Flanked by Hitler’s henchmen, Edward VIII gives Nazi salute
PhotograPhs of the Duke of Windsor giving Nazi salutes in germany two years before war broke out are going to auction.
taken on an unofficial visit after his abdication as Edward VIII, the images show the Queen’s uncle making the salute while surrounded by Nazi officials and dignatories.
Edward, who was accused of being a Nazi sympathiser, was also pictured with adolf hitler during the trip. Years later he told an interviewer: ‘I never thought hitler was such a bad chap.’
and he admitted he had given the dictator a Nazi salute, but claimed it was a greeting to a ‘fellow soldier’.
the duke’s guide on the visit where he saluted the Nazi officials was robert Ley, the man hitler had put in charge of the german labour front.
Violently anti-semitic, Ley was implicated in the mistreatment of slave labourers and at the end of the war was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. he hanged himself in his cell before he went on trial.
In one of the photographs at the Friedrich-heinrich coal mine in the ruhr, Edward is seated next to Ley, who is wearing labour front uniform and a swastika armband.
two separate sequences capture Edward giving the Nazi salute – one on the steps to a building, presumably the mine’s main office, and another as he leaves his car and walks past onlookers.
given tensions between the two countries at the time, British diplomats strongly advised Edward against making the 12-day visit to germany.
When he insisted on going they refused to allow anyone more senior than the third secretary at the British embassy to accompany him.
as well as touring the mine and meeting hitler at his mountain retreat, Edward visited a concentration camp whose guard towers were apparently explained away as meat stores.
the duke, who had given up the throne a year earlier to marry american divor- cee Wallis simpson, met and dined with dozens of senior Nazis including hitler’s deputy rudolf hess and his foreign minister Joachim von ribbentrop.
he also met hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph goebbels, who was so convinced of his fascist sympathies he described him as a ‘tender seedling of reason’.
Edward’s wife is said to have lapped up adulation and curtsies at every turn, with hitler remarking of her: ‘she would have made a good queen.’
It is thought that the couple – who had been given the titles Duke and Duchess of Windsor earlier that year – would have been installed as puppet monarchs had germany taken over Britain.
the apparently unseen images of the trip were kept by the german mine’s managing director and presented to a Major Dg McLean, who is believed to have been put in charge of running the site after the war.
an anonymous private collector
‘Ingratiating himself’
picked up the album in the mid 1980s and decided to put it up for auction several weeks ago with Morgan Evans and Co of anglesey.
the sale comes at a difficult time for the royal Family and Buckingham Palace officials. Edward featured in controversial home video footage shot in 1933, and published last week by the sun, showing the then seven-year-old Queen giving a Nazi salute.
the film, which was apparently shot by her father, the future King george VI, at Balmoral features her uncle and mother also saluting.
Buckingham Palace has launched an investigation into the leaking of the Queen’s private home movie footage and
said it may take legal action or pursue criminal charges should it prove to have been stolen or in breach of copyright.
Simon Bower, a valuer at Morgan Evans and Co, said: ‘It’s genuine coincidence these items were in our catalogue at the same time as the other story broke.
But it is a fascinating and unique lot. The photographs show the Duke of Windsor with various dignitaries including when they take him down the mine shaft. It was a typical PR visit.’
Mr Bower says he expects the collection to attract huge interest when it goes up for sale next Wednesday.
‘As an auctioneer it’s a strange one to put a value on. I’m hedging around the £1,500-£2,500 mark, but the market will decide,’ he added.
Professor Frank McDonough, an expert on Nazi Germany at Liverpool John Moores University, told the Mail: ‘There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s giving a Nazi salute, you can tell it’s not a wave by the position of his hand.
‘In one of the pictures you can even see people in the crowd are responding with Nazi salutes of their own – that seals it for me. These photographs are fascinating because they show how Edward was ingratiating himself with people who are in the Nazi elite.
‘You wonder what would have happened if he had been king while Neville Chamberlain was prime minister – fortunately we’ll never know.’