Английская Википедия:1937 tour of Germany by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:EngvarB Шаблон:Bots
Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, and Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, visited Nazi Germany in October 1937. Edward had abdicated the British throne in December 1936, and his brother George VI had become king. Edward had been given the title Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson in June 1937. He appeared to have been sympathetic to Germany in this period and, that September, announced his intention to travel privately to Germany to tour factories. His interests, officially researching the social and economic conditions of the working classes, were against the backdrop of looming war in Europe. The Duke's supporters saw him as a potential peacemaker between Britain and Germany, but the British government refused to sanction such a role, opposed the tour and suspected that the Nazis would use the Duke's presence for propaganda. Prince Edward was keen for his wife, who had been rejected by the British establishment, to experience a state visit as his consort. He promised the government to keep a low profile, and the tour went ahead between 12 and 23 October 1937.
The Duke and the Duchess, who were officially invited to the country by the German Labour Front, were chaperoned for much of their visit by its leader, Robert Ley. The couple visited factories, many of which were producing materiel for the rearmament effort, and the Duke inspected German troops. The Windsors were greeted by the British national anthem and Nazi salutes. They dined with high-ranking Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Albert Speer, and had tea with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden. The Duke had a long private conversation with Hitler, but it is uncertain what they discussed, as the minutes of their meeting were lost during the war. The Duchess took afternoon tea with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. Hitler was sympathetic to the Windsors and treated the Duchess like royalty.
The British government was unable to affect the course of events and forbade its diplomatic staff in Germany from having any high-level interaction with the Windsors. British popular opinion of the tour was muted, and most people viewed it as in poor taste and disrupting the first year of George's reign. The tour of Germany was intended to have been followed by one of the United States, but Nazi repression of working-class activists in Germany led to a wave of disapproval for the Windsors in the American labour movement, which led to the US visit being cancelled. Modern historians tend to consider the 1937 tour as a reflection of both the Duke's lack of judgment and his disregard for the advice that he received.
Background
Edward VIII became king after the death of his father, George V, in early 1936.Шаблон:Sfn Almost immediately, he announced his intention to marry Wallis Simpson,Шаблон:Sfn a twice-divorced American.Шаблон:Sfn On political and moral grounds, she was unacceptable as a royal consort to the British government and royal family.Шаблон:Sfn As king, Edward was the titular governor of the Church of England, which forbade the divorced from remarrying during the lifetime of their former spouses, and both of Simpson's previous husbands were still alive.Шаблон:Refn The proposed marriage was believed by critics to breach Edward's coronation oath,Шаблон:Refn and weakened his position as constitutional monarch.Шаблон:Sfn Edward knew that if he forced the issue, Stanley Baldwin's government would almost certainly resign en masse.Шаблон:Sfn
Edward realised that his family, the government, the Church and the people would not support the marriage.Шаблон:Sfnm Thus, in December 1936, he abdicated.Шаблон:Sfn His younger brother, the Duke of York, succeeded him as George VI, and Edward was given the title of Duke of Windsor.Шаблон:Sfn Edward and Simpson married in France in June the following year,Шаблон:Sfn and having honeymooned in Vienna, they returned to Paris and established their headquarters there.Шаблон:Sfn Internationally, the journalist Andrew Morton stated that the Duke was viewed as being
Political context
The European political background to the tour was tense. The Spanish Civil War, which had broken out the previous year, upset the balance of power and drew in the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Also, Germany was becoming increasingly aggressive and had spent the previous few years rearming. In the United Kingdom, there was a sense of political unease towards the future and an expectation of warШаблон:Sfn although foreign policy remained predicated on appeasement.Шаблон:Sfn Baldwin resigned as prime minister in May 1937Шаблон:Sfn and was replaced by his deputy, Neville Chamberlain.Шаблон:Sfn
The historian Michael Bloch states that although with hindsight, the tour can be viewed as a poor decision, it was not out of place for the time. He notes that "war was still two years away, curiosity about the Nazis was intense, and many respectable people accepted government invitations. It was fashionable to go to Germany and visit Hitler in the mid-thirties just as it was to go to China and visit Mao Tse-tung in the sixties".Шаблон:Sfn The former prime minister, Lloyd George, had visited Germany two years before the Windsors.Шаблон:Sfn The leader of the Labour Party, the pacifist George Lansbury met with Hitler in April 1937.Шаблон:Sfn Also, Lord Halifax, later foreign secretary, visited to do so, at Göring's invitation, the following month.Шаблон:Sfn Halifax's trip was "ostensibly ... a social one",Шаблон:Sfn but it was also an opportunity for the British government to initiate talks with Hitler, according to the modern historian Lois G. Schwoerer.Шаблон:Sfn Similarly, Hitler hosted many non-Germans, including the Aga Khan, the papal nuncio Cesare Orsenigo, ambassadors, government ministers and European royals, at his residence in Bavaria, the Berghof.Шаблон:Sfn
Royal and governmental view
George VI is said to have been horrified by his brother's entry into European political affairs at such a delicate time.Шаблон:Refn George wrote to Edward's political advisor, Walter Monckton, that the Duke's plan was "a bombshell, and a bad one".Шаблон:Sfn George took particular umbrage because on abdication, Edward had said that he intended to avoid public appearances.Шаблон:Sfn The royal biographer Sarah Bradford suggests that the visit indicated that Windsor had no intention of retiring: rather, he intended to behave independently of the King's and the government's wishes.Шаблон:Sfn
Contemporaries were aware of the negative connotations of a trip to Germany at the time. The announcement took everyone by surprise,Шаблон:Sfn and those sympathetic to Windsor, such as Winston Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook, attempted to dissuade him from going.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn The intervention of an old friend of the Duchess, Herman Rogers, against the trip also proved unsuccessful.Шаблон:Sfn The government already suspected that Windsor had "strong views on his right to intervene in affairs of state", argues the historian Keith Middlemas, but its "main fears ... were of indiscretion".Шаблон:Sfn The Foreign Office warned the Duke that the Nazis were propaganda experts; the Duke agreed but promised not to speak publicly while he was there.Шаблон:Sfn The government, argues the historian Deborah Cadbury, was concerned that the Duke would gather a party around him and promote his own personal foreign policy, outside government control.Шаблон:Sfn
Windsor stated that his intention for the visit as "without any political considerations and merely as an independent observer studying industrial and housing conditions".Шаблон:Sfn He said that one could not ignore what was happening in Germany "even though it may not have one's entire approval".Шаблон:Sfn The Duke was sympathetic to the cause of improving working conditions.Шаблон:Sfn
The historian Frances Donaldson suggests that his views "had caused offence in England because, according to opinion there, such matters were not the concern of the throne".Шаблон:Sfn Statements such as that one, emphasises the scholar Adrian Philips, were intended to deflect from Windsor's public relationship with Simpson.Шаблон:Sfn
Windsors' political views
Windsor was an admirer of GermanyШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn and fluent in its language,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn which the Duke in his memoirs called "the Шаблон:Lang Шаблон:Bracket of many of our relations".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn He knew, too, that German blood "flowed strongly in him",Шаблон:Sfn and the researcher Mark Hichens speculates that Windsor's ancestry led him to favour German culture.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn As Prince of Wales, he had studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, under Hermann Fiedler,Шаблон:Sfn and he had toured Germany twice before the war broke out in 1914.Шаблон:Sfn One of his friends, Chips Channon, Conservative MP for Southend West, commented in 1936 that he "is going the dictator way, and is pro-German".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Simpson was also believed to hold similar views on account of her rejection by the British ruling class,Шаблон:Sfn and many within the government suspected her to have spied for Hitler while she lived in BritainШаблон:Sfn though she denied that in her autobiography.Шаблон:Sfn The FBI also monitored her throughout the period and concluded that she had Nazi sympathies. It had been rumoured that she and Ribbentrop had a sexual relationship during his tenure as German ambassador in London during the mid-1930s.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn Count Albert von Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, a former Austrian ambassador to the UK who was 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 the time.Шаблон:Sfn
Windsor himself later contextualised his position in the 1930s as being a reaction to what he termed "the unending scenes of horror"Шаблон:Sfn of the First World War. He said that 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."Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The Duke, suggests the biographer Anne Sebba, probably wanted to restore the countries' close ties, which had been broken by the First World War.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Windsor's equerry, Dudley Forwood, points out that the only possible state visit was to GermanyШаблон:Sfn and also suggested that the Duke wished to prove to his wife that he had lost nothing by abdicating.Шаблон:Sfn
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".Шаблон:Sfn Windsor was agreeable and saw it as a way of raising his profile.Шаблон:Sfn By April 1937, Colonel Oscar Solbert had suggested that the Duke take a tour of Germany, which was soon intended to be the first of several planned international tours.Шаблон:Sfn Bedaux offered to organise the Duke's side of the arrangements.Шаблон:Sfn Solbert had been with Windsor on his 1924 tour of the United States and had been impressed by his gravitas and professional demeanour. That led him to suggest to the Duke that he should "head up and consolidate the many and varied peace movements throughout the world".Шаблон:Sfn The Swedish millionaire Axel Wenner-Gren acted as a go-between for the Duke in the early discussions.Шаблон:Sfn Bedaux wrote to Solbert to tell him:Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn The German side of things was organised by Hitler's adjutant,Шаблон:Sfn Captain Fritz Wiedemann,Шаблон:Sfn with final preparations discussed at the Paris Ritz in late September.Шаблон:Sfn 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". However she noted that at that stage, it was still only a proposal.Шаблон:Sfn The writer Hugo Vickers suggests that Edward believed himself to be able to influence Hitler and avert war in Europe. If that was the case, says Vickers, Windsor "severely overestimated his own importance".Шаблон:Sfn
Several contacts visited the Windsors at their Paris hotel, Le Meurice, but the nature of their discussions remains unknown, which 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn It is more likely, she claims, that the rooftop restaurant meetings involved men such as Wiedemann finalising the itinerary and other minutiae.Шаблон:Sfn
Announcement
Powell suggests that Windsor found the German government's response to be sufficiently sympathetic to proceed without delay.Шаблон:Sfn In late September, he received a personal invitation from Dr Robert Ley, the head of the German Labour Front (GLF).Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn 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.Шаблон:Sfn A public announcement followed two weeks later.Шаблон:Sfn A telegram to the Foreign Office stated:Шаблон:Sfn
The historian Jonathan Petropoulos suggests that the British government knew that it could not prevent what was officially a visit by a private individual.Шаблон:Sfn In private, the news angeredШаблон:Sfn 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, to condemn the tour.Шаблон:Sfn Hardinge agreed and described it as a "private stunt for publicity purposes".Шаблон:Sfn He also reasoned that the premise of the tour was flawed: neither the Duke nor his visit, he said, could "obviouslyШаблон:Nbsp... bring any benefit to the workers themselves".Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
11–23 October 1937
The historian Andrew Roberts suggests that the German government believed that Windsor had been forced to abdicate as a result of his pro-German views, which encouraged them to "lay out the red carpet" for him.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn On 10 October,Шаблон:Sfn the Duke's cousin, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, wrote to him, "dear David!Шаблон:Refn I hear that you are coming to GermanyШаблон:Nbsp... 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".Шаблон:Sfn Hitler and von Ribbentrop planned that although the tour was a private rather than state visit, the Windsors, particularly the Duchess,Шаблон:Sfn would effectively undertake a royal progress.Шаблон:Sfn That was first demonstrated on their arrival,Шаблон:Sfn early Monday morning,Шаблон:Sfn at Berlin's Friedrichstraße station on 11 October. The scholar Susanna de Vries describes how the Duchess "covered in jewelsШаблон:Nbsp... did her best to look suitably royal",Шаблон:Sfn dressed in royal blue. They were greeted by Ley, who kissed her hand and called her "Your Highness".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn With Ley was a welcoming delegation including von Ribbentrop and the deputy to the Gauleiter of Berlin, Artur Görlitzer. Also waiting was the British Embassy's Third SecretaryШаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Ogilvie-Forbes later visited the Duke in his hotel to pay the personal respects that he had been unable to pay him in public.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn
A welcoming crowd of approximately 2,000 lined the streets outside the station. The German media had set great store by the Windsors' visit from the beginning.Шаблон:Sfn As the Windsors were leaving, the crowd surged forward, and a crush ensued. That, noted Cadbury, destroyed the "majestic air" of the reception that Ley had organised.Шаблон:Sfn With few of the crowd having seen them, the couple were driven away at high-speed in their Mercedes, to their hotel, the Kaiserhof.Шаблон:Sfn
The couple were treated like royaltyШаблон:Sfn by the German aristocracy, which "would bow and curtsy towards [the Duchess], and she was treated with all the dignity and status that the Duke always wanted".Шаблон:Sfn
On their first night in Berlin, they joined Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop for dinner at Horcher. The night was attended by Speer with whom they discussed classical music,Шаблон:Sfn and Magda and Joseph Goebbels,Шаблон:Sfn who were Germany's de facto first ladyШаблон:Sfn and Reich Minister of Propaganda respectively.Шаблон:Sfn After 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."Шаблон:Sfn The Duchess did not reciprocate, describing him as "a tiny, wispy gnome with an enormous skull", but Magda, she continued, was "the prettiest woman I saw in Germany".Шаблон:Sfn The Windsors dined with his cousin the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on the 19th.Шаблон:Sfn The Duke later recalled that the dinner was attended by over 100 guests, many whom he had "hobnobbed" with at both his father's jubilee and then his funeral.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn
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.Шаблон:Sfn The couple and their entourage, which included the Duke's cousin Prince Philipp von Hessen,Шаблон:Sfn travelled around Germany on Hitler's personal train, the Шаблон:Lang,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn while their telephones were bugged by Prince Christoph of Hesse on the orders of Шаблон:Lang Hermann Göring to keep the Nazi leadership informed of the Windsors' private opinions.Шаблон:Sfn The German government was funding the visit,Шаблон:Sfn which the modern historian John Vincent suggests allowed them to choreograph it.Шаблон:Sfn 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".Шаблон:Sfn For example, according to 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, "Шаблон:Tsp'it is where they store the cold meat.' In a horrible sense that was true."Шаблон:Sfn
Although the couple were in Germany at Ley's personal invitation,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn he was a poor host. Bloch describes him as coarse, "addicted to alcohol [and] high-speed driving",Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn and risqué jokes.Шаблон:Sfn Hichens views Ley as "loud-mouthed", brutal and a "particularly odious Nazi thug."Шаблон:Sfn On one journey, he was drunk at the wheel of the Windsors' Mercedes while he was driving at speed and crashed them into the gates of the Munich factory that they were visiting.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn One of Ley's aides, Hans Sopple, later described events, saying 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."Шаблон:Sfn That was not, comments Morton, "at all what the Duke had in mind when he described the nature of a royal tour to his wife".Шаблон:Sfn
Bloch describes the couple's itinerary as an "exhausting" series of visits to industrial and housing areas.Шаблон:Sfn A letter from the Duchess confirms that although the tour was interesting, it involved walking "miles a day through factories",Шаблон:Sfn including one that produced lightbulbs.Шаблон:Sfn Among other sights, they saw a winter relief centre, a Wagnerian opera in a workers' concert hall,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn and inspected a Pomeranian SS squadron with the Шаблон:Lang, Hitler's personal bodyguard.Шаблон:Sfn The Duchess did not accompany her husband everywhere; he visited the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft at Untertürkheim alone, which was intended to showcase German precision engineering to the Duke, and while there he met the British racing driver Richard Seaman, who had signed for the Mercedes-Benz team earlier in the year.Шаблон:Sfn
On 14 October,Шаблон:Sfn the Duke and the Duchess visited Göring at his Шаблон:Lang in Carinhall,Шаблон:Sfn where they saw his miniature railway.Шаблон:Sfn There, Hitler's deputy gave them high tea, followed by a tour of his large art collectionШаблон:Sfn and gymnasium, where, although dressed in full uniform and decorations, he demonstrated his massage machine.Шаблон:Sfn The three conversed in Göring's study, where Windsor noticed a new, official map of Nazi Germany on the wall. Reflecting the party's Шаблон:Lang policy, Austria was shown as annexed to Germany. Cadbury quotes Wallis: "Göring's face wrinkled with amusementШаблон:Nbsp... 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn
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.Шаблон:Sfn 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,Шаблон:Sfn where he wore a false moustache and played skittles.Шаблон:Sfn The couple were regularly greeted with the Nazi salute, which they sometimes reciprocatedШаблон:Sfn (that was not unusual, and most visitors to Germany, including sports teams, then made the salute).Шаблон:Sfn The couple were welcomed at each venue by both the German and the British national anthems.Шаблон:Sfn 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 demonstrated a policy of pleasing the Duke through his wife.Шаблон:Sfn On a visit to one of Ley's GLF meetings Windsor made a speech, telling the assembly:Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Blockquote
Wallis, meanwhile, notes Morton, maintained the fiction in her letters to her friends and family that they were merely sightseeing.Шаблон:Sfn
Meeting Hitler
The tour culminated on 22 October, when they met HitlerШаблон:Sfn at the Berghof.Шаблон:Sfn 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 was unlikely, as Hitler had expressed a wish to meet the Duke.Шаблон:Sfn
The Duke and the Duchess had to wait before Hitler was ready to see themШаблон:Sfn although, notes Vickers, he was in a genial mood when he did.Шаблон:Sfn The two men had an hour-long discussion, with Hitler doing most of the talking.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn 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, presumably destroyed during the war.Шаблон:Sfn The Duchess did not join her husband but instead had tea with Rudolf Hess.Шаблон:Sfn General BohleШаблон:Sfn acted as her interpreter. A friend of the Windsors, the French millionaire Paul-Louis Weiller, later said that the Duchess had organised the meeting with Hitler and that being excluded from it had angered her.Шаблон:Sfn At the end of their visit, the three had tea together.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn The Windsors made a good impression on Hitler, suggests Hichens;Шаблон:Sfn the Duchess later wrote how she was both "fascinated and repelled" by Hitler.Шаблон:Sfn Hitler, comments the historian Philip Ziegler, "mildly irritated the Duke by insisting on using an interpreter rather than speaking directly to him in German".Шаблон:Sfn The interpreter, Paul Schmidt, later recalled the meeting:Шаблон:Sfn
Forwood disagrees with Schmidt's recollection and says that 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 Шаблон:Lang or "wrongly translated!"Шаблон:Sfn The Duke departed, he believed, under the impression that Hitler was a pacifist.Шаблон:Sfn An observer describes how they returned to their car and were escorted by their host:Шаблон:Sfn
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".Шаблон:Sfn The meeting concerned the British government since it appeared to be almost an informal summit.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Windsor later said that he had thought Hitler was "a somewhat ridiculous figure, with his theatrical posturings and his bombastic pretensions", and he 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 by 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."Шаблон:Sfn
The Duke and the 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 them 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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".Шаблон:Sfn 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. There, Hess had a large collection of model ships, and he and the Duke were "excitedly" re-enacting a World War I naval battle.Шаблон:Sfn
Reactions
The British government vainly tried to control public relations during the visit.Шаблон:Sfn Cadbury notes how a former English king "turning up inШаблон:Nbsp... Berlin was an unexpected bonus" for German diplomacy.Шаблон:Sfn The German newspaper Шаблон:Lang boasted about the number and the quality of the people who wanted to see the Nazis' social programme first hand, and it wrote that "the Duke of Windsor, too, has come to convince himself personally of the energy with which the new Germany has tackled her social problems".Шаблон:Sfn The German government took advantage as soon as the Duke and Duchess departed. Ogilvie-Forbes reported that Ley had already announced that Windsor had praised Hitler's leadership.Шаблон:Sfn Hitler subsequently asserted that Wallis, in his opinion, would have been a good queen.Шаблон:Sfn Hitler believed Windsor understood the Шаблон:Lang,Шаблон:Sfn and that he was a man with whom the Nazis could work. 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 have been appointed as a puppet king.Шаблон:Sfn In his diary, the Earl of Crawford summed up the British establishment's views on the Duke:Шаблон:Sfn
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".Шаблон:Sfn To the British ruling class, comments Morton, the Windsors' "farrago was greeted with undisguised glee".Шаблон:Sfn 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".Шаблон:Sfn 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".Шаблон:Sfn The Daily Express, meanwhile, stated that Edward had received "the kind of reception that only the old kings of Bavaria could expect".Шаблон:Sfn The reaction in Germany, according to the British attaché in Leipzig, was that the tour had demonstrated the Duke's "strong pro-fascist sympathies". In the Soviet Union, the view was that the British royal family had "warm feelings" for Germany.Шаблон:Sfn
Historiography
The most positive aspect of the visit, comments Powell, "was that it had been well-organised, albeit for the benefits of the hosts".Шаблон:Sfn Philips calls the tour "an embarrassment at best, and at worse, glaring proof of his complete lack of judgement".Шаблон:Sfn Piers Brendon describes it as "the worst blunder of his career".Шаблон:Sfn Roberts calls the tour "fantastically ill-judged",Шаблон:Sfn 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".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn 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".Шаблон:Sfn
Sebba explains Windsor's lack of judgement by the fact that while he had been able to call on a wide spectrum of counsel as Prince of Wales, he now had only his wife and acquaintances.Шаблон:Sfn Powell, similarly, believes that Windsor's reputation "was at the mercy of unscrupulous strangers".Шаблон:Sfn Ziegler, conversely, suggests that while the trip may have been "ill-advised and ill-timedШаблон:Nbsp... [it was] not a crime".Шаблон:Sfn 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."Шаблон:Sfn
According to Sebba, Windsor promised to refrain from making speeches so that his words could not be used against him by critics.Шаблон:Sfn Some scholars, such as Bradford, believe the visit to be directly the result of "pro-German and even more pro-Nazi" views.Шаблон:Sfn 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."Шаблон:Sfn The scholar Gerwin Strobl agrees and writes:Шаблон:Sfn
Aftermath
The Windsors' German tour made little impact on the British public, and the main criticism seems to have been the failure to keep the low profile that he had promised. Churchill, for example, wrote to the Duke to imply 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".Шаблон:Sfn The new prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, disagreed with the tour and privately worked against it, but, comments the historian of Nazi Germany Karina Urbach, "as a convinced monarchist [he] did everything to keep the institution intact".Шаблон:Sfn
In 1966, the Duke described his memories of meeting Hitler, who 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 allШаблон:Nbsp... I thought that we ourselves would be able to watch as the Nazis and the Reds would fight each other".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn His equerry, Forwood, said something similar in his memoirs:Шаблон:Sfn
Later events
The Windsors returned to Paris on 24 October, with a fortnight to prepare for the tour of the United States.Шаблон:Sfn 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 in the American labour movement for their trade union and anti-Nazi activity; their deaths swung popular opinion against the Duke and the Duchess.Шаблон:Sfn Labour unions campaigned against the tour, particularly in the Duchess's hometown of Baltimore. Unions said that they would not support the Windsors' visit and called them either "emissaries of a dictatorship or uninformed sentimentalists".Шаблон:Sfn
Bedaux, who, Vincent suggests, intended to use the Duke to regain possession of his confiscated German business,Шаблон:Sfn was irreparably damaged by the fallout 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn The Duke's public connection to Bedaux, combined with the bad publicity, persuaded Windsor to cancel the tour.Шаблон:Sfn 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."Шаблон:Sfn 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."Шаблон:Sfn
The American 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.Шаблон:Sfn US President Franklin Roosevelt wrote a conciliatory letter to the Windsors that expressed hope that the tour would eventually go ahead.Шаблон:Sfn After 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:Шаблон:Sfn
The Duchess called the Bahamas "the St Helena of the 1940s" for them.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn
Notes
References
| Note (electronic editions only) |
|---|
| ch. = chapterШаблон:Pb§ = paragraph |
Sources
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite web
- Шаблон:Citation
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite news
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite web
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite journal
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Citation
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite web
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite web
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite journal
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
Шаблон:Refend Шаблон:Abdication of Edward VIII
- Английская Википедия
- Страницы с неработающими файловыми ссылками
- 1937 in Germany
- 1937 in international relations
- Germany–United Kingdom relations
- October 1937 events
- Abdication of Edward VIII
- Wallis Simpson
- Diplomatic visits
- 1937 in the United Kingdom
- Страницы, где используется шаблон "Навигационная таблица/Телепорт"
- Страницы с телепортом
- Википедия
- Статья из Википедии
- Статья из Английской Википедии
