Authors: Jim Wilson
After moving back to Europe in 1926, Bedaux became closely involved with some of Germany’s biggest and most successful companies. He knew many leading Nazis, not least Dr Hjalmar Schacht, head of the Reichsbank and Hitler’s future Minister of Finance. In 1938 Bedaux was appointed by Fritz Wiedemann – acting on behalf of the Nazi leadership – to the post of head of commercial operations for I.G. Farben, the industrial giant which later notoriously produced the gas used in the Holocaust concentration camps. In that role he worked on behalf of The Fraternity in Europe, and collaborated closely with the Vichy government in France as a special adviser to his friend, the Nazi Ambassador Otto Abetz. As well as his chateau in the Loire, Bedaux also owned a villa at Berchtesgaden within sight of Hitler’s mountain retreat on the Obersalzberg. It was from there that he wrote offering the Chateau de Cande as the venue for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The ceremony naturally attracted huge interest across Europe, and among the gifts that arrived for the couple were expensive presents from both Hitler and Mussolini. The Windsors honeymooned in Austria at an Alpine castle owned by Count Paul Munster, who had dual British and German citizenship and was a member of the Windsor Club. Sir Robert Vansittart at the Foreign Office had compiled a security file on the Windsors’ dubious links and contacts with fascists, and Munster was one of those associated with the duke and duchess under observation as a known backer of Mosley.
One of the first public engagements the new Duke and Duchess of Windsor undertook, following their marriage, was a visit to Nazi Germany – a visit Princess Stephanie had played a key part in planning. She made the arrangements together with Bedaux and Wiedemann. It gave Edward and Wallis the opportunity to meet Hitler face to face at his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden with the spotlight of the world’s media upon them. Officially, the duke and duchess were guests of the head of the German Labour Front, Dr Robert Ley, and as it was regarded as an official state visit, the trip was paid for by the German government. It was publicised as a study trip to learn about German institutions, but for the Reich leadership it was an opportunity to bring strong influence on the man who they hoped they could eventually return to the British throne.
The occasion gave Hitler a huge propaganda coup, to the anger of the British government and King George VI. The Foreign Office and Buckingham Palace issued instructions to the British ambassador in Berlin, specifically to ensure the duke and duchess would not be treated as having any official status. ‘You should not attend yourself,’ the British ambassador was told, ‘send a secretary or junior diplomat.’ Despite the British view, the Nazi regime set out to give the duke and duchess the full red-carpet treatment of a royal visit. They were driven everywhere in a large, open-top Mercedes-Benz with black-uniformed SS guards standing to attention on the running boards. When they were taken to factories, well-drilled workers shouted ‘Heil Windsor’ and greeted the couple with the Nazi salute. The duke was not slow himself in returning the tribute, rigidly extending his arm like any convinced Nazi. On the first night of the trip the Windsors were entertained at a dinner party at which fellow guests included Hess, Ribbentrop, Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler. A few days later they were invited for tea at Goering’s mansion, Carinhall. The duke and duchess were impressed by the lavish hospitality. Wallis, deprived in Britain of the title ‘Her Royal Highness’, was delighted to be given such a high-level reception and treated as royalty. Another event took them to the training school for the Death’s Head Division of the Elite Squad of the SS. Here they were greeted by an SS band playing the British National Anthem.
Not to be outdone, Ribbentrop hosted a splendid occasion at the famous Restaurant Horcher in the German capital. Goebbels noted in his diary that the duke was ‘a nice friendly young man clearly equipped with sound common sense’. The duchess, he noted, is ‘unassuming but distinguished and elegant, a real lady. Magda is charmed by them.’
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The climax of the visit was a trip to Hitler’s mountaintop retreat, where the duke and duchess were in the Führer’s company for several hours. Wiedemann met them at the railway station and after a short walk along the shore of Lake Königssee, he drove them to the Berghof where Hitler greeted them warmly, taking them to his vast reception room with its wall of glass looking out on a stunning mountain panorama. The duke is reported to have expressed the couple’s gratitude for the moral support Germany had shown to them during the Abdication Crisis.
If any record of the talks between the former British king and the Führer survive, they are almost certainly among papers captured after the war and now held securely in the royal archives in Windsor, beyond the reach of Freedom of Information laws. However, the duke, in an article published in the
New York Times
in December 1966, recalled part of the discussion: ‘Hitler was then at the zenith of his power,’ he wrote. ‘His eyes were piercing and magnetic. I confess frankly that he took me in. I believed him when he said that he sought no war with England … I thought that the rest of us could be fence sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out.’
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As the couple left the Berghof, Hitler gave them a formal Nazi salute, and the duke in turn extended his arm to salute the Führer. The duke appeared impressed by what he had seen in Germany.
The Nazi press was fulsome in its praise, but in Britain, France and the United States reports were much more critical. The
New York Times
, in an editorial commenting on the Windsors’ visit, said:
The Duke’s decision to see for himself the Third Reich’s industries and social institutions, and his gestures and remarks during the last two weeks, have demonstrated adequately that the abdication did rob Germany of a firm friend if not indeed a devoted admirer on the British throne … The Duke is reported to have become very critical of English politics as he sees them and is reported as declaring that the British Ministers of today and their possible successors are no match for the German and Italian dictators.
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The British ambassador to Germany, Sir Ronald Lindsay, said the duke’s reception by Hitler could only be construed as a willingness to lend himself to fascist tendencies. The duke, he said, was trying to stage a ‘come-back’ and his friends and advisers were semi-Nazis. Suspicions of the motives and loyalties of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor persisted after the outbreak of war. During the ‘Phoney War’, when the duke was attached to the British Military Mission in France in the rank of major general, there were allegations of injudicious or careless talk across the Windsors’ dinner table in Paris – where Bedaux was a regular supper guest. Some in senior positions in London strongly suspected that the Windsors were a security risk.
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Hitler’s blitzkrieg – as first Denmark and Norway were overrun in April 1940, followed a month later by the Low Countries – led to major concerns in Whitehall and at Buckingham Palace for the duke and duchess’ safety in France. There were fears that they could be captured, allowing the Nazis to use them as immensely valuable pawns – which is just what the Germans would have wished to do. As the German Army advanced on Paris, Edward fled to the south of France. He and the duchess stopped briefly at their residence at Villa La Croe near Cap d’Antibes, hoping they could at least find a temporary sanctuary and some comfort there. But when the Italians declared war on 10 June, with both the Germans and Italians closing in, they once again had to flee. Not, as military orders stipulated, returning directly to England, but heading for the Spanish frontier. They crossed into supposedly neutral Spain and by 23 June were in Madrid.
Fears in London were matched by concerns in Berlin. There was still everything for the Nazis to play for by enticing the former British king to reach an understanding with them; if Germany successfully invaded Britain, this would result in Edward being restored to the throne, with Wallis as queen. The Germans were convinced that in Britain this might well prove a popular move. Ribbentrop, by now German Foreign Minister, was well aware from his many meetings with the former king of Edward’s National Socialist sympathies, and of his view that war was unnecessary. Since the Fascist government of General Franco was aligned with Berlin and the Axis powers, though still nominally neutral, Ribbentrop reasoned it was in Germany’s interests to detain the duke and duchess in Spain. The Nazis made strenuous efforts to ensure the couple remained there, where Germany could continue to exercise influence on them. The Abwehr, German military intelligence, had some 1,500 agents throughout Spain, many of them German émigrés. Intelligence poured into the Abwehr’s Madrid headquarters adjoining the German Embassy. As long as the duke and duchess remained in Spain, Germany was well placed to plot to keep them there under constant surveillance.
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Ribbentrop persuaded the Spanish government to offer the couple hospitality and a palatial residence, to encourage them to remain in the country. He was conscious of the ongoing conflict between the British government, Buckingham Palace and the duke and duchess over the refusal to grant Wallis HRH status, and the reluctance of the British Establishment to welcome the Windsors back to the UK for fear of destabilising the position of the new king and queen. The Germans even undertook, at the duke’s request, to arrange for the Windsors’ Paris home and all its contents, and their villa at Cap d’Antibes, to be safely looked after for the duration of the war.
A German plot to ensure the Windsors remained under Nazi control was hatched and the Gestapo leader of counter-intelligence, Walter Schellenberg, was dispatched by Ribbentrop to take control of the plans. Churchill, conscious of the acute and growing danger of the king’s brother being influenced or even abducted by the Nazis, instructed the duke and duchess to cross into Portugal forthwith. Portugal was a more reliable neutral country than Franco’s Spain, and Churchill’s instructions were that the couple should go straight to Lisbon where they could be picked up by a British flying boat and flown out of reach of Nazi agents. But the duke and duchess played for time. Edward outrageously, given that the British government was at war, tried to negotiate guarantees that if the couple returned to Britain they would be given full royal treatment, and the title of HRH conferred on the duchess. Churchill, who had far more important things to worry about with Britain facing a threat of imminent invasion, was fast losing patience with his former monarch. He knew that Spain was a hotbed of German intelligence and he insisted the Windsors move at once to Lisbon to shake off German conspiracies. Churchill even resorted to issuing threats that if Edward disobeyed government instructions, as a senior British officer still under military authority, he would be subject to court martial.
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The duke and duchess finally succumbed to the mounting pressure from London. They moved to the Portuguese capital on 3 July, a week before the start of the Battle of Britain. There they took up residence with a wealthy banker, Ricardo Espirito Santa Silva, a close friend of the German ambassador to Portugal and a man who was under suspicion by British intelligence for his pro-German views and activities. Ribbentrop maintained the momentum of his campaign to entrap them. First he sent emissaries to Lisbon to flatter and cajole the couple, with promises to return Edward to the British throne when Germany had defeated and occupied Britain; then he dispatched a senior SS officer with instructions to force them back into Spain where it would be far more difficult for the British to exercise influence or, as a last resort, even to kidnap them.
At Buckingham Palace a senior courtier, Alec Hardinge, made a note on an intelligence report: ‘Germans expect assistance from Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Latter desiring at any price to become Queen. Germans have been negotiating with her since June 27th.’
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The issue of the Windsors, and how to get them away from German influence, was becoming more and more urgent for Churchill and for King George VI. If Edward and Wallis fell into German hands, either willingly or by force, the impact on British morale and the future conduct of the war would be disastrous. Churchill hit on the idea of removing the couple far from the reach of Nazi agents by offering the duke the post of the governorship of the Bahamas; a post where they would be free of Nazi influence and where they could do the least harm. Although his brother and the rest of the royal family were initially not enthusiastic, the Windsors reluctantly had to agree to it. As King George VI put it, ‘it was imperative to get him away from Lisbon’.
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Had George VI known what was passing between the German ambassador to Portugal and Ribbentrop, he would have been even more alarmed about his brother’s loyalty. A long report to the Nazi Foreign Minister from the German ambassador, Baron von Hoyningen-Huene, stated that the idea of the Bahamas appointment was to keep Edward out of England because if he returned there it would greatly strengthen the position of a peace party in the United Kingdom. The ambassador went on to say that the duke had been voicing his opinion in Lisbon, stating that if he had remained on the throne there would have been no war, and that he was still a firm supporter of compromise with Germany. Finally, the report said the duke had disloyally – it could be termed treacherously – expressed his belief that ‘continued heavy bombing will make England ready for peace’.
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The duke was careless in his comments to the American ambassador in Lisbon, too, speculating that the Churchill government would fall and a replacement government would then be prepared to negotiate peace with the Germans. In such circumstances Edward foresaw George VI abdicating. He added that if he went back to London to resume the throne and restore his power, he would lead Britain into a coalition with France, Spain and Portugal, leaving Germany free to march on Russia, which in his view was the real threat to Europe.