Churchill and the Nazi plot to reinstate Edward as king

WINSTON CHURCHILL tried to suppress secret Second World War documents detailing a Nazi plot to offer the throne to the Duke of Windsor in the event of Britain’s defeat.

The prime minister personally urged the French and American leaders to block publication of the captured German telegrams after the war, fearing they would “give pain to the Duke”.

While Churchill dismissed the documents as “German intrigues”, he feared they might cast doubt on the former King Edward VIII’S loyalty.

Details of Churchill’s fears are disclosed today with the publication of National Archives files. The telegrams between Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister, and his ambassadors in Madrid and Lisbon over the summer of 1940 were seized in Germany after the war. However, in 1953 Churchill learnt they were to be published by historians as part of an academic programme by the Allies to release key Nazi documents. He wrote to US president Dwight Eisenhower urging him to halt publication. Churchill was ultimately unsuccessful and the telegrams were released a few years later.

The telegrams from Ribbentrop apparently outlined how they might discreetly sound out the Duke on his cooperation with Nazi Germany. The Germans plotted to detain him in Spain, by force if necessary, to prevent British officials ferrying him to safety in the Caribbean. A July 11 telegram from Ribbentrop to Lisbon said, “the Duke must be informed at the appropriate time in Spain that Germany … wishes for peace with the British people, that the Churchill clique is standing in the way of this” and that it would be good if the Duke were to hold himself in readiness for further developments.