WEBVTT - The Duke and Adolf Hitler 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.440 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:12.400 and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised, Hey, 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.640 this is Danishwartz, host of Noble Blood. So, as you 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:17.919 probably know if you've listened to this podcast, I wrote 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.000 a book called Anatomy a Love Story. But now there 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.400 is a sequel coming out, Immortality a Love Story is 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.160 coming out in March, but it's available for preorder now, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.600 So if you liked Anatomy, or you just like the 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.640 idea of books about spooky surgeons in the ninete century, 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.680 check it out. There's links in the episode description, along 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.960 with links to the show's Patreon, where I post episode 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.840 scripts and a bonus episode once a month, and links 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.520 to merch because we have new, amazing merch that comes 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.800 out all the time. But as always, the best possible 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.760 support for the show is just you listening to it. 0:00:53.880 --> 0:01:07.880 So thank you so much. M. M. October twenty second, 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:13.680 nineteen thirty seven. Berlin, the Duke of Windsor, a newly 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:18.400 wet at age forty three, smiles his famously attractive smile 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:23.000 as he disembarks from a private train in the German mountains. 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.360 He's greeted by a guard in uniform, with whom he 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.920 shakes hands, as he did countless times on his tours 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.360 of America and Canada. This time the guard is wearing 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:39.840 a swastika arm band. The Duke's wife, twice divorced, smiles 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.200 at his side. The man they're here to see is napping, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.319 they're told, so they'll have to wait. The Duke and 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.880 his wife are entertained well during the wait, with music, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:56.520 possibly Wagner wafting through the room. They make small talk. Yes, 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.720 they all agree, the fascists are strong, the British are weak, 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.120 and the Jews, they may have said, with a chuckle, well, 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.200 don't get us started. Finally, the man that the couple 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.560 came to see is ready for them. They go into 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.400 a meeting. Only ten months ago, the Duke of Windsor 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:21.720 had another more important title, King Edward the Eighth of England. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.520 Now he smiles that attractive smile and walks into his 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:32.200 private audience with Adolph Hitler. When the future King Edward 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.320 the Eighth was born in eighteen ninety four, the heir 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:43.720 to the British throne was christened with seven first names, Edward, Albert, Christian, George, Andrew, Patrick, 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.080 David as king. We know him by the first of 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.799 the seven names, Edward, but friends and family knew him 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.840 by the last David, as if the distance between his 0:02:54.960 --> 0:03:00.680 public and private selves could not be further apart. When 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.160 his father, King George the Fifth, was alive, he once 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.360 remarked that if David were to become king that the 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:12.720 quote boy will ruin himself in twelve months end quote. 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.880 King Edward the Eighth, never officially crowned in a coronation ceremony, 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.480 ruled the United Kingdom of Great Britain for just three 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.320 hundred and twenty six days. Edward the Eighth is the 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.800 king who rose to the throne eighteen years after World 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:33.480 War One and scandalously abdicated before World War Two after 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:36.520 less than one year as monarch in order to marry 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:41.960 a twice divorced American from Baltimore. In the TV series 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.440 The Crown, he is a rapscallion, a beloved uncle who 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.760 ultimately horrifies the young Queen Elizabeth with the contents of 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:54.840 a private dosier of information about him. In the pages 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:59.080 of Menswear magazine in the interwar period, he was covered 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.360 like a holly wood icon. Known for his good looks, 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:08.240 and fashion sense. In the notations by Queen Elizabeth's stationary office, 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.560 he was an ever loyal servant of the British cause. 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.880 In this very podcast he has been portrayed as the 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:18.160 former lover of a murderers, but in the heart of 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:24.279 Adolph Hitler he was what an ally a friend upon 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.320 we can't know for sure. What we do know is 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.440 that recently abdicated King Edward the Eighth of England, now 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.960 known as the Duke of Windsor David, brother to the 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.720 then current King of England, was entertained as an honored 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.719 guest on a trip to Nazi Germany in nineteen thirty seven, 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.520 where he had private meetings with Hitler while Ava Braun 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:52.360 and Rudolf Hess entertained his wife, the Duchess. The contents 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:56.200 of this meeting are lost to history. It was a 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.400 meeting just two years before the outbreak of World War Two, 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.520 which would kill up to fifty million people worldwide, but 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:08.719 a meaning after Germany had already passed the Nuremberg Laws, 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:13.280 which stripped Jews of citizenship in Germany. Adolf Hitler was 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.680 at least for an afternoon, a private confidante of the 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:24.440 inner circle of the British royal family. I'm danishchwartz and 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:37.040 this is noble blood. The future Duke of Windsor's early 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.200 life might be best described by this anecdote. After a 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.400 boyhood in which he was pinched a bit too violently 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.599 by his nanny and in which he displayed some interest 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.919 in German language and culture, he wound up a student 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.920 at Oxford University, for which he was basically totally unprepared. 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:58.880 At this point in his life, he was the Prince 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:04.080 of Wales. He considered his Oxford tutor Herbert Warren quote 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.400 an awful man end quote. The feeling was clearly mutual. 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:13.000 After the Duke left Oxford without a degree in nineteen fourteen, 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:17.440 his tutor sold him out to The Times bookish. He 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:22.360 will never be Warren wrote, the tight lipped academic British 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.960 equivalent not quite of he's a complete knit wit, but 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:31.359 certainly of he's better suited to non academic pursuits. It's 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.800 unlikely the pursuits the tutor would have meant included being king. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.160 Young David wanted to go into battle during World War One. 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:43.440 What does it matter if I'm shot? He said? I 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.719 have four brothers end quote not exactly the words of 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:52.560 a guy desperate to live to his coronation. The Secretary 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.560 of State for War replied, quote, if I was certain 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.200 you would be shot, I do not know if I 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.040 should be right to restrain you end quote. The big 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.000 concern wasn't that the heir to the throne might be killed, 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.359 but that he might be taken prisoner. It was a 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.160 concern that would continue to haunt the British in the 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:16.560 Second World War decades later. So though David wasn't allowed 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:21.400 in battle, he did toward the trenches. He witnessed soldiers, 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.880 young men his own age, who lived in constant fear 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.960 of shelling. He smelled the rotting corpses of their fellow men. 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:35.120 The experience disturbed him deeply, so deeply, in fact, that 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:39.640 it may have planted certain ideological seeds, the idea that 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:44.520 peace between the European nations is the single most important aim, 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.080 that war in Europe can never be allowed to happen 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.160 again from the horrors of the trench. This was a 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.400 noble idea, but we all know what the road to 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.520 Hell is paved with. And if you think a little 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.560 thing like trench war fair would depress the Prince for 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:06.560 long think again. World War One ended with the armistice 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:13.400 on November eleven, exactly one month before David's twenty four birthday, 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.880 and he was certainly celebrating. To put it bluntly, the 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:22.320 man was considered very attractive. He had a strong jawline 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.760 and dreamy eyes. He traveled to the United States and Canada, 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.280 shaking hands like a modern movie star. The object of 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:35.360 a million teenage day dreams, he was an international fashion 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.320 plate who scandalously dared to use a zipper in his 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:43.800 fly instead of a button. Unsurprisingly, all of that made 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.520 him very popular with the ladies. He embarked on a 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.600 long and storied career of affairs with married women, a 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.160 lot of them. There's a sign fell joke, you can't 0:08:55.200 --> 0:09:00.440 just have an adultery, you commit adultery, and Dave it 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:05.840 was committed. He had affairs on his affairs. One of 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:10.880 his early mistresses was the future murderess Marguerite Albert, who 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:15.760 he actually covered on this podcast. David continued on with 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:20.360 his affairs until finally in nineteen thirty one, when, at 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.680 the age of thirty six, at the home of one 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.560 of these several married women he was then sleeping with 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:31.040 he met a new woman, and already once divorced, American 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:36.880 from Baltimore, conceived out of wedlock, who carried her father's name, dark, 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:41.880 dramatic brows, red lipstick, with a sharp middle part in 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:47.480 her hair. Her name was Wallace Simpson. The Prince of Wales, 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.880 who had spent a decade seducing and sleeping with an 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:55.360 endless queue of women, felt his heart thud in his chest. 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.600 He looked at Wallace Simpson and fell madly in love. 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.120 By all accounts, he never fell out of it. In 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.720 the meantime, as you may have guessed, nobody in England 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.720 was really thinking this guy is fit for the throne. 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:15.559 David had a younger brother, Albert, affectionately called Bertie, whom 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.680 every one preferred in temperament. But Bertie also had a stutter, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.280 and he seemed a shy and unlikely king in his 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.440 own way. Still, their father, King George the Fifth, made 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.840 his preference clear. He was quoted as saying, I pray 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.800 to God that my eldest son will never marry, and 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:39.520 nothing will come between Bertie and Lillibit and the throne. Lillibit, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:44.280 of course, was referencing Bertie's daughter, the current Queen Elizabeth 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:49.120 the second. So with the parental preference so obvious, you 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:55.280 can forgive me for assuming David probably had some daddy issues. Unfortunately, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.280 death doesn't care if you lack confidence in your successor. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:05.040 King George the Fifth died near midnight on January nineteen 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.440 thirty six. He was famously administered euthanasia so that his 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.360 death could be reported in the dignified morning papers rather 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:18.320 than the more salacious evening ones. The Prince of Wales, David, 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:24.680 became King Edward the eight that same day. Although the 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:29.560 king's advisers assumed Wallace was just another mistress, it quickly 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.839 turned out that David really was in love. He seriously 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:38.320 wanted to marry her, and then she started divorce proceedings 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.800 from her second husband. But well, the King is the 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.040 head of the Church of England and the Church doesn't 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.400 allow divorce. There was some back and forth between the 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.000 king and the royal family, the cabinet, Winston Churchill, and 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.319 Wallace herself about all of this. Later in life. Recounting 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:01.840 this period, Wallace will make herself out to be especially selfless. 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.920 Quote I am sure there's only one solution, she says, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.080 quote that is for me to remove myself from the 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.800 King's life. That is what I am doing now end quote. 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.280 At least that's what she remembers herself as saying. In 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.880 the end, there was no way around David's choice. It 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.280 was the church and the monarchy, or it was Wallace. 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.760 The King chose Wallace, just shy of one year on 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:34.800 the throne before his own coronation, Edward the Eight abdicated. 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.360 The decision may have been as much about the character 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.880 mismatch between David and the throne as it was about Wallace, 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.439 but to the public it was about love. To the monarchy, 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:52.440 of course, it was disgrace to renounce family and duty 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.880 for personal pleasure, even if it was framed as a 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.280 great love story. Was the greatest possible failure of a Yale. 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.760 The Archbishop of Canterbury told the nation that the Duke, 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:09.160 in his quote craving for private happiness, had quote disappointed 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:14.600 hopes so high and abandoned a trust so great end quote. 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:20.800 David's little brother Bertie became King George the Six, which 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:25.400 put his daughter Elizabeth next in line. David was demoted 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.640 to the title Duke of Windsor, but as Duke he 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.559 finally got to do what he wanted. He married Wallace 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:39.800 Simpson on June three, ninety seven in Tour, France. David 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.800 may have gotten his bride that day in France, but 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.200 there was little else to celebrate. No one in the 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:51.360 family came to the wedding. Though he explicitly asked. Wallace 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.760 was denied the title her Royal Highness. That designation can 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.040 never be revoked, and the royals thought, what if she 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.040 goes off and Mary's a fourth guy still carrying the 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:06.120 title British Royal Highness. It was impossible. It was all 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.520 an enormous insult for the former Prince of Wales, the 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:15.320 former king, the international fashion icon. So here David and 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:20.840 Wallace are in seven honeymooning in a borrowed German mansion, 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.360 said to be haunted, the abdicated monarch and his new wife, 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:30.560 isolated and alone, looking for anyone to treat them as 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.200 the king and Queen they felt they ought to have been. 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.760 Four months after their wedding, the Duke and Duchess of 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.520 Windsor arrived in Berlin. As the train pulled into the station, 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:53.080 the former king felt a twinge of old recognition and joy, 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.200 and then a fresh twinge of his newer resentment and 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.280 anger when he saw the red, white and blue of 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.160 his own Union jack, and he felt a chill, a 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.840 fear of power, of excitement, or maybe even envy when 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.840 he saw his own flag alongside the red, white and 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:19.000 black of the Swatstika. David and Wallace were welcomed warmly 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.480 on their trip to Berlin. The list of people who 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.960 entertained them socially is a list of Nazi war criminals. 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:32.680 Joseph Gebel's reich Minister of Propaganda, Herman Goring, Hitler's second 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.640 in command who had been in charge of creating the Gestapo, 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:41.360 Adolph Hitler himself. In the chummy photos of David and 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.760 Wallace out in public with Hitler, the three of them 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.600 are standing shoulder to shoulder. David is in the middle, 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.200 long peacoat, buttoned and tie crisp, a hint of a 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.640 smile on his handsome face. Hitler is half bowing to 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.400 shake hands with Wallace, pulling her arm toward his chest, 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:05.480 Swastika on his arm, both Wallace and Hitler smiling broadly, 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.960 David deferential in the middle. Another picture shows David without 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.520 his wife or Hitler hatless in a sea of bowlers 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.160 and peaked s s caps. He's raising his right arm 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.720 palm flat fingers pointed to the sky in a Nazi salute, 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.680 with his elbow slightly cocked, as if some part of 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.440 him knew he wasn't in the right. I'll pause here 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.200 to say that the extent of David's involvement with the 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:37.600 Nazis has been covered up over time, with heavy influence 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.400 from the Royals. Some of the speculation stems from those photographs, 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:46.440 readily accessible in a Google search, but much of the 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:50.920 speculation comes from the Marburg Files, a trove of four 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:57.760 hundred tons of German documents found in within these the 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.880 so called Windsor Files of the Duke and Duchess were 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.920 the subject of a long cover up, so long that 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.800 many of the details I've recounted so far in this 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:13.240 podcast come from a book that was only published this year, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:19.240 Andrew Loni's Trader King. I think it's worth quoting directly 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.280 from Lonie's book on the following point, describing a day 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:28.320 in Dusseldorf with David Wallace and their attendant Dudly Forward. 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:32.520 The book says, quote, they toward a miner's hospital and 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:38.280 a concentration camp. Forward later recalled, we saw this enormous 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.800 concrete building, which, of course I now know contained inmates. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.480 The Duke asked, what is that? Our host replied, it 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:52.880 is where they store the cold meat. End quote. Finally, 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.120 a week and a half after their arrival in Berlin, 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.800 the fateful meeting with Adolf Hitler arrived. The Duke and 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.920 Duchess sat in the train car that ferried them south 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:08.440 of Berlin, skirting Munich. The train chugged as it scaled 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.360 the snow capped Bavarian Alps to the present day southern 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:17.119 border with Austria. They disembarked in brechdes Garden and found 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:22.639 themselves whisked away to Adolf Hitler's vacation chalet. The place 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:27.280 was like a resort, complete with terrace, big colorful umbrellas 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.120 and cactuses. In the entrance. Hitler was napping. The Duke 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.400 and Duchess were told when they arrived in what honestly 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.520 reads to me like a power move. Yes, we'll pull 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.280 out the s S version of a red carpet for you, 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.800 but Hitler can make you wait here because you aren't 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.400 king any more. Won't you make yourself comfortable? They were 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.880 asked there's a lovely view of the snow capped mountains 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.240 out the window. Perhaps you've noted the light jade green 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.840 color scheme chosen by the fureer himself. They sat in 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:03.000 the home that Hitler her himself so loved. One year later, 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.800 in fact, Homes and Gardens magazine would cover the place 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.280 like it was Jennifer Aniston's mansion in the Hollywood Hills. 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.640 Hitler quote has a passion about cut flowers in his home. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.560 The article said, this place is mine, Hitler said in 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:22.240 the magazine interview, sounding like a millennial, impressed with his 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.399 first job. I built it with the money that I earned. 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.480 That money, of course, came from the sale of his 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:33.199 infamous anti Semitic book Mine comp which was banned in 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.560 Germany from the end of the war until twenty fifteen. 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.159 At last, Hitler woke up from his nap. His wife 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.159 av Braun and deputy Furer Rudolph Hess told Wallace they 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.000 would keep her occupied. Wallace and David nodded at each other. 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.000 Perhaps David kissed his beautiful wife on the cheek, and 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.960 then the former King of England walked into the private 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:01.239 room with the then current Furer of Germany on the 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:05.280 eve of World War Two. The two men sat together 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:10.440 with teacups in front of them and talked about, Well, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.399 we don't know what they talked about. Perhaps someday a 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.320 scandalous note about it will turn up on a scrap 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:22.080 of napkin. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe they discussed the 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.400 quote unquote Jewish question as if it were a problem 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.879 of politics and not human being. Maybe they discussed the 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.040 strength of fascism and the weakness of democracy. Maybe they'd 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.720 discussed what they'd each seen on the front in World 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.639 War One. All of this is speculation. Maybe they talked 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:45.480 about dogs, or divorce or art. We don't know. Eventually 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.880 the meeting ended. The New York Times reported that Hitler 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.680 gave them a long, affectionate goodbye, holding both their hands, 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:57.800 and that when Hitler gave his salute, David raised his 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:02.959 arm and returned the Nazi high After the trip to Berlin, 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:08.160 David and Wallace returned to Paris. In nineteen forty. When 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:12.960 the Germans invaded France, David and Wallace fled southwest to 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:17.680 neutral Spain and then Portugal. The Germans hatched a plot 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.960 to kidnap him to use him to their advantage. But 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:26.120 it didn't materialize. Churchill appointed him Governor of the Bahamas, 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.399 a minor and almost embarrassing little post for any royal, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.880 especially a former king. It was clear enough that Churchill 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:40.199 and the Crown were nervous about David's loyalties. The Bahamas 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.439 were as far as they could ship him off to 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:47.400 ensure he stayed away from Hitler. He and Wallace accepted 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:50.840 the post unhappily and stayed in the Bahamas until the 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:55.359 end of the war in nineteen There are a lot 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:59.240 of rumors about this period that David knew of the 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.879 Allies war planned in Belgium and leaked them to the Germans, 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.760 That David wanted the Germans to bomb England his own country, 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:11.280 That President Roosevelt ordered surveillance on him when he and 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:16.240 Wallace visited Florida, in that the FBI had heard that 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:21.560 Wallace was sleeping with a German ambassador. All this, of course, 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.280 the Duke and the Crown have denied as misinterpretation or 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:32.040 misquoting or hearsay. What then, can we absolutely know well 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:36.240 that the former King of England definitely had more sympathy 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.359 for the Nazis during World War Two than could possibly 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:45.040 be comfortable for England or for us today, and that 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.840 basically covers the extent of the What what remains for 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:55.000 us to understand is the why? Was it simply naivete 0:22:55.119 --> 0:23:00.000 or lack of foresight? Was the salute just instinctual politeness? 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:05.200 After all, in nineteen thirty nine, Roosevelt himself sent to St. 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:09.560 Louis a ship of Jewish refugees back to Europe to 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.080 be killed in the camps. Only one month after the 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:17.679 Duke's visit to Hitler, A teenaged Prince Philip, later to 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:22.919 become Queen Elizabeth's husband, was also photographed alongside Nazis at 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:27.520 his sister's funeral in Germany. But maybe the source of 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.560 the support was something deeper. Was it David's deep desire 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:35.720 for peace among the nations? Maybe he genuinely thought a 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:39.600 dictatorship was a better governing system than a democracy or 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:45.000 a weakened constitutional monarchy after witnessing the horrors of World 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:48.680 War One. Maybe he thought appeasing Hitler was the way 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:54.200 toward peace, But of course the Nazis were far from peaceful. 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:59.199 If David's noble goal was less suffering, then we have 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:05.240 to ask for who which brings us of course to racism. 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.240 David was known to make derogatory comments about Jewish people, 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:15.320 Indigenous Australians, and who he called quote the Negro, though 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:19.520 he and Wallace Simpson did also work to improve labor 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:23.280 rights and infant health for the largely black population of 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:25.919 the Bahamas, where they would spend much of the Second 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:29.879 World War. It feels strange to even try to tease 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:33.800 out how racist a person's individual views are when they 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:37.239 were rubbing elbows with Hitler. But when we're trying to 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:41.159 figure out David's motivations here, I think it's worth noting 0:24:41.359 --> 0:24:45.600 that on a personal level, David probably wasn't in full 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:51.840 philosophical alignment with how vile and violent Hitler's ideas on 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:56.159 racial purity were. But David was more than willing to 0:24:56.320 --> 0:25:01.840 overlook those horrific policies and socialize with an Nazi high brass. 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:08.119 So why though David told himself a narrative about preserving peace, 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:11.159 In my opinion, at the end of the day, it 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:15.720 was a matter of ego and self interest. David's much 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:18.840 loved bride was never treated well by his family or 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:22.680 the British Royals, but over in Germany, Hitler was all 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:26.560 too happy to flatter her. Rumor had it that David 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:31.000 dreamed of actually being reinstated as king with Wallace as 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:35.560 queen after Hitler's victory with the support of German troops 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:39.600 against the British people. The two of them felt so 0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:44.040 excluded by the British monarchy that Hitler and the Germans 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:49.040 represented a promise to be included. But before you feel 0:25:49.119 --> 0:25:53.239 even a moment of sympathy for David or pity for 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:58.320 his naivete, remember David's very presence was serving as a 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:01.440 support to Hitler and origin gime that would go on 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:05.960 to slaughter six million Jews in concentration camps during the Holocaust, 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:12.159 a regime that would methodically murder Romani people, homosexuals, political dissenters, 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:16.040 and people with disabilities. By the time that David arrived 0:26:16.040 --> 0:26:19.280 in Germany in nineteen thirty seven, the reich Stock had 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:26.080 already passed laws restricting citizenship to only quote racially pure Germans. 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:31.520 They had already banned intermarriage and sexual relationships between Jewish 0:26:31.520 --> 0:26:35.719 people and those of quote German or related blood in 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:40.199 order to protect their racial purity. By nineteen thirty seven, 0:26:40.359 --> 0:26:45.679 Jewish businesses were being quote orionized, Jewish employees dismissed, and 0:26:45.800 --> 0:26:49.680 Jewish business owners forced to sell their licenses for pennies 0:26:49.800 --> 0:26:54.320 to non Jewish Germans. Jewish lawyers had their licenses revoked, 0:26:54.560 --> 0:26:58.920 and Jewish doctors were forbidden from practicing medicine on non Jews. 0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:03.719 The very next year, all Jewish Germans with names that 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:08.000 weren't explicitly Jewish would be forced to add either Sarah 0:27:08.440 --> 0:27:14.480 or Israel as middle names. Legally, when David arrived in Germany, 0:27:14.720 --> 0:27:18.160 he would have seen the signs across the country reading 0:27:18.640 --> 0:27:23.560 Juden sent here unevencht. Jews are not wanted here, and 0:27:23.720 --> 0:27:28.879 still David smiled for the cameras. Whether or not David 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:32.480 was thinking about the horrors that were currently happening in 0:27:32.560 --> 0:27:36.399 Germany at the time, or simply permitting himself not to 0:27:36.480 --> 0:27:41.879 think about them, those horrors were absolutely already present, and 0:27:42.000 --> 0:27:45.520 David was willing to happily turn the other cheek in 0:27:45.640 --> 0:27:50.160 order to serve his own personal interests. Perhaps he would 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:53.800 be reinstated king one day, seated next to his beloved 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:57.440 twice divorced Queen, even if he had to be put 0:27:57.480 --> 0:28:06.920 there by force. After the war, David did not retake 0:28:06.960 --> 0:28:10.720 the throne, he settled in France with Wallace. After all 0:28:10.840 --> 0:28:14.480 his many affairs, he likely wound up faithful and ever 0:28:14.560 --> 0:28:18.560 adoring towards Wallace, even as the rumors of her philandering 0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:23.359 never stopped. His brother Bertie died in nineteen fifty two, 0:28:23.680 --> 0:28:28.280 and Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne, the unlikely monarch 0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:32.440 queen only because of David's abdication, which would also pave 0:28:32.520 --> 0:28:36.000 the way for Charles and Diana and William and Harry 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:39.680 and all of the tabloid royals we know today. Queen 0:28:39.680 --> 0:28:43.320 Elizabeth did have some small relationship with her uncle David, 0:28:43.480 --> 0:28:46.520 but he was never admitted back into the royal fold. 0:28:47.560 --> 0:28:51.040 In nineteen fifty one, David wrote a memoir of his 0:28:51.120 --> 0:28:56.000 early life, The King's Story, which was absolutely torn to 0:28:56.040 --> 0:29:03.640 shreds critically descriptions like inconceivable anality and monumental artificiality pepper 0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:08.240 the reviews, but the audience score was certified fresh and 0:29:08.320 --> 0:29:12.120