In 1936, World War II was imminent. Edward VIII became King of England, although he was abdicated 11 months later. In 1937, the British royal family met with the newly appointed German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Recently declassified evidence suggests that Edward VIII may have been closer to nazi party members than we know. Edward VIII's overly close friendship with Hitler was also something the British government did not want the world to know. The fact that the British royal family came into contact with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II would be devastating. So the British and other Allied leaders did the only thing they could do, they buried the truth... Until now.
The meeting between Edward VIII and Adolf Hitler took place on October 22, 1937. But what did they talk about? Was this member of the royal family a fellow Nazi? Edward was no longer king when he met Hitler. Instead, he was the Duke of Windsor. As members of the royal family, he and his wife, Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, have been in the spotlight. Despite no longer being king, Edward still had connections and influences in some aspects of British society.
With World War II almost inevitable, British leaders rightly feared that members of the royal family were a little too close to the German dictator. Edward and his American wife were welcomed by the Fuehrer and his supporters. The Nazi Party was probably talking about establishing relations with the Duke. This connection can be very helpful to them. As more and more evidence surfaced, it seemed that Hitler not only wanted to establish relations with Edward VIII, but that if Germany defeated Britain in the war, Hitler might also plan to restore him to his position as a puppet king of Britain.
As soon as Edward and Wallis visited Germany, the Nazis put on a red carpet. They attended lavish parties and dined with Nazi Party leaders including Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels. But the highlight of their visit was a meeting with the Fuehrer himself. Edward and his wife were invited to Hitler's country house in the Bavarian Alps, named Berghof. Upon arrival at the estate, the Duke of Windsor and his wife took a group photo with the Nazi leaders. Hitler and Edward then met in secret, and they probably discussed the future, and the implications for each of them. There are different accounts about this meeting. Some say that Edward criticized Hitler's policies, and some say that he supported them. Post-war discoveries suggest that the latter may be true.
After everyone had finished afternoon tea, Edward and Wallis left Berghof and returned to England. Many accounts show that they had a great time, even in awe of the Fuehrer and the Nazi Party. The couple has been in Germany for almost two weeks and is greeted by cheering crowds when they arrive at each new destination. Many greeted Edward himself with Nazi salutes. Disturbingly, Edward often returned the salute. Obviously, this was not the kind of behavior that the British government wanted the Duke of Windsor to engage in, but Edward didn't seem to care. Although the photographs and visits with Hitler do not clearly prove that there was a friendship between the Duke of Windsor and Hitler, certain documents found at the end of the war may indicate that this was indeed the case.
But let's start from scratch, from the childhood of Edward VIII. To understand how pro-Nazi the Duke may have been, we need to go back in time. It is well known that Edward VIII liked German Chinese and culture at a young age. This in itself is not entirely surprising, since before the First World War, the full name of the royal family was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. This was changed to "Windsor" because the original name had a definite German pedigree, which the royal family did not want to associate with during World War I. Regardless of how the other members of the royal family felt, Edward was fascinated by his German ancestry. He has close ties to his German cousins and enjoys experiencing their culture. Edward was documented, and when the Nazi Party came to power, he said something very disturbing. This was long before he met hitler and Nazi officials.
In July 1933, three years before becoming King of England, Edward visited Prince Louis Ferdinand, the grandson of William II. During their time together, Edward was recorded saying: "We have no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Germany, whether it concerns the Jews or anything else." Edward seemed indifferent to the persecution of Jews that had begun. His later remarks, however, were even more disturbing. In the same visit, Edward VIII said: "Dictators are very popular nowadays. England may want one soon, too. "You can understand why the British leadership is wary of this young member of the royal family, especially as the war with Germany draws closer.
In 1936, Edward VIII ascended the throne after the death of his father, and the British government began to panic. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin ordered MI5 to begin surveillance activities to keep a close eye on the new king and his ties to the Nazi Party in Germany. Edward's phone was tapped and his Scottish security guards fed the information back to MI5, so he could be blocked if Edward decided to give his full support to Germany. After the outbreak of war, additional surveillance was carried out on Edward VIII. The government sees him as a huge burden to deal with. It was actually Winston Churchill who took serious action to ensure that the Duke of Windsor did not become a more serious problem. While under surveillance, Edward's telegrams and telegrams to Nazi party members were recorded and kept secret.
For reasons of secrecy, Churchill and other members of the British government did not want the world to know about the Duke's connection to the Nazis. In fact, Prime Minister Churchill was so worried about what Edward might do that Churchill asked Edward to become governor of the Bahamas. This means that Edward will be forced to leave Europe.
In 1940, World War II began. Edward didn't want to leave Europe, so he reminded Churchill of his position in the army and how he should stay on the continent to help with the war. Churchill disagreed, apparently distrusting the Duke, and sent him a telegram saying that even a major general could be tried by a military tribunal. Edward VIII was eventually persuaded or forced to agree to Churchill's terms. It's unclear how this happened, but the Nazis discovered that Edward was being transported across the Atlantic. It seems that they are reluctant to lose contact with the British royal family. When secret German documents were later discovered, they contained a plan called Operation Willie. At the time, Edward and his wife were in Nazi-controlled Paris. They fled to Spain and then to Portugal, which was still neutral. However, this did not stop German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop from ordering local Nazi dignitaries to find and meet with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
In documents later discovered by the Allies, the Nazis noted that Edward had expressed his dissatisfaction with the royal family, the British government, and Winston Churchill. The Nazis probably thought it meant it was time to recruit the Duke as an ally. Edward later planned to travel to the Bahamas after meeting with Nazi officials, so Rubin Trough provided false information to the Duke of Windsor that he was being targeted by British agents. The Germans encouraged the royal couple to return to Spain where the Nazis could protect them. If they helped in their war efforts, Edward would once again ascend to the throne of Britain, a way the Nazis were trying to attract dukes.
Although this is not a historical process, it is interesting that Edward did not inform the British authorities of his conversations with Nazi officials. Instead, the British had to learn about this through classified documents discovered after the war. It was a little dark for Edward. Even as Edward arrived in the Bahamas, he continued to speak openly about his lack of confidence in Britain winning the war. So, whether or not Edward VIII was best friends with Hitler, he was certainly close enough with the members of the Nazi Party to keep in touch with them even during World War II.
But there is another part to the story. That's why this information has long been out of the public. This in itself is not a conspiracy theory, but the suppression of information about Edward VIII's exchanges with Nazi leaders raises the question: Who is responsible for hiding this information, and why? Surprisingly, it wasn't just the British government that wanted to hide from the world documents of Edward VIII's contact with the Nazis. Churchill was not the only proponent of withholding information. Churchill pleaded with France and the United States to keep the Duke's documents in contact with Hitler and the Nazis confidential. Eventually, they all agreed to keep the secret, but decades later, a large number of documents on the matter were made public.
We know about the connection between Edward VIII and the Nazis because of the German archives found at the end of World War II. Some of the documents found in Marburg contained about 400 tons of paper. About 60 of these documents contained documents that came to be known as the "Windsor Archives", which included Correspondence between Germany and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The latest documents released by the UK government in 2017 contain information about how Churchill tried to hide the Windsor archives. In particular, he did not want documents containing communications between the Duke of Windsor and Nazi officials about Operation Willie to be made public. The documents also contain information about how Churchill contacted President Eisenhower to persuade him to keep the Windsor archives secret for 20 years. We cannot know with absolute certainty whether any documents in Windsor's archives were fabricated to promote or blackmail the British Crown.
But many scholars believe that all the documents are true, and that Edward VIII is closer to Hitler and the Nazis than the world knows at the time. It was also clear that Allied leaders such as Churchill and Eisenhower withheld the Windsor archives from the world, perhaps to keep members of the royal family away from the influence of the Duke's ties to Nazi Germany.