The Duchess Of Windsor (46 page)

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Authors: Greg King

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Against this background of political and royal worry over his former position, the Duke of Windsor made what was arguably the worst decision in his postabdication life: in October 1937 he and Wallis embarked on an immensely publicized tour of Nazi Germany, a tour whose associations would continue to haunt both the Duke and Duchess for the rest of their lives.
28
 
The Visit to Germany
 
I
N THE FALL OF
1937 the world stood poised at the edge of an abyss. The ominous signs of growing tensions were everywhere. In Asia, Emperor Hirohito’s armies had invaded the Chinese mainland, absorbing the decaying country with little resistance. The Civil War in Spain, pitting Italian and German influence against Russian intervention, upset the delicate peace of Europe. Above all, the world watched with growing unease as Germany continued to rumble with threats. In England, where Baldwin had been replaced as prime minister by Neville Chamberlain, there was a general feeling of unease, although few expected a war to erupt in the future. The mood continued to be, as it had been during the reign of Edward VIII, one of complacent appeasement.
The Duke of Windsor’s proposed visit to Germany had been under discussion throughout the summer of 1937. Today, of course, the visit seems almost incredible; in photographs and newsreels the Duke and Duchess appear utterly charmed by their Nazi hosts, and David’s glowing praise of the accomplishments of the Third Reich, especially its treatment of workers, rings loudly against the historical record. But the visit must be viewed in the context in which it was made.
At the time the Windsors visited Germany, the Second World War was still two years away. The policy of the British government was one of cooperation and appeasement, and politicians and diplomats regularly made their way not only to Berlin but also to Hitler’s private estate at Berchtesgaden for meetings with the Führer. A majority of Europe continued to believe that the Soviet Union was the ultimate enemy, and attempts to negotiate with Hitler would continue until the very outbreak of hostilities in September 1939.
A great deal of mythology and misinformation surrounds the Windsors’ trip to Germany. The idea for the visit did not, as has often been asserted, originate with Charles Bedaux. The Duke of Windsor had long been interested in the housing conditions of workers; Germany was then popularly celebrated as boasting model programs for its laboring classes, and David was curious to see for himself the miracles transforming the country. The idea for the visit originated solely with the Duke.
David was also anxious to see Wallis treated with the respect he felt her position demanded, and a ceremonial visit to a friendly country, where they would both be feted and entertained and photographed, seemed an ideal solution. “His Royal Highness,” says Sir Dudley Forwood, “wanted to see honour and glory paid to the woman he adored.” Wallis, too, realized that her husband longed for something important to do; although he never complained, she knew that he was bored and often longed for the days when his schedule had been filled with engagements that, however banal, had given him some sense of accomplishment. She, however, was a bit more apprehensive of the possible consequences of a German visit. “She didn’t want to go,” Forwood recalls. “She realized that it might go against them. But His Royal Highness had made up his mind.”
1
Although David was naive in many respects, he was also aware that a visit to Germany was likely to be highly controversial. However, over the past nine months he had also been made accutely aware that he no longer enjoyed any sort of official position or status. He had no intention of doing or saying anything political, nor did he believe, rather impossibly, that either the British or the German governments would be able to interpret such a visit as anything other than that of a private citizen.
2
Contrary to popular belief, Charles Bedaux opposed the visit to Germany. He advised the Duke of Windsor that the potential controversy resulting from the trip might lead to difficulties in his desire to return one day to England. Nor, according to his biographer, is there any evidence that Bedaux tried to manipulate the visit to gain some business advantage with the Nazis.
3
It is true that Bedaux’s business interests in that country had been confiscated, but he was already involved in serious negotiations in the fall of 1937 and had little need of the Duke of Windsor in this respect.
“Kings,” wrote Walter Monckton, “not only live in glass-houses, but have constant access to the best advice in every sphere. It was hard to convince people at home how much more difficult it was for the Duke, because of the position he had held and the advice which had been available to him, to keep an even and temperate judgement when responsible ministers never went near him. . . .”
4
David did, in fact, meet with Lord Beaverbrook in Paris prior to the trip and asked his opinion. Beaverbrook was quick to advise against the visit, but David had already made up his mind and refused to reconsider.
Bedaux himself had little hand in arranging the trip. Instead, his friend, Fritz Wiedemann—on the instructions of Hitler himself—had taken charge, working out an exhausting itinerary designed to showcase the best of the Third Reich’s accomplishments while at the same time allowing maximum exposure of the celebrated Windsors. All expenses, at the Führer’s direct orders, were to be paid out of a special fund from the Reichsbank.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor arrived aboard the Nord Express at Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station early on the morning of October 11. The entire siding had been decorated with strings of Union Jacks alternating with the Nazi swastika, which fluttered in the cold wind. As a brass band played “God Save the King,” the
Nord Express
slowly steamed to a halt, and the Duke and Duchess alighted to cries of
“Heil
Edward!” and
“Hoch
Windsors!”
5
David wore a light gray double-breasted suit with a red carnation in his lapel; Wallis sported a tailored suit in navy blue wool, with a matching navy cape, hat, and shoes.
A line of German officials, headed by Dr. Robert Ley, the leader of the National Labour Front, waited to greet the couple. Ley handed Wallis a box of chocolates with a card which bore the inscription
“Königliche Hoheit”
—“Royal Highness.”
6
Although the Nazis had turned out in full force, the British embassy, acting on strict orders from Whitehall in London, had dispatched only a third secretary, Geoffrey Harrison, to welcome the Windsors on behalf of Sir Neville Henderson, the ambassador. With some embarrassment, Harrison quickly handed the Duke a letter from Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, the British
charge d’affaires,
saying that Henderson had unexpectedly been called away from Berlin and that the embassy had been instructed to take no official notice of the Windsors’ visit. Nor were they to be received at the embassy—a fact which both Wallis and David took as a deliberate humiliation.
7
“Both the Duke and Duchess were very, very hurt at not being extended any sort of regular welcome in Berlin,” recalls Forwood.
8
When the welcoming ceremony had ended, Ley, who was to act as their official host for the duration of the visit, escorted the Duke and Duchess to his waiting black Mercedes and climbed in between them on the rear seat. The driver wore an SS uniform, and four other SS officers, one on each running board, and two armed guards in the front seat added a grim touch. As the car set off, the gathered crowd of several hundred erupted into loud cheers and applause.
9
The sleek Mercedes raced along Berlin’s impressive boulevards at breakneck speed. This so unsettled Wallis that she complained to David later that evening. As the visit progressed and the motorcades continued their dangerous pace, the Duke was forced to tell Ley that either he order his driver to slow down or he and his wife would ride in another car altogether.
10
The Duke and Duchess were given a spacious suite at the luxurious Kaiserhof Hotel. From their windows, they could look across at Hitler’s stunning and massive new Reich Chancellery, its marble walls stretching for hundreds of feet along the avenue. When they arrived at the hotel, the Windsors were welcomed by a specially invited crowd that serenaded them with a bombastic song, composed for the occasion by the Propaganda Ministry on the orders of its head, Josef Goebbels.
The following day, Wallis and David embarked on separate programs. The Duchess was taken to a Nazi Welfare Society department workhouse where she was shown women happily engaged in sewing clothes for the poor. Since her mother, Alice, had done much the same thing in Baltimore, Wallis was able to comment with some interest and knowledge on the products before her; she even tried her hand at communicating in her less-than-perfect German, although the accompanying translator was swift to ensure that no misunderstanding occurred.
While Wallis was thus engaged, David was taken on a tour of the Stock Machine Works at Grünewald. He was impressed by the amenities offered to the workers there, including a restaurant, concert hall, and swimming pool. In fluent German, he spoke with many of those he encountered, questioning them as to their lives, their workday, their pay rates, and their children. That afternoon, David was guest of honor at a free concert given for a thousand workers by the Berlin Labor Front Orchestra during which selections from Wagner and Liszt were played. The concert ended with “Deutschland Ueber Alles,” “The Horst Wessel Song,” and “God Save the King.” Newsreel cameras were rolling as David, a wide smile on his face, was seen to raise his arm in the Nazi salute. Although his apologists have tried to explain this away as misinterpretation of a simple wave, the Duke himself later acknowledged that he had made the offending salute on several occasions during the trip. “There are times when it’s necessary to do or say certain things,” he told his friend J. Paul Getty, “and then allow them to remain on the record. Wallis and I both have broad shoulders. We can bear the load.”
11
As Sir Dudley Forwood rightly points out, “that Nazi salute was no more than the simple courtesy one always extended to one’s hosts. If His Royal Highness went to a country where the people rubbed noses in greeting, he would do so. The salute was nothing more than good manners.”
12
That evening, Dr. Ley hosted a party for the Duke and Duchess at his country estate. Among the guests were Joachim von Ribbentrop; SS leader Heinrich Himmler; Rudolf Hess and his wife, Use; and Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels and his wife, Magda. Goebbels failed to make a favorable impression: Wallis later described him as “a tiny, wispy gnome with an enormous skull. His wife was the prettiest woman I saw in Germany.” Together they reminded her of “Beauty and the Beast.”
13
Ilse Hess was fascinated by Wallis. She later recalled her as “a lovely, charming, warm and clever woman with a heart of gold and an affection for her husband that she made not the slightest attempt to conceal.”
14
The next morning, Wallis remained at the hotel while her husband set off on a long inspection tour. At Crossensee, he visited the training school of the Death’s Head Division of the Elite Squad of the SS. Once the SS band had finished playing “God Save the King,” David toured the medieval-style facility, with its thick stone walls, thatched roofs, and tall towers. After lunch, he was driven to the Stargard military airport, where he boarded a twelve-passenger plane that belonged to Ley and made an aerial inspection of a Nazi youth camp along the shores of the Baltic Sea. While David was thus occupied, Wallis toured the former Imperial Palaces at Potsdam.
On October 14, Wallis and David paid a visit to the Berlin War Museum and the Pergamon Museum. That afternoon, they were driven into the countryside to meet with Field Marshal Hermann Goering and his wife, Emmy, at their magnificent country estate, Karinhalle, some forty miles from Berlin. Escorted by Luftwaffe officers, the Windsors’ motorcade turned through the long, tall stone piers which marked the entrance to the estate and swept through the forest to the clearing where the house stood. Wallis later recalled how it had appeared out of the rain and mist, a massive baronial house of white stone walls pierced with towers and arcades and topped with a steep thatched roof.
15
Goering himself was greatly worried over the visit; he was keenly aware that Hitler expected him to do all in his power to favorably influence the Duke toward Germany. Just before the Windsors arrived at Karinhalle, Goering told his wife, “Please make everything nice for them—this visit means a lot to me.”
16
Immaculately dressed in a white uniform covered with medals, Goering stood at the side of his wife, waiting at the front door to greet the Duke and Duchess. The foursome took tea at a round table set up in the hall, an immense room filled with modern furniture. Although a translator was present, the two couples managed on their own: David spoke German to Goering and his wife, while Wallis spoke English and French to Emmy Goering and French with Goering himself. The Duke questioned Goering at length about housing conditions. “He showed himself to be very well informed about the Reichs Government’s building program,” Emmy Goering recalled, “and talked exhaustively about the plans which he himself had had to improve the social position of the British working man.... The Duchess, who was dressed with amazingly simple elegance, pleased me even more than the Duke. I found myself sitting opposite to a real lady and I could not help thinking that this woman would certainly have cut a good figure on the Throne of England.”
17

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