Was Edward VIII, an ex-British Monarch, Really a Nazi Sympathizer?
His close friendship with Adolf Hitler brought him under suspicion of being a Nazi Sympathizer
Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, commonly known as King Edward VIII, was born on 23 June 1894 in Richmond, Surry, as the eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of York who later became King George V and Queen Mary of United Kingdom.
Edward became the Prince of Wales when his father succeeded as King of Britain and Emperor of India in 1910. Although trained for Royal Navy, Edward served in the British Army after the outbreak of the First World War. Edward toured British Empire extensively in the 1920s when his interest grew in national affairs.
He was infamous for his relations with married women and was considered a playboy. He became King-Emperor of the British Empire in January 1936 when his father died, however, his kingship ended shortly when he wished to marry his love Wallis Simpson, a former divorcee, and wife to an American businessperson. His decision met with stiff opposition from church and royalty that led him to abdicate his throne and allowed his younger brother to become the king of Britain as George VI in December 1936.
According to sources, his father, King George V was very much worried about the relations of Edward with married women and didn’t want him becoming king, have reportedly said, “After I am dead the boy will ruin himself in twelve months.”
His father also said,
“I pray to God that my eldest son will never marry and have children and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne.”
He married Wallis Simpson in 1937 and together they lived most of their lives in France. The king granted them the titles of Duke and Duchess of Windsor. However, his relation remained strained with his royal family, and visited England very little, often on funerals.
Throughout his life, he remained an enigmatic personality and no one really understood him. He was a pacifist and wanted peace should rule the world instead of war. However, his visit to Adolf Hitler’s house in 1937 made him a controversial figure and labeled him as a Nazi sympathizer.
Was the Duke a sympathizer of the Nazi?
Edward was a sort of Prince who mixed with ordinary men and women and was a vigorous supporter of the social welfare of the people. During the era of the Great Depression, he toured various depressed regions extensively and gave speeches to rally support for the unemployed people. His speech at Royal Albert Hall in London, which he made for the help from the volunteers, was overwhelming. People gave in assistance whatever they could and they opened 2300 support centers that catered to the needs of a million people.
He also wanted to give a new look to monarchy and modernize the old-trodden rules and royal patterns but his love preceded by duty and he couldn’t realize his dream of modernizing the monarchy. He also took an interventionist stance in international affairs and advocated for peace throughout the world.
Part of this comes from his experience in World War First, where he has seen the horrors of wars. Although he was not allowed to actively participate in it, still he was touched by the grim situation and appalled by what a war can do to humanity. Thus, since World War First, he never left an occasion go wasted to speak for peace and urged world leaders in his own capacity to avoid war.
Throughout the 1930s, he spoke for maintaining good relations with Germany, and even in his famous speech of 1935, he vehemently suggested the British Legion pay a reconciliatory visit to Germany.
However, his speeches for peace and his support for a harmonious world order appeared naïve, and his policy of appeasement fall on deaf ears.
His reputation suffered not only from the scars as a playboy, or a man who neglected his duty but also from his sympathies for the German Nazi. But, apart from his sympathies, he was of the view that only the friendly alliance of the UK and USA can help prevail peace in international politics.
Even as early as 1919 he wrote to Churchill that “We just must be closely allied with the USA, closer than we are now, and it must be lasting, and they are very keen about it.”
Again in 1945, when he was serving as goodwill ambassador he wrote to his brother King George, “I am convinced that there can be no lasting peace for mankind unless [Britain and the USA] preserve a common approach to international politics.”
Still, the truth remains that he sympathized with the Nazi and toured Germany extensively along with his wife Simpson. They visited Hitler at his Berghof retreat in Bavaria against the advice of the British Government.
According to recorded sources, he gave full Nazi Salutes, being pictured as well, which the German media widely circulated. The Duke and the Duchess were also treated royally and the members of the German aristocracies bowed to them to regards them with dignity and status.
According to Count Albert Von Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, an Austrian ambassador, initially, Edward wanted to build an alliance with Germany and viewed German fascism as sole protection against communism.
Even Hitler once said, according to Albert Speer, that Anglo-German relations could have seen the best of times if Edward had not abdicated.
“I am certain through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved. If he had stayed, everything would have been different. His abdication was a severe loss for us.”
Adolf Hitler saw a close friend in him and a possibly powerful ally to support his cause. But things took a different course and everything fell apart.
In 1939, the NBC interviewed the Duke about his views about the looming threat of the Second World War when he was visiting Verdun, the battlefields of the First World War, he said that,
“I am deeply conscious of the presence of the great company of the dead, and I am convinced that could they make their voices heard they would be with me in what I am about to say. I speak simply as a soldier of the Last War whose most earnest prayer it is that such cruel and destructive madness shall never again overtake mankind. There is no land whose people want war.”
Still, according to The New York Times, the news was confirmed that Edward supported the Nazi cause and Hitler viewed him as an important person for future use.
Despite the peace calls of Edward VIII, in May 1940, German forces attacked Northern France. The Windsors fled to Portugal where they stayed with a Portuguese banker, Ricardo Espírito Santo, who had relations with both British and Germans. During his stay there, a Nazi agent, Walter Schellenberg, plotted against the Duke of Windsor to kidnap him, however, the conspiracy was unearthed by British agencies, and Churchill, who was the prime minister by then, appointed the Duke as the Governor of the Bahamas to send him to a neutral place to avoid further intrigues.
During their stay there, they still were in contact with the German agents, and even in one interview which was published on 22 March 1941, the Duke claimed that “Hitler was the right and logical leader of the German people”.
However, the Duke later denied the allegation and said that they misinterpreted his statement. The Germans were adamant to bring the Duke to their folds, as rumors were circulating then that Germans are trying to reinstate the Duke as the king of Britain to create a fascist regime in Britain. This force President Franklin D. Roosevelt to put the Duke and Duchess under covert surveillance during their visit to Palm Beach, Florida, in April 1941.
British intelligence also uncovered the German telegram about reinstating the Duke the king of Britain. They also found that a copy of the telegram is sent to the USA, which Churchill frantically tried to hide at all cost. He contacted President FDR, that the telegram is “obviously concocted with some idea of promoting German propaganda and weakening western resistance.”
Another telegram was reportedly discovered that claimed that the Duke was “convinced that had he remained on throne war would have been avoided”
However, when the telegrams were made public in 1957, the Duke denied the reality of the telegrams and termed them mere fabrications.
During surveillance, Duke Carl Alexandre of Wurttemberg claimed the Duchess was wishing to become the queen at all costs and for that to happen, she was in close contact with the German ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop, and the allegation went on that she even slept with him and leaked sensitive secret to the Germans.
Views of the Duke about Hitler after the War
When the war ended, people were looking to the Duke to clear his stance about the German Nazis, and to tell the truth that was he really a pro-Nazi?
In his memoir, he denied the allegations that he was a pro-Nazi but he admittedly wrote that he admired the Germans. However, he wrote about Hitler that “Führer struck me as a somewhat ridiculous figure, with his theatrical posturings and his bombastic pretensions.”
In the 1960s, he was conversing with his friend, Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross, who was a biographer and historian, that “I never thought Hitler was such a bad chap.”
The Duke and the Duchess returned to Paris after the end of the war and lived there all their lives peacefully. They lived a happy life, made ordinary friends, friends of another social class, hosted parties, and wrote extensively.
The Duke didn’t even attend the coronation of his niece, Queen Elizabeth II, and watched it on TV from Paris. He also took to a writing job and wrote paid articles for women's Home Companion and Sunday Express. He also wrote a short book, The Crown and the People.
The Duke of the Windsor, the friend of Adolf Hitler, the first abdicator of the British throne, the lover of Wallis Simpson, the ex-monarch of Britain and the Emperor of India, and the playboy Prince of Wales died peacefully in his house in Paris on 28 May 1972.
He was put to rest in the Royal Burial Ground in the presence of the Queen, the Duchess of Windsor, and the royal family.
