The year is 1936, World War II looms on the horizon.
Edward VIII becomes king of England, and 11 months later, abdicates the throne.
The very next year, this member of the British royal family meets with the newly appointed
German chancellor—Adolf Hitler.
Declassified evidence now suggests that Edward VIII may have been closer to members of the
Nazi party than we ever realized.
Even under the best of circumstances, a Duke spending time with Hitler and other Nazi officials
is not something that the British government would want the world to know about.
The fact that a former king, and then Duke of Windsor, was in communication with Nazis
just before World War II would have been devastating.
So, British and other Allied leaders did the only thing they could, they buried the truth…
until now.
We know without a doubt that a meeting between Edward VIII and Adolf Hitler occurred on October
22, 1937.
But what did they talk about?
And was this member of the royal family a Nazi sympathizer?
Edward was no longer king when he met with Hitler.
Instead, he was the Duke of Windsor.
He remained in the public spotlight as a member of the royal family along with his wife, the
Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson . Although no longer king, Edward still had connections
and influence in certain aspects of British society.
As World War II was all but inevitable, the leadership of Britain was rightfully nervous
that one of the members of the royal family was becoming a little too close to the dictator
of Germany.
Edward and his American wife—whom he abdicated the throne to marry—were welcomed with open
arms by the Führer and his supporters.
There was most likely talk within the Nazi party about building a relationship with the
Duke.
This connection may have served them well down the road.
And as more and more evidence is coming to light, it seems that Hitler not only wanted
to build a relationship with Edward VIII, but may have had plans of reinstating him
as a puppet king of England if Germany defeated Britain in the coming war.
Once Edward and Wallis arrived in Germany, the Nazis rolled out the red carpet.
They were treated to lavish parties, and had dinners with heads of the Nazi party including
Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels.
But the highlight of their visit was meeting the Führer himself.
Edward and his wife were driven to Adolf Hitler’s country home in the Bavarian Alps named Berghof.
Once at the estate, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Nazi leaders posed for pictures.
Then Hitler and Edward had a meeting in secret where they may have discussed the future,
and what it would hold for each of them.
There are varying accounts about this meeting.
Some say that Edward criticized Hitler’s policies, while others say he supported them.
What was uncovered after the war suggests the latter may have been true.
Once everyone had their afternoon tea, Edward and Wallis departed Berghof and headed back
to England.
Many accounts suggest that they enjoyed themselves, and even were in awe of the Führer and the
Nazi party.
The couple had been in Germany for close to 2 weeks, and when they arrived at each new
destination, they were greeted by cheering crowds.
Many people greeted Edward himself with a Nazi salute.
The unsettling thing was that Edward would often return the salute.
Obviously, this was not the type of behavior that the British government would want the
Duke of Windsor to be engaging in, but it didn’t seem like Edward cared.
Although the photos and visits with Nazi leaders do not definitively prove there was a friendship
between the Duke of Windsor and Hitler, certain documents recovered at the end of the war
may suggest that this was the case.
But let’s start at the beginning, with Edward VIII's childhood.
To understand just how pro-Nazi the Duke may have been, we need to go back in time.
In his youth Edward VIII was known to be fond of the German language and culture.
This in and of itself is not completely surprising, since until World War I the royal family’s
full last name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
This was changed to “Windsor” as the original name had clear German origins, which during
World War I, the royal family did not want to be associated with.
Regardless of how the rest of the royal family felt, Edward was fascinated by his German
roots.
He was close with his German cousins, and enjoyed experiencing their culture.
As he grew older, he became a little too bold with his support of what was happening in
Germany.
Edward was documented saying some pretty unsettling things as the Nazi party came to power.
And this was long before his meeting with Hitler and Nazi officials.
In July 1933, three years before he became King of England, Edward paid a visit to Kaiser
Wilhelm II’s grandson, Prince Louis Ferdinand.
During their time together Edward was recorded as saying that it was: “no business of ours
to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either regarding Jews or anything else.”
This alone is disturbing, as it would appear that Edward was indifferent to the persecution
of the Jewish people that was already beginning.
However, what he said later was even more disconcerting.
During the same visit, Edward VIII was documented as saying: “dictators are very popular these
days.
We might want one in England before long.”
You can understand why the leadership of Britain would be wary of this young royal family member,
especially when war with Germany was looking more and more like a reality.
In 1936 when Edward VIII became king after his father’s death, the British government
started to panic.
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin ordered Mi5 to begin a surveillance campaign to keep tabs
on the new king and his relationship with the Nazi party in Germany.
Edward’s phones were tapped and his Scotland Yard security detail fed information back
to Mi5, so that if Edward ever decided to throw his full support behind Germany, he
could be stopped.
Once war broke out extra surveillance was placed on Edward VIII.
The government felt he was a huge liability that needed to be dealt with.
It was actually Winston Churchill who took serious action to make sure that the Duke
of Windsor did not become more of a problem than he already was.
While under surveillance, Edward’s telegrams and cables to Nazi party members were recorded
and kept classified.
Churchill and other members of the British government did not want the world to learn
about the Duke’s connection with the Nazis for obvious reasons.
In fact, prime minister Churchill was so concerned about what Edward might do, that he asked
him to become governor of the Bahamas.
This would mean that Edward would be forced to leave Europe.
It was 1940 and World War II had begun.
Edward did not want to leave Europe, so he reminded Churchill of his status in the army,
and how he should remain on the continent to help with the war effort.
Churchill was not amused, and clearly did not trust the Duke, so he sent him a telegram
stating that even major-generals could be court-martialed.
Edward VIII was eventually persuaded, or forced, to agree to Churchill’s terms.
It is unclear how, but the Nazis found out that Edward was being shipped across the Atlantic.
It seems as if they were reluctant to lose their connection to the British royalty.
When secret German documents were later found they contained a plan called Operation Willi.
At the time, Edward and his wife were in Nazi controlled Paris.
They fled to Spain and then Portugal, which was still neutral.
However, this did not stop German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop from ordering
local Nazi dignitaries to seek out and meet with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
In the documents later recovered by Allied Forces, the Nazis had noted that Edward voiced
his displeasure with the royal family, the British government, and Winston Churchill.
The Nazis may have thought this meant it was time to recruit the Duke as an ally.
It seems that Edward intended to go to the Bahamas even after meeting with Nazi officials,
so Rubbentrop fed the Duke of Windsor false information that he was being targeted by
British operatives that were planning to assassinate him.
The Germans encouraged the royal couple to come back to Spain where the Nazi’s could
protect them.
And if they helped with the war effort, Edward would be placed on the throne of Britain once
again.
He would only be a puppet king, but it was one way the Nazis tried to entice the duke.
Although this is not the course history took, it is interesting to note that Edward did
not inform British authorities of the conversations he had with Nazi officials.
Instead, they had to find out about them through classified documents uncovered after the war.
This is a little shady on Edward’s part.
And even once Edward reached the Bahamas, he continued to publicly speak out about his
lack of faith in Britain winning the war.
So, whether Edward VIII was best friends with Hitler, or not, he definitely was close enough
with members of the Nazi party to be in communication with them even during World War II.
But there is another part to this story.
It is the reason that this information was held from the public for so long.
It isn’t a conspiracy theory per se, but the suppression of information around Edward
VIII’s connections and communications with head Nazi leaders does beg the question: who
is responsible for hiding this information for so long and why?
Surprisingly, it was not just the British government who wanted to conceal the documents
connecting Edward VIII to the Nazis from the world.
Churchill was definitely the most vocal proponent of suppressing the information, but he was
not the only one.
Churchill pleaded with the French and United States to keep the documents connecting the
Duke to Hitler and the Nazis classified.
Eventually, everyone agreed to keep the secret, but decades later, numerous documents were
released on the matter.
The reason we know about the connections between Edward VIII and the Nazis is because of German
files found at the end of World War II.
One cache of documents discovered at Marburg Castle consisted of around 400 tons of paper.
Around 60 of those documents contained what became known as the “Windsor File,” which
included German communications with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Recent documents released in 2017 by the British government contain information on how Churchill
tried to suppress the Windsor File.
He especially did not want the documents containing the communication between the Duke of Windsor
and Nazi officials about Operation Willi to be released to the public.
The documents also contained information about how Churchill contacted President Dwight D.
Eisenhower to convince him to keep the Windsor File classified for 10 to 20 years.
We can not know with absolute certainty if any of the documents in the Windsor File were
fabricated to be used as propaganda, or blackmail, against the British royal family.
But many scholars believe that all the files are genuine, and that Edward VIII was closer
to Hitler and the Nazis than the world knew at the time.
It is also clear that Allied leaders, such as Churchill and Eisenhower, hid the Windsor
File from the world, perhaps to distance members of the royal family from the Duke’s connection
to Nazi Germany.
Now watch “What Actually Happened to Nazi Leaders After World War 2?”
Or check out “The Nazi's Secret Plan to Destroy British Economy.”