THE DUKE AND THE NAZIS
Andrew Morton book links Hitler to a king
17 Carnations: The Royals, The Nazis and the Biggest Cover-Up in History Andrew Morton Grand Central Publishing
The taint of scandal and narcissism swirls around Edward VIII.
In 1936, his stubborn determination to “marry the woman I love” cost him a throne but as the British writer Andrew Morton suggests, the fellow known as “Little Man,” the golden-haired boy, was truly the author of his own misfortune.
“He was someone who was utterly self-absorbed,” Morton said from California. “I don't think he had a political bone in his body. If he was smarter, he would have negotiated better terms for his departure. He could have negotiated an HRH (Her Royal Highness title) for his wife. He could have negotiated better financial terms. He could have avoided exile.” But he wasn't smart enough. In Morton's book 17 Carnations, he bores into the life of this very flawed Royal and opens up some secrets that shed light on the fascinating train wreck of the Duke of Windsor's affairs and political missteps.
Here was a man, Morton says, who was in secret contact with the Nazis asking them to look after the two homes he had rented in France. And then he contacted them again, Morton adds, "to say 'Will you look after my sheets?' ... If he had been an ordinary chap he would have faced an absolute court martial.
“The utter disregard for normal convention is breathtaking.”
This was also at a time when the Queen and King were learning how to shoot pistols to defend themselves during an expected German invasion. The King was also wrenching out the crown jewels, putting them in a bag and sinking them into a lake at Windsor Castle and considering sending his daughters to Canada for safekeeping.
“And you have the Duke of Windsor asking (Winston) Churchill to send over two able-bodied soldiers to act as manservants and he gets one because they get sick of the argument,” says Morton.
“I think he was psychologically extreme. He either wanted to commit suicide or he was madly in love.”
And he came from a dysfunctional family headed by a very aloof mother and father with an autistic brother (John) who died young and another brother (George) who was a drug addict. Albert, who become King George VI, struggled all his life with a stammer.
Morton also believes Edward was sexually ambiguous, and perhaps a closeted homosexual.
“In those days it was against the law and people didn't talk about it. I found it fascinating that he sued an author for daring to hint that he had had sex with Wallis Simpson before marriage, indicating that he was prepared to testify under oath that he'd given up his empire, his throne, for a woman he had never slept with.”
The relationship with Simpson was certainly an odd one. She was believed to have been involved in an affair with a car salesman and with the Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop while carrying on with Edward. She denied, as she put it, that either man had been below the Mason Dixon line. The title of the book comes from a story spread by a former German aristocrat that Ribbentrop had sent Simpson 17 carnations in memory of their trysts.
Simpson, who was not a particularly good-looking woman when seen in pictures, comes alive in footage Morton has obtained.
“She enthralled men. In this footage, she seems really vivacious. I can understand what he saw in her.”
But Edward was also a dabbler in politics, especially when it came to British relations with the emerging Nazi regime.
“He came to prominence at a time when you were faced with one of the world's most notorious dictators. He was watched by Hitler almost as a cat watches a mouse. I find it fascinating that Hitler first of all tried to engineer a marriage between a German princess and the prince.”
Hitler also sent other German aristocrats to London along with Ribbentrop to watch the King.
Hitler's motives were a means of attempting to influence the British government of the day.
“The king has the ear of the prime minister. There is influence by being there and having access. In the 1930s, the king had far more influence. Edward, even for a short period, was highly influential, especially about the invasion of the Rhineland when he argued against doing anything. He lent his weight very firmly to the appeasement camp.”
Morton compares Edward to Norwegian collaborator Vidkun Quisling, whom Hitler courted before the 1940 invasion of Norway, when Quisling was installed as a puppet.
Edward too was squired around Germany and met Hitler. He would have been the puppet king perhaps, if Germany had conquered Britain.
All of this emerges from something called The Windsor File, which was accumulated by various agencies and which many British politicians, including Churchill and Clement Attlee, tried to destroy after the war.
But they failed and it was eventually, literally, unearthed from the backyard of a German residence in 1954 and protected by the Americans, to be revealed recently.
“There was a lot in it that completely denigrated the Duke and would have besmirched the monarchy.”
Morton, who has written other books about the Royals, including a biography of Princess Diana, believes the monarchy will not be damaged by his book. Much is known already anyway in various media reports.
"I've always argued Buckingham Palace is the national beating heart where people come together. (As such) it has a very useful function. The monarchy has survived a lot more than that.
“As Prince Phillip says, the monarchy will survive as long as people want it to survive. People believe in the myth of it and it gives stability in a chaotic and unstable world.
"You can see that lesson of Edward has been learned. With Charles and Camilla, nothing dramatic is happening. Camilla does odd things here and there by his side. In the beginning she was loathed. I'll bet the farm that she will be queen.
“Monarchy is a long game. You take your time. Edward was too rash, he kicked himself out.”