulled to the side of the road about four and a half miles from the Lindberghs’ home to relieve himself. He disappeared into a grove of trees and was horrified to find the body of a tiny child. Charles Lindbergh had been found.
An autopsy revealed that his skull had been badly fractured. It was probable that he had been killed within a very short time of his abduction. He may have been killed straight away or he may have struck his head during the abduction, possibly falling down the ladder and dying accidentally. Whatever actually happened, during the entire ransom process the child was already dead.
The news shocked Congress into passing legislation that made kidnapping a federal offense, allowing the Bureau of Investigation a freer hand in the case. The investigation became heavy-handed as they searched for an inside man in the Lindbergh household. Their focus fell on Violet Sharp, a British servant. They questioned her so vigorously that she took her own life—ingesting silverware polish that contained potassium cyanide. Subsequently it became apparent that she had no involvement.
The press dubbed the kidnapping “the Crime of the Century.” Unfortunately it was not the investigation of the century. Thirty months dragged on with no fresh leads. The investigators focused on tracking the notes in the ransom drop; they had recorded the serial numbers. They used a map to record where the bills showed up and a pattern began to emerge. The notes were being passed along the rouge of the Lexington Avenue subway, right through the German-Austrian neighborhood of Yorkville.
The ransom had also included gold certificates. These had been used as a sort of alternative currency in the United States up until 1933. One of the gold certificates from the ransom had been used by Richard Hauptmann—a German with a criminal record. When Hauptmann was arrested, a search of his home uncovered over $14,000 of the ransom money.
Under a vigorous interrogation—which included physical beatings—Hauptmann stuck to his story. He had been left the money by a friend and former business partner who had returned to Germany and conveniently died.
But equally damaging was the discovery of a drawing of the ladder used in the kidnapping and also that Hauptmann had the address and phone number of John Condon, the intermediary with the Lindberghs. It was too much of a coincidence. He was charged with kidnapping and murder.
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p; The trial was a sensation. Reporters swarmed the town of Flemington, New Jersey, and every hotel room was occupied. One paper, the Daily Mirror, paid for Hauptmann’s defense—in return for rights to publish Hauptmann’s story.
The evidence against him was solid. In addition to having the ransom money in his possession, his handwriting was suspiciously similar to that of the kidnapper’s. Wood from his home matched the wood used in the ladder that was found at the Lindbergh home. There was too much evidence against him, and the jury had no difficulty convicting. Hauptmann was sentenced to death.
The inevitable appeals followed and were rejected. The execution would go ahead. Near the end, intense pressure came on Hauptmann to confess. A newspaper offered him a large sum for his story, but he turned it down. Even the prosecution got in on the action. An offer was made that the death sentence would be commuted to one of life imprisonment if Hauptmann confessed and gave the Lindberghs closure. He refused. He maintained his innocence right up to the end.
Shortly before facing “Old Smokey,” as the electric chair at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton was called, Hauptmann wrote his final statement:
I am writing this literally within the shadow of the electric chair. For upward to fourteen months I have been confined in the cell nearest to the execution chamber in the New Jersey penitentiary. The courts have now said that I shall die on the night of April 3, and that I shall die in the chair that is just beyond the door that faces me and has faced me every waking hour of my life these past fourteen months. The courts have said that on the night of April 3, I shall be prepared to leave the cell which has been my home; walk through the door which has been facing me these weary months; tread the few steps that lead from that door to the electric chair; that on that night I shall be led out on a walk from which I shall never return.
When I rise to join in that last deathly procession, I shall walk as any man walks, striding along one foot ahead of the other. I shall breathe the air my guards are breathing. I shall hear things that are being said, with ears that are as the ears of other men. I shall say with a voice that is the same as voices of other men that a tragedy is being enacted, that a life is being wantonly taken, that I am innocent of the crime of which I have been convicted, as innocent as any one in the world; and then, if the decision of the court is carried out, I shall be strapped into the chair, and in a few fleeting seconds this body that is mortal will be no longer living and breathing but just a mass of clay.
And I ask, WHY? Why must this thing be? Why should this thing happen? Why should the State of New Jersey take from me that which is most precious to all men—life? Why should they widow my loyal wife and orphan my lovely baby? Every hour, every day, since the Flemington jury rendered their verdict, I have asked myself that question. I am as innocent of the crime of killing the Lindbergh baby or even the slightest participation in that or any crime like it, as any one who reads this.
… unexpected like a lightning bolt or earthquake, came my arrest for the murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. It is impossible to describe how I felt when I realized that I was being charged with that most dastardly crime of all times. It must all be a joke, it must all be a farce, all some horrible mistake! I knew nothing about the Lindbergh baby. I knew nothing about the ransom money. I knew nothing about that crime or any crimes in connection with it, and I confidently expected that within a day or two I would be returned to my home, my wife, and my baby.
That didn’t happen.
And so I sit, ten feet removed from the electric chair, and unless something can be done to aid me, unless something can be done to make some one tell the truth, or unless some one does tell it, I shall at eight o’clock Friday evening, in response to the call from my keepers, raise myself from my cot for the last time and shall walk that ‘last mile.’ I suppose there will be in that chamber some of those who have had part in the preparation of my case for the prosecution. It is my belief that their suffering, their agony, will be greater than mine. Mine will be over in a moment. Theirs will last as long as life itself lasts.
On the afternoon of April 3, 1936, Hauptmann had a last visit from his wife and baby son. Then he enjoyed his final meal. Unlike many who refuse the meal or opt for the standard one, Hauptmann chose some of his favorites. He had a salmon salad, corn fritters, sliced cheese, olives, and celery, followed by a fruit salad and cake. He washed it all down with milk and finished with a coffee. His spiritual adviser, Reverend James Matthiesen, remained in the cell with him. A few minutes before the guards came to take him to the death chamber, he reverted to his native German, saying, “Ich bin absolut unschuldig an den Verbrechen, die man mir zur last legt.” (“I am absolutely innocent of the crime with which I am convicted.”)
When the guards arrived he walked with quiet dignity to the chamber and sat calmly in the chair. He said nothing and made no gestures to the fifty-two witnesses.
“He sat down just like he was going to eat dinner at his table at home,” said one of the reporters present. “He certainly did die a brave man.”
The execution was flawless. The time from when he entered the chamber at 8:40 p.m. to the official pronouncement of his death was just seven and a half minutes—perhaps helped by his calmness. He was cremated and his ashes scattered in his native Germany by his widow. In the years that have passed there has been considerable controversy about his conviction and about the heavy-handed methods used by the police. But however they got the result, there is little doubt that Hauptmann was the Lindbergh kidnapper.
SACCO AND VANZETTI ANARCHISTS CONVICTED IN THE WRONG
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were dangerous armed anarchists who believed in the violent overthrow of the American government. They were labor agitators and strike organizers who were members of a group that bombed and killed to further their political aims. When they went to the electric chair in August 1927, twenty thousand people gathered on Boston Common. But they were there to protest the execution. They knew that the man who went to the electric chair a few minutes before the two anarchists did was probably the real guilty party and that Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent scapegoats.
It was a massive miscarriage of justice that is controversial to this day.
Both anarchists were Italians. Vanzetti was a fishmonger, born in the Piemonte region of northern Italy in 1888. Sacco was a cobbler from the poorer far south of the country, born three years later. They did not meet until they had both moved to America. Their paths first crossed at a strike in 1917. By that stage they were both involved in an anarchist group inspired by Luigi Galleani, an Italian anarchist who advocated revolutionary violence and published a periodical, Subversive Chronicle, to further these aims. He also published a practical guide to bomb making. At the time Italian anarchists were regarded almost as we regard Al Qaeda cells today. The group was suspected of several bombings and assassination attempts, including one attempted mass poisoning. Two years later Galleani was deported.
But the cells remained active, with up to sixty anarchists waging a campaign against politicians and judges. A friend of Sacco and Vanzetti’s was killed when the bomb he was planting to kill Attorney General Mitchell Palmer went off prematurely. But such political activity requires funds, and, like all terrorist groups, the anarchists were also involved in robberies and conventional crime.
On the afternoon of April 15, 1920, two men were bringing the payroll to the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company factory in Braintree, Massachusetts. The cash was in two steel boxes when the guards were approached by two men. One guard attempted to draw his pistol but was shot and killed. The raiders also killed an unarmed paymaster, shooting him in the back as he attempted to flee. The robbers jumped into a dark blue Buick and drove off, shooting randomly into the crowd of workers as they escaped.
This was the second factory robbery in a few months. In December, a shoe factory in Bridgewater had been targeted, but no one was killed in that attempted robbery. Police immediately suspected local anarchists of being behin
d the two robberies. Sacco and Vanzetti were known agitators, and despite having no criminal records they were in the frame from the start. During a roundup of local activists, the police found a car that they thought might have been a second getaway vehicle and they impounded it for examination. They waited to see who would turn up to reclaim the car. Four men showed up, including Sacco and Vanzetti. But the men smelled a rat and escaped before the cops could capture them. However Sacco and Vanzetti were identified and were soon in custody.
When questioned they both denied owning guns—a denial that rang hollow when they were searched and the guns taken from them. Not only were they carrying, the guns were loaded. The bullets taken from Sacco matched those at the crime scene, and the gun taken from Vanzetti was identical to the one stolen from the guard who had been murdered during the robbery. It was enough; both men were charged with murder.
Immediately the anarchists began a campaign of retaliation. Two days after their arrest, the Wall Street bombing occurred. Dynamite was used in a horse-drawn cart. The huge bomb was loaded with shrapnel to maximize the damage. Thirty-eight people were killed, and 134 wounded. The group also began worldwide embassy bombings.
Vanzetti was tried for the attempted robbery and attempted murder in Bridgewater. The robbery had happened on Christmas Eve, 1919. There was not enough evidence to charge Sacco or any of the other anarchists. Several witnesses put Vanzetti at the scene of the robbery, but their descriptions varied. Some said he had a big bushy mustache, others said it was smaller, or more shaped. “Man with a mustache” was the only thing the descriptions had in common. But there was also physical evidence, including a shotgun shell retrieved at the scene which matched several shells found on Vanzetti when he was arrested.
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