1937 tour of Germany by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, and Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, visited Nazi Germany in October 1937. Edward had abdicated the British throne in December 1936, and his brother George VI had become king. Edward had been given the title Duke of Windsor on abdication, and he married Wallis Simpson in June 1937. He appeared to have been sympathetic to Germany in this period and, that September, announced his intention to travel privately to Germany to tour factories. His interests, officially researching the social and economic conditions of the working classes, were against the backdrop of looming war in Europe. The Duke's supporters saw him as a potential peacemaker between Britain and Germany, but the British government refused to sanction such a role, opposed the tour and suspected that the Nazis would use the Duke's presence for propaganda. Prince Edward was keen for his wife, who had been rejected by the British establishment, to experience a state visit as his consort. He promised the government to keep a low profile, and the tour went ahead between 12 and 23 October 1937.

The Duke and the Duchess, who were officially invited to the country by the German Labour Front, were chaperoned for much of their visit by its leader, Robert Ley. The couple visited factories, many of which were producing materiel for the rearmament effort, and the Duke inspected German troops. The Windsors were greeted by the British national anthem and Nazi salutes. They dined with high-ranking Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Albert Speer, and had tea with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden. The Duke had a long private conversation with Hitler, but it is uncertain what they discussed, as the minutes of their meeting were lost during the war. The Duchess took afternoon tea with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. Hitler was sympathetic to the Windsors and treated the Duchess like royalty.

The British government was unable to affect the course of events but forbade its diplomatic staff in Germany from having any high-level interaction with the Windsors. British popular opinion of the tour was muted, and most of the public viewed it as in poor taste and disrupting the first year of George's reign. The tour of Germany was intended to have been followed by one of the United States, but Nazi repression of working-class activists in Germany led to a wave of disapproval for the Windsors in the American labour movement, which led to the U.S. visit being cancelled. Some modern historians tend to view the 1937 tour as a diplomatic misstep reflecting the Duke's disregard for advice.

Background

Edward VIII became king after the death of his father, George V, in early 1936. Almost immediately, he announced his intention to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. On political and moral grounds, she was unacceptable as a royal consort to the British government and royal family. As king, Edward was the titular governor of the Church of England, which forbade the divorced from remarrying during the lifetime of their former spouses, and both of Simpson's previous husbands were still alive. The proposed marriage was believed by critics to breach Edward's coronation oath, and weakened his position as constitutional monarch. Edward knew that if he forced the issue, Stanley Baldwin's government would almost certainly resign en masse.

Edward realised that his family, the government, the Church, and the people would not support the marriage. Thus, in December 1936, he abdicated. His younger brother, the Duke of York, succeeded him as George VI, and Edward was given the new title of Duke of Windsor. Edward and Simpson married in France in June 1937, and having honeymooned in Vienna, they returned to Paris and established their headquarters there. Internationally, journalist Andrew Morton stated that the Duke was viewed as:

Modern, progressive, vigorous, and accessible. Even his mock Cockney accent with a touch of American seemed more down-to-earth and unaffected than the disdainful patrician tones of a man like Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. He remained an intriguing international celebrity, his marital turmoil only enhancing the iconic mystery surrounding the man.

Political context

The European political background to the tour was tense. The Spanish Civil War, which had broken out the previous year, upset the balance of power and drew in the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany. Also, Germany was becoming increasingly aggressive and had spent the previous few years rearming. In the United Kingdom, there was a sense of political unease towards the future and an expectation of war although foreign policy remained predicated on appeasement. Baldwin resigned as prime minister in May 1937 and was replaced by his deputy, Neville Chamberlain.

Historian Michael Bloch states that although the tour can be viewed as a poor decision with hindsight, it was not out of place for the time. He notes that "war was still two years away, curiosity about the Nazis was intense, and many respectable people accepted government invitations. It was fashionable to go to Germany and visit Hitler in the mid-thirties just as it was to go to China and visit Mao Tse-tung in the sixties". The former prime minister, David Lloyd George, had visited Germany two years before the Windsors. The leader of the Labour Party, pacifist George Lansbury, met with Hitler in April 1937. Also, Lord Halifax, later foreign secretary, visited to do so, at Göring's invitation, the following month. Halifax's trip was "ostensibly ... a social one", but it was also an opportunity for the British government to initiate talks with Hitler, according to modern historian Lois G. Schwoerer. Similarly, Hitler hosted many non-Germans, including Aga Khan III, papal nuncio Cesare Orsenigo, ambassadors, government ministers, and European royals, at his residence in Bavaria, the Berghof.

Royal and governmental view

George VI is said to have been horrified by his brother's entry into European political affairs at such a delicate time. George wrote to Edward's political advisor, Walter Monckton, that the Duke's plan was "a bombshell, and a bad one". George took particular umbrage because on abdication, Edward had said that he intended to avoid public appearances. Royal biographer Sarah Bradford suggests that the visit indicated that Edward had no intention of retiring: rather, he intended to behave independently of the king's and the government's wishes.

Contemporaries were aware of the negative connotations of a trip to Germany at the time. The announcement took everyone by surprise, and those sympathetic to Edward, such as Winston Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook, attempted to dissuade him from going. The intervention of an old friend of the Duchess, Herman Rogers, against the trip also proved unsuccessful. The government already suspected that Edward had "strong views on his right to intervene in affairs of state", argues historian Keith Middlemas, but its "main fears ... were of indiscretion". The Foreign Office warned the Duke that the Nazis were propaganda experts; the Duke agreed but promised not to speak publicly while he was there. The government, argues historian Deborah Cadbury, was concerned that the Duke would gather a party around him and promote his own personal foreign policy, outside government control.

Edward stated that his intention for the visit as "without any political considerations and merely as an independent observer studying industrial and housing conditions". He said that one could not ignore what was happening in Germany "even though it may not have one's entire approval". The Duke was sympathetic to the cause of improving working conditions.

Historian Frances Donaldson suggests that his views "had caused offence in England because, according to opinion there, such matters were not the concern of the throne". Statements such as that one, scholar Adrian Philips emphasises, were intended to deflect from Edward's public relationship with Simpson.

Political views of the Duke and Duchess

Edward was an admirer of Germany and fluent in its language, which the Duke in his memoirs called "the Muttersprache [mother tongue] of many of our relations". He knew, too, that German blood "flowed strongly in him", and researcher Mark Hichens speculates that Edward's ancestry led him to favour German culture. As Prince of Wales, he had studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, under Hermann Georg Fiedler, and he had toured Germany twice before World War I broke out in 1914. One of his friends, Chips Channon, Conservative MP for Southend West, commented in 1936 that he "is going the dictator way, and is pro-German". Simpson was also believed to hold similar views on account of her rejection by the British ruling class, and many within the government suspected her to have spied for Hitler while she lived in Britain, though she denied that in her autobiography. The FBI also monitored her throughout the period, and concluded that she had Nazi sympathies. It had been rumoured that she and Joachim von Ribbentrop had a sexual relationship during his tenure as German ambassador in London during the mid-1930s. Albert von Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, a former Austrian ambassador to the UK who was George V's second cousin, believed that both Windsors favoured German fascism as a bulwark against communism in Europe. Edward also, according to the Count, favoured an alliance with Nazi Germany around the time.

Edward himself later contextualised his position in the 1930s as being a reaction to what he termed "the unending scenes of horror" of the First World War. He said that led him to support appeasement with Hitler. The latter is known to have seen the Duke as an ally, believing that as king, Edward would have strengthened Anglo-German relations. Albert Speer later said that Hitler was certain that "through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved. If he had stayed, everything would have been different." The Duke, suggests biographer Anne Sebba, probably wanted to restore the countries' close ties, which had been broken by the First World War. He also wanted to make his new wife the centrepiece of a state visit. Historian Ted Powell suggests that the Duke would have visited any country that would accept his wife on his terms. Edward's equerry, Dudley Forwood, points out that the only possible state visit was to Germany and also suggested that the Duke wished to prove to his wife that he had lost nothing by abdicating.

Overture and organisation

A tour of Germany had been broached with the Duke before his wedding by French businessman Charles Bedaux, whom Bloch describes as an "enigmatic time and motion tycoon". Edward was agreeable and saw it as a way of raising his profile. By April 1937, Colonel Oscar Solbert had suggested that the Duke take a tour of Germany, which was soon intended to be the first of several planned international tours. Bedaux offered to organise the Duke's side of the arrangements. Solbert had been with Edward on his 1924 tour of the United States and had been impressed by his gravitas and professional demeanour. That led him to suggest to the Duke that he should "head up and consolidate the many and varied peace movements throughout the world". Swedish millionaire Axel Wenner-Gren acted as a go-between for the Duke in the early discussions. Bedaux wrote to Solbert to tell him: