17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up

by Andrew Morton

  This secret soon leaked out and first became the talk of the German embassy in London and then of the German chancellery in Berlin. Ambassador von Hoesch was unable to discover the significance of the number seventeen and thought it was “the way of the businessman.”

  The Prince of Wales’s cousin the Duke of Württemberg, who was on good terms with his aunt Queen Mary, other royals, and senior British politicians had quite another explanation. The duke, who became a Benedictine monk known as Father Odo and an opponent of the Nazis, would later tell FBI agents that von Ribbentrop was Wallis’s lover and that the number seventeen represented the occasions they had slept together. He further related a scurrilous story suggesting that the prince was impotent and only the skills of Mrs. Simpson could “satisfactorily gratify the duke’s sexual desires.”

  It was not just in London that stories about Wallis and von Ribbentrop gained traction. In Berlin, too, the rumours went right to the top, Hitler questioning his foreign affairs advisor about the nature of his relationship with the prince’s mistress. The Führer’s evident curiosity regarding von Ribbentrop’s love life delighted his many enemies inside the Nazi hierarchy and within the diplomatic corps, where von Hoesch was not the only one to refer to him, sotto voce, as “the fool.”

  Unlike Ambassador von Hoesch, who was independently wealthy, von Ribbentrop had purchased his “von” nomenclature—signifying his aristocratic background—following his marriage to Anna Henkell, the wealthy daughter of Germany’s leading producer of sparkling white wine. As Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels remarked, von Ribbentrop had bought his name and married his money.

  Born to an officer-class family, von Ribbentrop proved himself proficient at foreign languages, a gifted violinist, and a first-class tennis player. Though he was undoubtedly vain and pretentious he was, unlike the other leaders of the Third Reich, well travelled, an urbane cosmopolitan politician among a party of rabid nationalists. His sophistication, though, was only on the surface. While he spoke perfect English and dressed like a country squire, he had little understanding or appreciation of the English psyche. Princess Stephanie, who mixed with all the Nazi leaders, believed that von Ribbentrop’s notions of Britain were “puerile, ignorant of all deeper issues, and often tragically misleading.”

  Yet it was in this snob and social climber that Hitler placed his faith, tasking him to discover “what influential Englishmen thought about National Socialism.” So began frequent excursions to Britain, where von Ribbentrop, as self-important as he was overbearing, mixed in high society, making friends who would support the Führer. It was his belief that by insinuating himself into British high society, seeking out influential support for Germany, he could circumvent the Foreign Office, who were sceptical of any entente with Germany, especially as it would anger their French allies.

  In November 1934, for example, von Ribbentrop spent three weeks in London, meeting the movers and shakers. He briefed Princess Stephanie, met with press baron and Nazi supporter Lord Rothermere, and dined with many others, including former foreign secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain, playwright George Bernard Shaw, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, whom von Ribbentrop described as “a kind of English National Socialist.” The cleric found him “most genial and friendly.”

  His most critical meeting came months later when, courtesy of Ambassador von Hoesch, he first encountered the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson. Whatever the subsequent sexual shenanigans between von Ribbentrop and Mrs. Simpson, von Ribbentrop’s primary task was to encourage Edward to take the hand of friendship proffered by the new German regime. He proved to be a willing acolyte.

  As von Ribbentrop helpfully pointed out in a telegram to Hitler: “After all he is half German.” In spite of the First World War, the prince, who spoke German fluently, retained an abiding affection for the country where so many of his family lived.

  “Every drop of blood in my veins is German,” he once told Diana Mitford, an adoring friend of Hitler. He looked back on the trips he made to Germany as a student with evident pleasure, describing the Fatherland as a “prosperous, industrious and agreeable country. It echoes with work and song.”

  He shuddered at the very idea of another European war, had little faith in France, a country he believed to be feeble and degenerate, despised the Soviet Communists for what they did to his godfather Czar Nicholas and his family, and had a wide-eyed admiration for Hitler’s efforts, particularly the vigor the National Socialists had shown in providing work and housing for the working man—a cause close to his heart.

  Months before he met with von Ribbentrop, Edward was confiding to Count Albert Mensdorff, the former Austrian ambassador, that he had much sympathy with the Nazi regime, a position the ambassador found “interesting and significant.”

  As he and his father’s good friend commemorated Armistice Day on November 11, 1933, the prince told him: “Of course it is the only thing to do, we will have to come to it, as we are in great danger from the communists here. I hope and believe we shall never fight a war again, but if so we must be on the winning side, and that will be German, not the French.”

  He consistently saw the bigger menace to peace and security to emanate from Russia rather than Germany and strongly believed that the winner of any conflict between Britain and Germany would be the Soviets. It was his settled view, expressed in writing to his friend Herman Rogers when war broke out: “God knows how it’s all going to end and a lot depends on how long it lasts. I only hope I shall eventually prove to be wrong in my contention that the victors of the contest will be the Soviets.”

  As for his own role in this unfolding political drama, the prince took his cue from his grandfather, Edward VII, who had a taste for fine women, splendid cigars, and political interference. The prince wrote about his reign in favourable terms, describing Edward VII as a king “who enjoyed the society of witty men and beautiful women, who relished foreign travel and the savour of high diplomacy.” While Edward’s constitutional position was to stay above the political fray, in his mind’s eye he saw himself shaping and massaging foreign policy, using his position and influence to make a difference. He had every expectation that his views would be taken seriously. He was more widely travelled than any politician alive, had met more leaders and spoken to more people. He considered himself popular and in touch with the man in the street. His was a voice that should be heard.

  Lurking at the back of his emerging ideology was an authoritarian streak, a flirtation with the idea of a dictator king. It is difficult to assess how seriously he took the concept but others, independently, duly noted the prince’s predilections. The influential Rothermere journalist and editor Colin Brooks jotted in his diary: “The suggestion has been made in many quarters that he could, if he wished, make himself the Dictator of the Empire.” Interestingly, Chips Channon used similar language to describe the prince’s shifting political stance, observing that Edward was going “the dictator way and is pro-German. I shouldn’t be surprised if he aimed at making himself a mild dictator—a difficult enough task for an English King.”

  For a while he thought Britain’s Fascist Blackshirt movement “a good thing” and, as Superintendent Canning observed as he watched the activity at Bryanston Court, Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists and a fanatical monarchist, was a visitor to the Simpsons’ home.

  Mosley himself used the prince’s name in an attempt to drum up funds, telling supporters that the Prince of Wales was sympathetic to the Fascist cause and on one occasion saying that his name might be used to get money out of Lady Houston, the snobbish, eccentric right-wing millionairess. There was even a suggestion that Mrs. Simpson’s society friend, decorator and hostess Sybil Colefax, who joined Lady Cunard in launching Wallis into society, might obtain subscriptions to the Fascist cause on a commission basis.

  If the prince wanted to learn more about Mosley’s gang he did not have to look far. His colourful equerry, Fruity Metcalfe, was married to Lad
y Alexandra Curzon, who was known as Baba Blackshirt as her sister Lady Cynthia was married to Oswald Mosley and Lady Alexandra and her courtier husband were active members of the January Club, an upper-class society set up by Mosley in 1934 to encourage members of the Establishment to join his fledging party. They also attended at least one Fascist Party dinner, held at the Savoy in May 1934. Interestingly, in March 1935 the January Club changed its name to the Windsor Club.

  As for the so-called Jewish question, the prince was, like many of his class, instinctively anti-Semitic—Buckingham Palace did not employ Jews or Catholics in positions of any prominence in the Royal Household until well into Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. There is, though, no evidence to suggest he ever came close to agreeing with the policy of genocide—unlike some active British Fascists. As early as 1935 Midlands councillor Arnold Leese, founder of the Imperial Fascist League, advocated gas chambers as an efficient solution to the Jewish problem. It earned him a jail term.

  As far as the prince was concerned, the so-called Jewish question was Hitler’s problem and had nothing to do with Anglo-German relations. He outlined his thoughts to the Kaiser’s grandson, Prince Louis Ferdinand, a strong-willed young man who had chosen to work as a mechanic for Henry Ford in Detroit to really see how the other half lived. Even though the young prince, who spent the summer of 1933 in England as a guest of diplomat Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, had little sympathy for Hitler, when they met at Edward’s London home, St. James’s Palace, to discuss current affairs, the future king was disarmingly unguarded in his comments. In his diary entry the following day Bruce Lockhart recorded:

  The Prince of Wales was quite pro-Hitler and said it was no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else and added that dictators are very popular these days and that we might want one in England before long.

  When the exiled Kaiser wrote to Bruce Lockhart thanking him for arranging the meeting, he expressed the hope that it would further German-English relations:

  The remark of the Prince of Wales that we have a right to deal with our affairs as we deem it right, shows sound judgement. Prince Louis Ferdinand would no doubt have agreed with him on this point.

  It was no surprise then that the furtherance of Anglo-German relations was prominent on the menu at the dinner meeting between the Prince of Wales and Herr von Ribbentrop, the German diplomat instantly grasping that Edward was instinctively sympathetic towards the Fatherland and open to new ideas to encourage friendship and peace between these two former adversaries.

  With the gypsy music playing in the background, von Ribbentrop had the perfect opening, discussing Anglo-German friendship in the context of reuniting the soldiers from both sides in exchange visits. He even had a name for his hobby horse—“bridge between the war veterans”—a phrase he had used consistently in conversations with European diplomats and politicians. His argument was simple and seductive: Organize war veterans to visit their German counterparts and thus help heal the wounds caused by the conflict. He left unstated the underlying aim of this policy, which was to give the impression of an equal partnership between the victor and the vanquished and thus weaken the shackles, both financial and military, imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

  The prince took up the idea with gusto. In June 1935 he made a speech to the ex-servicemen of the British Legion at London’s Albert Hall, where he articulated ideas that bore remarkable similarities to those of the German diplomat. Proposing that a group of Legion members should visit Germany in a show of friendship, he told the audience: “I feel there would be no more suitable body of men to stretch forth the hand of friendship to the Germans than we ex-Servicemen.”

  Naturally it was an approach taken up with enthusiasm by the Nazi hierarchy. At a rally of 200,000 in Nuremberg, Hermann Göring hailed the prince: “He can be sure the German front soldier and the German people grasp most eagerly the hand offered them.”

  The first delegation was received with open arms, the ex-servicemen treated like homecoming heroes. They were, according to one witness, even taken to a concentration camp at Dachau, during which time the well-fed guards took the place of the inmates, who were herded below ground. It was a prelude to many other visits, one headed by the prince’s German cousin and ardent Nazi, Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The scheme, according to von Ribbentrop’s biographer Dr. Paul Schwarz, proved to be “one of the cleverest and cheapest ways to make friends for Nazi Germany in peace-loving conciliatory Britain.”

  Prince Henry of Reuss reflected Hitler’s appreciation in a letter of thanks to the Prince of Wales. “All of us know perfectly well that You in Your exposed position would never have taken a step which would not have been felt deeply by yourself—and that’s a good sport.”

  For his pains the prince was summoned to Buckingham Palace for a dressing-down by the king. “How often have I told you, my dear boy?” the king asked him. “Never mix in politics, especially where foreign affairs are concerned.” Not only had he handed the Nazi regime a propaganda coup but he had irritated the French and affected sensitive negotiations regarding the Anglo-German naval treaty. Even those with no skin in the game could see that the prince had been cleverly outmanoeuvred, Ambassador Bingham now describing him as “the German protagonist.”

  For his part, Edward was angry that a non-political goodwill gesture—he later claimed that the friendship speech was the brainchild of the British Legion chairman—had been grievously misinterpreted. “It seemed to settle nothing; British foreign policy seemed paralyzed,” he concluded, the episode reinforcing his growing belief that what he said and what he did could transform official thinking.

  A further response to his father’s admonition revealed the inner child. Shortly after Edward returned from Buckingham Palace, Wallis’s cousin, who was staying at Bryanston Court, reported that the prince was “wearing a German helmet and goose stepping around the living room, for what reason I cannot imagine.”

  His exhibition probably says more about his personal relations with his father, by now at a very low ebb, than their political differences. More united than divided them, the king and his son both firmly of the opinion that another war was simply unimaginable. During the summer of 1935, when the prince made his notorious British Legion speech, it was Italy, not Germany, that was creating waves inside the League of Nations over its invasion of Abyssinia. The king was not prepared to confront Mussolini over his aggression, declaring: “I will not have another war. I will not. The last one was none of my doing and if there is another one and we are threatened with being brought into it I will go to Trafalgar Square and wave a red flag myself sooner than this country to be brought in.” His son went even further, favouring a martial injection of Fascist efficiency to shake up the medieval economy of Abyssinia, later Ethiopia.

  With regard to Germany they had much in common, though the king was more considered in his view than his impulsive son. George Messersmith, the American ambassador to Austria who got to know Edward well, was certain that his pro-German sentiments were inherited from his father rather than his American mistress or others in his circle. He cited the fact that when Anthony Eden was appointed foreign secretary in December 1935, King George emphasized that the new man should not disturb “good relations with Germany.” The king’s attitude to Germany was rather more nuanced than his son’s, making clear to the German ambassador von Hoesch his concerns about what he called “Jew baiting” and the pace of German rearmament. Historian Alan Palmer is perhaps overstating the divide when he wrote: “Over the Nazi phenomenon, as over so many questions, he was at loggerheads with his eldest son.”

  Visits to London by members of the German nobility, as well as the Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1935, gave the king an opportunity to hear first-hand about the atmosphere inside the Nazi Fatherland. It was not all sugarcoated. In the summer of 1934 Crown Prince Rupprecht von Bayern, head of the House of Wittelsbach, had lunch with King George V at Buckingham Palace
. During their conversation, in which they talked about “reasonable rearmament” for Germany, the crown prince let it be known that he remained convinced that the Führer was insane. The Kaiser’s grandson, Prince Louis Ferdinand, was another unbeliever.

  Nazis or not, the war was still a barrier between the royal cousins, King George not writing to his cousin Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse until 1935. His tone was placatory. “That horrible and unnecessary war had made no differences to my feelings for you.” Fence mending between the House of Windsor and the royal houses of Germany was a feature of the time; Crown Prince Wilhelm, writing secretly to Lord Rothermere in June 1934, indicates the placatory mood: “I have always regretted it that until now all contacts between our family and the English Royal Family have remained entirely disrupted . . . My sympathies for your people have always been great.”

  While the King’s Silver Jubilee was the perfect opportunity to draw a line concerning the past, it was still too soon for the Kaiser, ailing in exile at Doorn in the Netherlands, to come to London. His daughter-in-law Crown Princess Cecilie, her daughter Viktoria, and Hitler’s favourite royal, Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, did attend the celebrations, while Ambassador von Hoesch hosted an elaborate party at the Carlton House Terrace embassy for his friends the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson.

  This quiet invasion by German nobility onto English shores was no coincidence. It was all part of the Führer’s master plan. At home Hitler skillfully used the German aristocracy to give a patina of respectability to his radical regime and signal to the man in the street that the traditional ruling class had faith in the new order; so abroad the German royals, by the very fact that so many joined the Nazi Party, reassured sceptical European rulers—and royals—that it was largely business as usual in the Fatherland.

  Soon after Hitler took power he encouraged wave after wave of German aristocrats to spread the word. In early 1934, for example, Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg, head of a Nazi Party foreign policy office, contacted Prince Gottfried zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, whose mother was a cousin of George V, “in order to discuss drawing closer to the English royal house.” While nothing came of the suggestion, the prince expressed his willingness to put his shoulder to the Nazi weal.