Nazi Princess

by Jim Wilson

  In his book Operation Willi, Michael Bloch wrote:

  The Duke unwittingly encouraged Hitler’s hopes and illusions concerning him in a remarkable degree; and his presence in Europe, while it lasted, appears to have had a tantalizing effect on Nazi policy. The consequences may possibly have been fateful. Throughout that July, Hitler hesitated to order the attack on Great Britain – Operation Sealion – thus giving the British a chance to regroup their forces and survive. Were Hitler’s hopes that the Duke could be persuaded to go along with the plan to restore him as king one of the principal causes of Hitler’s hesitation? What one can say for certain is that it was not until August 1st – the day that the Duke finally sailed from Europe – that the Führer issued his Directive No. 17 ordering the Luftwaffe ‘to overcome the English Air Force with all means at its disposal and in the shortest possible time’; and it was not until August 2nd that Ribbentrop ordered Eberhard von Stohrer [German ambassador to Spain] to work for Spain’s early entry into the war.45

  Ribbentrop, of course, failed in that ambition, too.

  Edward and Wallis remained in the Bahamas until April 1945. From the governor general’s residence the duke maintained contact with Charles Bedaux until 1943, when Bedaux was arrested in North Africa where he was supervising the construction of a German pipeline. He was taken back to the United States on a charge of treason and committed suicide in February 1944 while in prison in Miami, awaiting a grand jury investigation into his wartime activities.

  The duchess compared her and her husband’s enforced stay on the remote British territory to Napoleon’s incarceration on Elba. But Edward’s appointment as governor general did not stop his flirtation with Nazi Germany. In December 1940, as Britain battled against Hitler’s war machine alone and in isolation, an American journalist with close connections to President Roosevelt received an unexpected invitation to the Bahamas. He was invited to conduct a rare interview with the island’s governor. Edward was still an officer in the British Army, both as a result of his royal appointments and his war service in France with the British Expeditionary Force. He might have been expected to fly the flag for his embattled former kingdom. Yet he gave Fulton Oursler of the magazine Liberty an amazing eulogy to Hitler. The former British monarch told the journalist it would be tragic for the world if the Nazi dictator was overthrown; Hitler was the right man at the right time and the logical leader of the German people. Edward argued for a negotiated peace with Germany. ‘It cannot be another Versailles. Whatever the outcome a new order is going to come into the world … it will be buttressed by police power. When the peace comes this time there is going to be a new order of social justice – don’t make any mistake about that.’46

  As Oursler tried to take in the enormity of what he was hearing, the duke asked him: ‘Do you suppose your President would consider intervening as a mediator when and if the proper moment arrives?’ The American understood he was being asked to carry a message to the President, but he was unsure of the exact terms. As he was leaving the governor general’s residence, the duke’s aide-de-camp spelt it out. He instructed Oursler to tell the President that if he would make an offer for intervention for peace, before anyone in England could oppose it, the duke would instantly issue a statement supporting the move. It would start a revolution in England and, the duke hoped, lead to peace.

  Roosevelt would have nothing to do with the duke’s treacherous scheme. He had already placed Edward and Wallis under FBI surveillance. FBI papers, declassified in 2009, show just how scathing the American authorities’ assessment of the duke and duchess was. ‘The British government were anxious to get rid of the Duke of Windsor, first and foremost because of his fondness for the Nazi ideology,’ the 227-page report concludes. ‘The duchess’ political views are deemed so obnoxious to the British Government that they refused to permit Edward to marry her and maintain the throne.’47 The FBI was instructed by the President to tail the Windsors discreetly whenever they made short visits to the United States during their sojourn in the Bahamas. A further FBI report, this time to the FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover, stated:

  An agent has established conclusively that the Duchess of Windsor has recently been in touch with Joachim von Ribbentrop and was maintaining constant contact and communication with him. Because of their high official position the Duchess was obtaining a variety of information concerning the British and French official activities that she was passing on to the Germans.48

  Churchill was predictably furious at the Liberty article. It threatened to scupper the Prime Minister’s plan to bring the United States into the war with all the military power at its disposal. He sent a strongly worded cable to Edward in which he said the former king’s words would be interpreted as defeatist and pro-Nazi, and by implication approving the isolationist aim to keep America out of the war.

  In Berlin, Hitler’s propaganda chief Goebbels noted in his diary: ‘The Duke of Windsor has given an interview to a magazine in the USA in which he pretty frankly disclaims all chance of a British victory. We decide not to use it for the present, so as to avoid suffocating this tender seedling of reason.’ The following day he noted that the duke’s interview had been published in the Italian press, and he added significantly: ‘We shall not use it so as to avoid discrediting him.’49

  In May 1941 Hoover sent a message to President Roosevelt in which he said information had arrived at his office suggesting that the Duke of Windsor had entered into an agreement to the effect that if Germany was victorious, Hermann Goering would seek to overthrow Hitler and install the duke as king. Hoover claimed that this information had come from Allen McIntosh, a personal friend of the duke’s.50

  12

  INTRIGUE IN AMERICA AND LONDON

  During the 1930s Princess Stephanie undertook several trips to America. As she had done in Europe and in England, she set about making contacts with high-level, wealthy individuals; cultivating friendships wherever she detected the possibility of influence, whatever the sphere, be it industry, the arts or politics. Her contacts included Cathleen Vanderbilt and her stockbroker husband Harry Cushing Jnr; the composer Cole Porter; the art collector John Hay Whitney; and the industrialist Walter P. Chrysler. She was assiduously building a network of powerful acquaintances.

  Some of these contacts, particularly those involved in industry and finance, appear in lists of members of the so-called Fraternity, the name Charles Higham, in his book Trading with the Enemy, gives to a loosely linked group of Americans whose companies, he alleged, continued commercial and financial relations with Germany even after America entered the war. While aiding the US war effort, they also aided Nazi Germany. It is claimed in 1942, for instance, Standard Oil was shipping fuel to Germany via neutral Switzerland. The Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris was doing millions of dollars’ worth of business with Germany – although the bank’s head office in Manhattan must have been fully aware this was happening. Ford trucks were being built for German occupation forces in France, as Ford headquarters in Michigan must have known. ITT, the American communications conglomerate, was helping Germany with communications systems and working on remote control devices for V1 and V2 weapons through subsidiaries in neutral countries. They were also assisting Germany to build Focke-Wulf aircraft. Ball bearings, crucial to German war production, were being shipped to Nazi-associated customers in Latin America. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the size of the United States industrial investment in Germany totalled nearly $500 million. Many prominent American companies allowed their German subsidiaries to remain in holding companies in Nazi Germany, operating profitably, but with the profits accumulating there until the end of the war.1

  In 1937 Stephanie persuaded Wiedemann to join her on a trip across the Atlantic. Hitler gave permission for his adjutant to accompany her and a cable from the American ambassador to Berlin, William Dodd, made it clear to the State Department that, as far as he was concerned, Wiedemann’s intention was to discuss political matters with his colleagues at the German E
mbassy in Washington. The costs of the trip, including the tickets for the princess and her personal maid, were paid for out of the special fund Hitler had put at Wiedemann’s disposal to underwrite Stephanie’s expenses. The princess’ maid, Wally Oeler, had been recruited for her by Wiedemann. She had been in service working for a prominent German family in Berlin. Wiedemann had no difficulty in arranging a permit for her to leave Germany. She was a bright and intelligent young woman. Some suspected she was a Gestapo informer.2 The American authorities were suspicious that the real reason for Wiedemann’s mission was to sound out known Nazi supporters and to encourage growth of the German-American League in the United States. The League consisted of American citizens, many with German family backgrounds, who were largely sympathetic to the Nazi regime. It was in Hitler’s interests to expand its membership and its propaganda in support of National Socialism. Moreover, actively expanding pro-Nazi support was very much along the lines of what the princess had successfully achieved in England. Wiedemann was well acquainted with The Fraternity and its members’ activities both in the United States and in Europe. It was alleged part of the reason for the trip was to assess the strength of Nazi support in the States and look at ways of expanding pro-German organisations like The Fraternity and the German-American League.

  On arrival in New York in November 1937, the princess and her lover were received by the German Consul General, but there was also a hostile crowd at the dockside, some carrying banners reading, ‘Out with Wiedemann, the Nazi spy’. The following day the couple travelled by train to Washington, where they stayed at the German Embassy. The ambassador, Dr Heinz Dieckhoff, was adamant that Wiedemann should convey direct to Hitler just how strong a potential military force America represented, and what a potential threat the country posed should the United States ever be drawn into another European war. Among those whom Hitler’s adjutant met was Hugh R. Wilson, shortly to take up his post in Berlin as America’s last pre-war ambassador to the Third Reich. After Washington, Wiedemann and the princess travelled to Chicago where they made contact with branches of the German-American League, which in the Illinois area was known to be particularly strong and highly pro-Nazi. Finally, Wiedemann travelled across to San Francisco where he had meetings with pro-German contacts and branches of the League based on the west coast.

  The princess always had her relationship with Hitler on her mind. In the States she bought a number of expensive books on architecture to send to the Führer as a Christmas present. As his closeness to the architect Albert Speer and his grand plans for buildings in the new Germany indicate, Hitler was fascinated by bold, brutal architecture. Shortly after Christmas, the princess received a personal note of thanks signed ‘Adolf’, conveying Hitler’s ‘devoted greetings’. The Führer added he had been told how ‘staunchly and warmly’ the princess had spoken up on behalf of the new Germany and the country’s vital needs in the United States. ‘I am well aware this has caused you a number of unpleasant experiences, and would therefore like to express to you, highly esteemed princess, my sincere thanks for the great understanding that you have shown for Germany as a whole and for my work in particular.’3

  In February and March 1938 the princess was again visiting the United States, once more at the expense of the Nazi regime. During her absence across the Atlantic, her Austrian homeland was appropriated and absorbed into the German Reich, when on 12 March Hitler ordered units of the Wehrmacht to invade in the coup that became known as the Anschluss. By then Hitler had assumed for himself the powers of Minister of War and Supreme Warlord, dismissing many of the aristocratic and military ‘old guard’ and replacing them with his own appointees. Rothermere’s congratulatory letters and telegrams continued to arrive, supporting Hitler’s policies, excusing even the worst excesses of Nazi rule. Commenting in a memorandum she wrote later on the dismissal of Hitler’s Minister for War, General von Blomberg – along with others of the conservative and moderate element in the Nazi Party – Stephanie noted that Wiedemann had warned her ‘the warmongers are now in control and war is now inevitable’. Wiedemann had added: ‘If your old fool of an English Lord still supports Hitler after this he is committing high treason.’4 But the ‘old fool’, Rothermere, maintained his friendly correspondence with Berlin.

  Ward Price, Rothermere’s central Europe correspondent, who always accompanied Rothermere and the princess when they visited Hitler, had the reputation of being Fleet Street’s most enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis. He was on close terms with all of the leading Nazi hierarchy. He even began affecting the use of a monocle, aping some of the senior Nazis grouped around the Führer. When German troops entered Vienna, Ward Price was there, standing close to Hitler as the Führer addressed the crowds. In Prague he argued that Czechoslovakia should succumb to Germany’s demands. He was a welcome guest at Goering’s vast mansion, Carinhall, where in 1937 he spent a day with Goering on his estate. Price was even invited to play with the field marshal’s huge miniature model railway laid out in the attics at Carinhall. The field marshal, as excited and enthusiastic as a child, knelt to direct the electric-powered model trains deftly around the extensive tracks. In the ceiling above the layout, a system of wires allowed model aeroplanes to fly across the room dropping miniature bombs on the railway below. For Goering it conjured up his own exploits as a pilot in the First World War. Afterwards, on Goering’s behalf, Price conveyed a chilling message to the British government. Enquiring why Britain had driven Germany into the ranks of her enemies, Goering had said: ‘The sands of possible reconciliation are fast running out.’5

  The Times’ Vienna correspondent, describing the Anschluss in a private message to his editor, took a very different line to Rothermere and the Daily Mail. He cabled: ‘In my wildest nightmares I had not foreseen anything so perfectly organised, so brutal, so ruthless, so strong. When this machine goes into action it will blight everything it encounters like a swarm of locusts.’ He warned that the Nazis’ ultimate object was ‘precisely the destruction of England … Their real hatred is for England.’6 The same newspaper’s representative in Prague conveyed a similar warning. He wrote that he was convinced Nazi Germany had a long-term programme which it was determined to carry out. He had little doubt that Hitler intended both the break-up of Czechoslovakia and to challenge the British Empire. ‘The Nazis have to be confronted,’ he said.7 But at home, leading politicians remained wedded to a policy of appeasement.

  Having returned to England, in the summer of 1938 Princess Stephanie received a highly sensitive private assignment from the Reich Chancellor, asking her to find out if one of his ‘intimate’ friends could safely visit England to undertake unofficial conversations at senior government level. Hitler was contemplating authorising Goering to travel to England to negotiate on his behalf, but he wanted an assurance that Goering would not be humiliated by being subjected to open insult and demonstrations if he crossed the Channel and stepped onto British soil. Stephanie was summoned to Carinhall, Goering’s mansion. It was the first time she had met the flamboyant reichsmarschall. Stephanie recalled the meeting in a memorandum written some years later. Goering, she wrote, was ‘the leader of the peace party’ among the Nazi hierarchy. ‘But he qualified his policy with opportunism and was certainly not espoused to peace at any price.’ This position was far removed from Ribbentrop’s, by then German Foreign Minister, who was ‘the open leader of an absolute unconditional war movement’. His stance was: ‘War against England at any time, at any price, in any circumstances.’8 Goering, Stephanie wrote, was the economic dictator of Germany – the logical and actual heir presumptive of Adolf Hitler. ‘There is no other man of whom the Führer speaks with so much respect, admiration and gratitude.’9 In complete contrast, Goering’s opinion of the new German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop, was that he was incompetent, stupid and stood in the way of any deal with Britain. Hence the plan for a visit by Goering as negotiator; a visit that needed to be kept secret from Ribbentrop.

  Although the princess k
new Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, she recognised how arrangements for such a sensitive visit would need to be handled diplomatically, and so she turned for help to her friend Lady Ethel Snowden, widow of Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden in the Labour governments of 1924 and 1929. Ethel Snowden was no stranger to Nazi Germany. She had attended the last three Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in company with the princess. She had also written many articles for the Daily Mail, most of them enthusiastically supporting the National Socialists. Moreover, Goebbels admired her; he had written about her in his diary in September 1937, calling her a ‘lady with guts’. His diary entry observed that in London her spirit and courage was misunderstood.

  Ethel Snowden agreed to help, and used her political contacts to get privileged access. She called on Halifax at his private house in London’s Eaton Square early one morning, and personally passed on the message proposing a possible meeting with a highly placed Nazi leader. Halifax told a colleague that Lady Snowden had been approached ‘through a personage who was in a very intimate relationship with Hitler and whom I understand to be Princess Hohenlohe’. In his diary for 6 July 1938, Halifax also noted: