SHE FOUND HITLER’S EYES ‘MAGNETIC’

WHEN a friend of the Duke’s proposed in 1937 that he pay an official visit to Nazi Germany, the idea fell on fertile ground. Finally, he’d be able to show his carping wife that he could still be treated like a king. The visit was a huge propaganda coup for the Nazi regime. The Duke and Duchess played with Hermann Goring’s model train-set at his palatial country estate, discussed classical music with Albert Speer, and — the highlight of the trip — took tea with Hitler (above).

His eyes, Wallis recalled, were ‘unblinking, magnetic, burning with a peculiar fire’. But, despite being an accomplished flirt, she sensed no response in him. ‘I decided he did not care for women,’ she concluded.

For his part, the Duke returned several Nazi salutes, forever sealing his reputation as a Nazi sympathiser. The immediate fallout was the cancellation of a visit to the U.S. after protests from Jews and labour unions. It was a humiliating debacle: the Windsors’ suite on the German liner Bremen had been paid for, and they’d already sent 71 pieces of luggage to be put onboard. Wallis was so angry that she threw herself on the floor of their hotel suite and screamed hysterically.