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File:Duke and Duchess of Windsor meet Adolf Hitler 1937.jpg

温莎公爵伉俪会见德国元首希特拉。希特拉以皇室规格礼待公爵夫人。

1937年10月12至23日，温莎公爵爱德华及温莎公爵夫人华莉丝访问纳粹德国，引起极大争议。

爱德华在1936年12月退位后，皇弟佐治六世成为英皇。及后，爱德华获授予温莎公爵爵位，并与华莉丝成婚。在此期间，爱德华似乎同情德国，并在三个月后宣布有意私下到访当地参观工厂，视察当地工人阶级的社经地位。不过，此举却有违英德关系紧张的形势。公爵的支持者视此旅程为英德寻求和平的首步，但英国政府表明反对公爵伉俪访德，质疑德国会借此行作政治宣传。公爵则衷心希望夫人能够体验国事访问，并向政府承诺会保持低调。

公爵伉俪是获德意志劳工阵线邀请而访问德国，阵线领袖罗拔·利陪同二人出席大多活动。伉俪参观当地工厂，当时大部分正生产军需，而公爵亦检阅德军。德国当局在伉俪到访时奏起英国国歌和行纳粹礼。伉俪又与戈培尔和戈林等纳粹高层进餐，以及与希特拉茶聚。公爵与希特拉对谈一段长时间，但因战火致文献失传，而无法得悉交谈内容。公爵夫人则与希特拉助手赫斯共进下午茶。希特拉同情公爵伉俪的待遇，更以皇室礼遇礼待公爵夫人。

英国政府无法阻止温莎公爵伉俪起行，只可禁止英国驻德外交官与伉俪有任何高级别交流。英国国内对此行冷淡漠视，大部分视其意图为扰乱佐治治国。伉俪访德后原定转往美国访问，但纳粹打压工人阶层社运份子令美国劳工运动不满伉俪，最终令访美行程告吹。现代历史学家倾向认为，是次访问显示公爵缺乏足够判断力以及无视意见。

背景

英皇退位

主条目：爱德华八世退位

1936年初，爱德华八世在父皇驾崩后成为英皇。与此同时，爱德华宣布有意娶已经两度离婚的美国名流华里丝·辛普森。不过，华莉丝在政治上和道德上都不能成为皇后，因为爱德华身兼英格兰教会的名誉领袖，而教会禁止失婚者在前夫前妻在身时再嫁娶，但华莉丝的两名前夫仍在人世。反对者批评爱德华坚持婚事的话，将会违反他的加冕誓言，削弱他作为立宪君主的地位。爱德华亦知悉若果坚持己见的话，斯坦利·鲍德温几乎肯定会总辞以示抗议。

爱德华知道皇室、政府、教会、百姓近乎无一支持自己娶华莉丝为妻。故此，爱德华在1936年12月退位，由皇弟佐治六世继位，自己则获授予温莎公爵爵位。翌年6月，爱德华与华莉丝在法国结婚。二人在维也纳渡蜜月后返回巴黎，定居当地。记者摩顿表示，公爵被外国视为：“摩登、进步、有活力、以及亲民。Even his mock Cockney accent with a touch of American seemed more down-to-earth and unaffected than the disdainful patrician tones of a man like Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. He remained an intriguing international celebrity, his marital turmoil only enhancing the iconic mystery surrounding the man”

政治形势

1923年的欧洲地图

公爵伉俪访德时，欧洲政治形势紧张。1936年爆发的西班牙内战导致俄意德三国插手，扰乱欧洲权力平衡；而德国在过去数年亦加强军事实力，变得越具野心。至于在英格兰，虽然政府在外交上依旧采取绥靖政策，但国内已对未来感到不安，忧虑会爆发战争。1937年5月，鲍德温辞任首相，由副手张伯伦接任。

历史学家博池表示，虽然此行程后来被批评不智，但在当时而言并非不宜：“距离开战还有两年，外界十分好奇纳粹党人，受人尊敬的人士大多都会接受政府邀请。在三十年代中去德国见希特拉，就如六十年代去中国见毛泽东般，一样流行”。前首相莱德·佐治在1935年就曾访德；作为和平主义者的工党党魁佐治·兰士巴利在1937年4月与希特拉见面；后来出任外相的夏利法勋爵亦应德国国会议长戈林邀请，在同年5月访问德国，历史学家施华雅形容此行看起来纯属社交交际，但也是让英廷尝试接触希特拉、展开对话。同样地，希特拉也曾在巴伐利亚官邸碧荷府招待多名外国大使、贵族或政府官员，包括什叶派伊玛目阿迦汗三世和圣座驻德国大使池萨利·柯仙尼高。

朝廷看法

有指佐治六世对于皇兄在此敏感时间插手欧洲政务感到震惊，甚至不快，因为爱德华退位时表明有意避免出席公众场合。英皇致函公爵政治顾问华德·蒙顿时，形容公爵计划访德是“一个突如其来的坏消息”。皇家传记作家白福提出，温莎公爵此行显示他无意隐居淡出公众视线，而是要摆脱英皇和内阁，独自行事。

当代人对公爵伉俪前往德国感到惊讶，亦留意到此行的负面含意，同情公爵的邱吉尔和比华博勋爵等人都游说他放弃访德，甚至公爵夫人的老友 凯文·罗杰士也反对此行，惟众人都无功而还。历史学家文杜马士表示，政府早已怀疑温莎公爵自认有权干涉国家政务，但他们最担心的还是他的轻率鲁莽。外交及联邦事务部警告公爵，纳粹党人熟悉政治宣传；公爵同意并承诺不会公开演讲。历史学家嘉白利称，政府关注公爵有能力在不受政府规管下，宣扬自己对外交政策的看法。

公爵强调访德用意“不涉政治考量，只是以独立观察员身份研究工业和房屋情况”。He said that one could not ignore what was happening in Germany, "even though it may not have one's entire approval". The Duke was sympathetic to the cause of improving working conditions.

Donaldson suggests that his views "had caused offence in England because, according to opinion there, such matters were not the concern of the throne". Statements such as this, emphasises the scholar Adrian Philips, were intended to deflect from Windsor's public relationship with Wallis Simpson.

公爵政见

Windsor was an admirer of Germany and fluent in the language, which the Duke in his memoirs called "the muttersprache [mother tongue] of many of our relations". He knew, too, that German blood "flowed strongly in him", and the researcher Mark Hichens speculates that Windsor's ancestry led him to favour German culture. As Prince of Wales, he had studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, under Hermann Fiedler, and had toured Germany twice before war broke out in 1914. One of the Prince's friends, Chips Channon—Conservative MP for Southend West—commented in 1936 that he "is going the dictator way, and is pro-German". Simpson was also believed to hold similar views on account of her rejection by the British ruling class, and many within the government suspected her to have spied for Hitler while she lived in Britain. This she denied in her autobiography. The FBI also monitored her throughout this period and concluded that she had Nazi sympathies. It had been rumoured that she and von Ribbentrop had had a sexual relationship during his tenure as German ambassador in London in the mid-1930s. Count Albert von Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein—previously Austrian ambassador to the UK, and George V's second cousin—believed that both Windsors favoured German fascism as a bulwark against communism in Europe. Windsor also, according to the Count, favoured an alliance with Nazi Germany around this time.

Stanley Baldwin, prime minister during the abdication crisis

Windsor himself later contextualised his position in the 1930s as being a reaction to what he termed "the unending scenes of horror" of the First World War. This, he said, led him to support appeasement with Hitler. The latter is known to have seen the Duke as an ally, believing that, as king, Windsor would have strengthened Anglo-German relations. Albert Speer later said that Hitler was certain that "through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved. If he had stayed, everything would have been different." The Duke, suggests the biographer Anne Sebba, probably wanted to restore the countries' close ties that had been broken by the First World War. He also wanted to make his new wife the centrepiece of a state visit. The historian Ted Powell suggests that the Duke would have visited any country that would accept his wife on his terms; Windsor's equerry Dudley Forwood points out that the only state visit possible was to Germany, and also suggested that the Duke wished to prove to his wife that he had lost nothing by abdicating.

Overture and organisation

A tour of Germany had been broached with the Duke before his wedding by the French businessman Charles Bedaux, whom Bloch describes as an "enigmatic time and motion tycoon". Windsor was agreeable, seeing it as a way of raising his profile. By April 1937 Colonel Oscar Solbert had suggested the Duke take a tour of Germany; this was soon intended to be the first of several planned international tours. Bedaux offered to organise the Duke's side of the arrangements. Solbert had been with Windsor on his 1924 tour of the United States and had been impressed by his gravitas and professional demeanour. This led him to suggest to the Duke that he should "head up and consolidate the many and varied peace movements throughout the world". The Swedish millionaire Axel Wenner-Gren acted as a go-between for the Duke in these early discussions. Bedaux wrote to Solbert, telling him:

The Duke of Windsor is very much interested in your proposal that he lead a movement so essentially international. We all know that as Prince of Wales and as King, he has always been keenly interested in the lot of the working man and he has not failed to show both his distress and his resolve to alter things whenever he has encountered injustice ... Yet he is not satisfied with the extent of his knowledge. He is determined to continue, with more time at his disposal, his systematic study of this subject and to devote his time to the betterment of the life of the masses ... He believes his is the surest way to peace. For himself he proposes to begin soon with a study of housing and working conditions in many countries ...

——Charles Bedaux to Oscar Solbert, 23 August 1937

The tour of Germany was planned to be a brief visit of 12 days, but was to be followed by a longer one of the United States. The German side of things was organised by Hitler's adjutant, Captain Fritz Wiedemann, with final preparations discussed at the Paris Ritz in late September. The same month, the Duchess wrote to her aunt in Washington that they were planning a trip to observe European working conditions. The Duchess explained that "the Duke is thinking of taking up some sort of work in that direction. The trip is being arranged by Germany's No. 1 gentleman so should be interesting," although says that at that stage, it was still only a proposal. The writer Hugo Vickers suggests that Edward believed himself to be able to influence Hitler and avert war in Europe. If this was the case, says Vickers, Windsor "severely overestimated his own importance".

Several different contacts visited the Windsors at their Paris hotel, Le Meurice, although the nature of their discussions remains unknown, and this has encouraged what Cadbury terms colourful theories. One such, for example, by Charles Higham, suggests that on one occasion the Duke received Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, Hess's assistant Martin Bormann and the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn together. It is more likely, she says, that these rooftop restaurant meetings involved men such as Wiedemann finalising the itinerary and other minutiae.

Announcement

Dr Robert Ley was the Windsors' chaperone during their tour

Powell suggests that Windsor found the German government's response sufficiently sympathetic to proceed without delay. In late September he received a personal invitation from Dr Robert Ley, head of the German Labour Front (GLF). Windsor first indicated that he intended to accept in a letter to the British chargé d'affaires in Berlin, George Ogilvie-Forbes, on 20 September. A public announcement followed two weeks later. A telegram to the Foreign Office stated that:

In accordance with the Duke of Windsor's message to the world press last June that he would release any information of interest regarding his plans or movements, His Royal Highness makes it known that he and the Duchess of Windsor are visiting Germany and the United States in the near future for the purpose of studying housing and working conditions in these two countries.

The historian Jonathan Petropoulos suggests that the British government were aware that they could not prevent what was, officially, a visit by a private individual. In private the news angered both Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. The Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Robert Vansittart wrote to the King's Private Secretary Alec Hardinge condemning the tour. Hardinge agreed, describing it as a "private stunt for publicity purposes". He also reasoned that the premise of the tour was flawed: neither the Duke nor his visit, he said, could "obviously ... bring any benefit to the workers themselves". Ley proposed to hold Nazi rallies at each stop on the Windsors' tour, but the Duke had vetoed it on the grounds that it constituted anti-British propaganda.

11–23 October 1937

The historian Andrew Roberts suggests that the German government believed Windsor was forced to abdicate as a result of his pro-Nazi views, and that this encouraged them to "lay out the red carpet" for him. On 10 October, the Duke's cousin the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha wrote to him, "dear David! I hear that you are coming to Germany ... I naturally would be delighted if you could take this opportunity to see me; perhaps I could introduce you to a couple of interesting personalities whom you otherwise wouldn't meet". Hitler and von Ribbentrop planned that, although the tour was a private rather than state visit, the Windsors—particularly the Duchess—were to effectively receive a royal progress. This was first demonstrated on their arrival, early Monday morning, at Berlin's Friedrichstraße station on 11 October. The scholar Susanna de Vries describes how the Duchess "covered in jewels ... did her best to look suitably royal", dressed in royal blue. They were greeted by Ley, who kissed her hand and called her "Your Highness". With Ley was a welcoming delegation including von Ribbentrop and the Gauleiter of Berlin, Artur Görlitzer. Also waiting was the Embassy's Third Secretary to present a letter informing the Duke that the Embassy would not be available to assist him or his wife formally in the course of their visit. Ogilvie-Forbes later visited the Duke in his hotel to pay the personal respects he had been unable to pay him in public.

A welcoming crowd of approximately 2,000 lined the streets outside the station; the German media set great store by the Windsors' visit from the beginning. As the Windsors were leaving, the crowd surged forward and a crush ensued. This, says Cadbury, destroyed the "majestic air" of the reception that Ley had organised. With few of the crowd having seen them, the couple were driven away at high-speed in their Mercedes, to their hotel, the Kaiserhof.

Pathé caught the moment they emerged from the station into a large crowd that had gathered determined to see this unique couple: a king who had thrown away the greatest throne in the world for love, and the woman herself, who must possess some magical quality. Dr Ley, the head of the German delegation, wearing his brown Nazi uniform and for once not drunk, delighted them both by deferring to her as 'Her Royal Highness'.

——Deborah Cadbury

The couple were treated like royalty by the German aristocracy, who "would bow and curtsy towards [the Duchess], and she was treated with all the dignity and status that the Duke always wanted".

The Duke of Windsor inspecting SS troops at Ordensburg Krössinsee; Ley is in the light-coloured coat.

On their first night in Berlin, they joined the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop for dinner at Horcher's. The night was attended by Speer (with whom they discussed classical music), Magda and Joseph Goebbels: she was Germany's de facto first lady and her husband was Reich Minister of Propaganda. Following their meeting, Goebbels wrote in his diary that "the duke is wonderful—a nice, sympathetic fellow who is open and clear and with a healthy understanding of people ... It's a shame he is no longer king. With him we would have entered into an alliance." The Duchess did not reciprocate, describing him as "a tiny, wispy gnome with an enormous skull", although Magda, she continued was "the prettiest woman I saw in Germany". The Windsors dined with his cousin the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on the 19th. This dinner was attended by over 100 guests, the Duke later recalled, many whom he had "hobnobbed" with at both his father's jubilee and then his funeral.

Itinerary

The Berlin correspondent of the British Observer newspaper, reporting the couple's arrival, wrote that they could look forward to a "heavy programme" of events. The couple and their entourage—which included the Duke's cousin Prince Philipp von Hessen—travelled around Germany on Hitler's personal train, the Führersonderzug, while their telephones were bugged by Prince Christoph of Hesse, on the orders of Reichsstatthalter Hermann Göring, keeping the Nazi leadership informed of the Windsors' private opinions. The German government was funding the visit, which, suggests the modern historian John Vincent, allowed them to choreograph it. Hichens, too, notes that the Windsors "saw only what the Nazis wanted them to see, and the Duke saw what he wanted to see turning a blind eye on the horrors of Nazidom". For example, says Morton, they visited a barracks of—apparently empty—concrete buildings that they later realised had been a concentration camp. When the Duke enquired as to their purpose, Ley replied, wrote Forwood later, " 'it is where they store the cold meat.' In a horrible sense that was true."

Although the couple were in Germany at Ley's personal invitation, he was a poor host. Bloch describes him as coarse, "addicted to alcohol [and] high-speed driving", and risqué jokes. Hichens views Ley as "loud-mouthed", brutal and a "particularly odious Nazi thug". On one journey, he was drunk at the wheel of the Windsors' Mercedes while driving at speed and crashed them into the gates of the Munich factory they were visiting. One of Ley's aides, Hans Sopple, later described events, telling how Ley "drove the car through the locked gates and then raced up and down at full speed between the barracks, scaring hell out of the workers and nearly running over several. The next day Hitler told Göring to take over the Duke's visit before Ley killed him." This was not, comments Morton, "at all what the Duke had in mind when he described the nature of a royal tour to his wife".

A colourised postcard from 1911 of the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft factory in Untertürkheim

Bloch describes the couple's itinerary as an "exhausting" series of visits to industrial and housing areas. A letter from the Duchess confirms that, although the tour was interesting, it involved walking "miles a day through factories", including one which produced lightbulbs. Among other sights, they saw a winter relief centre, a Wagnerian opera in a workers' concert hall and inspected a Pomeranian SS squadron. This was with the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Hitler's personal bodyguard. The Duchess did not accompany her husband everywhere; he visited the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft at Untertürkheim alone. This was intended to showcase German precision engineering to the Duke, and there to meet him was British racing driver Richard Seaman, who had signed for the Mercedes-Benz team earlier in the year.

On 14 October the Duke and Duchess visited Göring at his jagdschloss in Karinhall, where they saw his miniature railway. There, Hitler's deputy gave them high tea, followed by a tour of his large art collection and gymnasium, where—although dressed in full uniform and decorations—he demonstrated his massage machine. The three conversed in Göring's study, during which Windsor noticed a new, official map of the Third Reich on the wall. Reflecting the party's Anschluss policy, Austria was shown as annexed to Germany. Cadbury quotes Wallis: "Göring's face wrinkled with amusement ... The Austrians would want to be part of the Reich", he had said. Wallis noted that "the moment passed, the statement left unchallenged" by the Duke.

They visited an Academy for Youth Leadership where they observed the training of Hitler Youth. On an inspection of the Krupp factory in Essen, production of tanks and U-Boats had already begun. On each visit, the couple were presented with enthusiastic workers keen to extol their working conditions to the Duke. He, in turn, was at his most charming, says Hichens. On one occasion, he joined a session of rowdy drinking songs in a staff beer garden, where he wore a false moustache and played skittles. The couple were regularly greeted with the Nazi salute, which they sometimes reciprocated (this was not unusual, and most visitors to Germany at the time—including sports teams—made the salute). The couple were welcomed at each venue by both the German and British national anthems. The Nazis, the researcher Peter Allen finds, knew the Duchess to have a keen interest in china, and as such, they included a trip to the Meissen porcelain works; Allen suggests that this demonstrates a policy of pleasing the Duke through his wife. On a visit to one of Ley's GLF meetings Windsor made a speech, telling the assembly:

I have travelled the world and my upbringing has made me familiar with the great achievements of mankind, but that which I have seen in Germany, I had hitherto believed to be impossible. It cannot be grasped, and is a miracle; one can only begin to understand it when one realizes that behind it all is one man and one will.

Wallis, meanwhile, notes Morton, maintained the fiction in her letters to her friends and family that they were merely sight-seeing.

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Letter from Olgivie-Forbes to Oliver Harvey at the Foreign Office, 13 October 1937, in his first report on the Windsors' tour since their arrival in Germany

Meeting Hitler

The tour culminated on 22 October when they met Hitler at the Berghof. It is possible that the meeting was a last-minute addition to their itinerary, as they were supposedly told of it only the previous day, although Allen suggests that this is unlikely, as Hitler had previously expressed a wish to meet the Duke.

The Duke and Duchess had to wait before Hitler was ready to see them, although, says Vickers, he was in a genial mood when he did. The two men had an hour-long discussion, with Hitler doing most of the talking. The Duke is known to have encouraged Hitler in Germany's desired territorial expansion into Central and Eastern Europe. The minutes of the meeting appear to have been lost, presumed destroyed, in the war. The Duchess did not join her husband, instead taking tea with Rudolf Hess. General Bohle acted as her interpreter. A friend of the Windsors, the French millionaire Paul-Louis Weiller, later said the Duchess had organised the meeting with Hitler, and that being excluded from it had angered her. At the end of their visit the three had tea together. Hitler's partner, Eva Braun, was not present: whenever he entertained guests of high rank, she had to stay in her bedroom until they had left. The Windsors made a good impression on Hitler, suggests Hichens; the Duchess later wrote how she was both "fascinated and repelled" by Hitler. Hitler, comments the historian Philip Ziegler "mildly irritated the Duke by insisting on using an interpreter rather than speaking directly to him in German". This was Paul Schmidt, who later recalled the meeting:

Hitler was evidently making an effort to be as amicable as possible towards the Duke, whom he regarded as Germany's friend, having especially in mind a speech the Duke had made some years before, extending the hand of friendship to Germany's ex-servicemen's associations. In these conversations, there was, so far as I could see, nothing whatever to indicate whether the Duke of Windsor really sympathised with the ideology and practices of the Third Reich, as Hitler seemed to assume he did. Apart from some appreciative words for the measures taken in Germany in the field of social welfare, the Duke did not discuss political questions.

Forwood disagrees with Schmidt's recollection and says the Duke raised criticisms of Nazi social policy. Forwood also says that, at the same time, Forwood accused Schmidt of mistranslating for Hitler, and that Forwood interjected "Falschübersetzt!" or "wrongly translated!" The Duke departed, he believed, under the impression that Hitler was a pacifist. An observer describes how, as they returned to their car, escorted by their host:

The Duchess was visibly impressed with the Führer’s personality, and he apparently indicated that they had become fast friends by giving her an affectionate farewell. [Hitler] took both their hands in his saying a long goodbye, after which he stiffened to a rigid Nazi salute that the Duke returned.

The historian Volker Ullrich argues that Hitler seems to have been flattered that the Windsors wanted to see him; Weidemann later said that he had rarely seen Hitler "so relaxed and animated as during that visit". The meeting concerned the British government, for whom it appeared to be almost an informal summit. Three days earlier, Hitler had been telephoned by the future British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, regarding Germany's expansionist policies. Halifax had pressed the benefits of a mutual understanding between their two countries. The Windsors' visit soon after, says Sebba, probably encouraged Hitler to see Windsor as an ally. Windsor later said that he had thought Hitler was "a somewhat ridiculous figure, with his theatrical posturings and his bombastic pretensions", and denied to his wife that he and Hitler had discussed politics at all. The Duke's interpreter, Dudley Forwood, also put down his—different—recollection of what was said, writing how "my Master said to Hitler the Germans and the British races are one, they should always be one. They are of Hun origin."

The Duke and Duchess spent the last night of their tour back in Munich where they stayed at the Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel; the Duke received some personal guests. One of these was a Kreisleiter of the Nazi Party, who had previously been Master of Ceremonies for Grand Duke Adolphus Frederick VI of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a personal friend of the Duke's father. The main event was a dinner given by Rudolf and Ilse Hess, and attended by high-ranking Nazi officials. Petropoulos comments that although there are no records of what may have been discussed at the dinner, "it is striking that the Duke and Hess, both future advocates of a negotiated peace, had the opportunity to spend the evening together and review the Windsors' tour". Ilse Hess later told how at one point, the Duke and her husband had been gone for over an hour; she found them in an upstairs games room. Here, Hess had a large collection of model ships, and he and the Duke were "excitedly" re-enacting a World War One naval battle.

Reactions

The British government attempted, but were unable, to control public relations during the visit. Cadbury notes how a former English king "turning up in ... Berlin was an unexpected bonus" for German diplomacy. The German newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung boasted about the number and quality of the people who wanted to see the Nazis' social programme first hand, and wrote "the Duke of Windsor, too, has come to convince himself personally of the energy with which the new Germany has tackled her social problems". The German government took advantage of it as soon as the Duke and Duchess departed. Olgivie-Forbes reported that Ley had already announced that Windsor had praised Hitler's leadership. Hitler subsequently asserted that Wallis, in his opinion, would have been a good queen. Hitler believed Windsor understood the Führerprinzip, and that he was a man the Nazis could work with. The tour may have given rise to later suspicions that, in the event of a successful outcome to Operation Sea Lion—a German invasion of Britain—the Duke would be appointed a puppet king. In his diary, the Earl of Crawford summed up the British establishment's views on the Duke:

He had put himself hopelessly in the wrong by starting his visit with a preliminary tour in Germany where he was, of course, photographed fraternizing with the Nazi, the Anti-Trade Unionist and the Jewbaiter. Poor little man. He has no sense of his own and no friends with any sense to advise him. I hope this will give him a sharp and salutary lesson.

——The Earl of Crawford

Neville Chamberlain, seen here in France in 1939, was prime minister during the Windsors' German tour.

Similarly, the diplomat and soldier Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart noted in his diary that he expected Windsor to return sooner rather than later as "a social-equalising king, inaugurate an English form of fascism and an alliance with Germany". To the British ruling class, comments Morton, the Windsors' "farrago was greeted with undisguised glee". On the other side of the parliamentary divide, the Labour Party MP Herbert Morrison (leader of the London County Council) wrote that "if the Duke wants to study social problems he had far better quietly read books and get advice in private, rather than put his foot in it in this way". The Times reported how "His Royal Highness acknowledges with smiles and the National Socialist salute the greetings of the crowds gathered at his hotel and elsewhere during the day". The Daily Express, meanwhile, said that he had received "the kind of reception that only the old kings of Bavaria could expect". The reaction in Germany, said the British attaché in Leipzig, was that the tour had demonstrated the Duke's "strong pro-fascist sympathies"; in Russia, the view was that the British royal family had "warm feelings" for Germany.

Historiography

The most positive aspect of the visit, comments Powell, "was that it had been well-organised, albeit for the benefits of the hosts". Philips calls the tour "an embarrassment at best, and at worse, glaring proof of his complete lack of judgement", while Piers Brendon describes it as "the worst blunder of his career". Roberts calls the tour "fantastically ill-judged", and Bloch notes that the Duke's political contemporaries were all in agreement that starting the tour in Nazi Germany at such a time was nothing short of "disastrous". The scholar Julia Boyd, comparing the meeting with Hitler with others that had taken place—the Aga Khan, for example—notes that, while attracting a great deal of comment, they "could not compete with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor ... in terms of celebrity and sheer inappropriateness".

Sebba explains Windsor's lack of judgement by the fact that, whereas as Prince of Wales he had been able to call on a wide spectrum of counsel, now he had only his wife and acquaintances. Powell, similarly, believes that Windsor's reputation "was at the mercy of unscrupulous strangers". Ziegler, conversely, suggests that while the trip may have been "ill-advised and ill-timed  ... [it was] not a crime". Vickers, similarly, suggests that while the tour may have helped fuel the theory that the Duke was a Nazi, "he was no such thing. But he was naive, and having been brought up with people to advise him all his life until December 1936 he was hardly competent or equipped to deal with men like Hitler. Nor should he have undertaken this trip independently."

According to Sebba, Windsor promised to refrain from making speeches so his words could not be used against him by critics. Some scholars, such as Bradford, believe the visit to be directly the result of "pro-German and even more pro-Nazi" views. German people who witnessed the Duke on tour, suggests Morton, did not see him "either publicly or privately, as a collaborator, appeaser or traitor to his country. Far from it." The scholar Gerwin Strobl agrees, writing that:

When the Nazis were dealing with a useful fool, they could never quite disguise an element of contempt in their language; when they met a rogue, their words betray a shared contempt for others. There is nothing of this in the descriptions of the Duke's conversations in Berlin or the later wartime recollections of his actions and opinions. Instead, there is something one comes across only very rarely in Nazi utterances: genuine respect; the respect felt for an equal."

Aftermath and later events

The Windsors' German tour made little impact on the British public, and the main criticism seems to have been the failure to keep a low profile as he had sworn. Churchill, for example, wrote to the Duke implying that there had been little notice taken of the Nazi aspect and that he was "glad it all passed off with such distinction and success". The new prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, disagreed with the tour and privately worked against it; but, comments the Third Reich scholar Karina Urbach, "as a convinced monarchist [he] did everything to keep the institution intact".

In 1966, the Duke described his memories of meeting Hitler. Hitler had, Windsor said, "made me realize that Red Russia [sic] was the only enemy and that Great Britain and all of Europe had an interest in encouraging Germany to march against the east and to crush communism once and for all … I thought that we ourselves would be able to watch as the Nazis and the Reds would fight each other". His equerry, Forwood, said something similar in his memoirs:

Whereas the Duke, Duchess and I had no idea that the Germans were or would be committing mass murder on the Jews, we were none of us averse to Hitler politically. We felt that the Nazi regime was a more appropriate government than the Weimar Republic, which had been extremely socialist.

Later events

The Windsors returned to Paris on 24 October, with a fortnight to prepare for the United States tour. The week after the Windsors left Munich, the Nazis executed two KPD organisers and labour leaders, Adolf Rembte and Robert Stamm. They were widely admired among the American labour movement for their trade union and anti-Nazi activity; their deaths swung popular opinion against the Duke and Duchess. Labour unions campaigned against the tour, particularly in the Duchess's hometown of Baltimore. Unions said they would not support the Windsors' visit, calling them either "emissaries of a dictatorship or uninformed sentimentalists".

Bedaux—whom, Vincent suggests, intended to use the Duke to regain possession of his confiscated German business—was irreparably damaged by fall out from the Windsors' tour. In 1938, his German businesses were confiscated by the Nazis permanently. His reputation also suffered in America, where his operations were forcibly taken over by a US-based subordinate. The Duke's public connection to Bedaux, combined with the bad publicity, persuaded Windsor to cancel the tour. The New York Times reported on 23 October that, in its view, the German tour, "demonstrated adequately that the Abdication did rob Germany of a firm friend, if not indeed a devoted admirer, on the British throne. He has lent himself, perhaps unconsciously, but easily to National Socialist propaganda." Another correspondent wrote that "the poor fellow must have very little discretion and must be very badly advised. His going to Germany and hobnobbing with Hitler and Ley just before visiting America was enough to enrage every liberal organization in the country."

The US trip had been intended to demonstrate the Duke's leadership qualities, and its cancellation was sufficiently traumatic to induce him to retire, temporarily, from public life. Roosevelt wrote a conciliatory letter to the Windsors expressing hope that the tour would eventually go ahead. Following the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, says Bloch, the British government removed the Windsors from Europe for the war's duration. The Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas; Churchill wrote to Roosevelt in July 1940:

The position of the Duke of Windsor in recent months has been causing His Majesty and His Majesty's Government some embarrassment as though his loyalties are unimpeachable there is always a backwash of Nazi intrigue which seeks to make trouble about him now that the greater part of the continent is in enemy hands. There are personal and family difficulties about his return to this country. In all the circumstances it was felt that an appointment abroad might appeal to him, and the Prime Minister has with His Majesty's cordial approval offered him the Governorship of the Bahamas. His Royal Highness has intimated that he will accept the appointment.

The Duchess called the Bahamas, for them, "the St Helena of the 1940s".

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Note* *Electronic editions only
ch. = chapter § = paragraph

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