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| Edward VIII with Wallis Simpson |
On Dec. 11, 1936, King Edward VIII gave up the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. Years later, the FBI investigated the couple’s links to Germany’s Nazi regime.
In 1941, the FBI began close surveillance of the duke and duchess after it was informed that the couple were being used by the Nazis to pass on secrets that could wreck the Allied war effort. A prime suspect, the FBI was told, was Joachim von Ribbentrop, then the Nazis’ foreign minister, who was said to have been the duchess' lover when he was ambassador to Britain in 1936.
Edward’s long-rumored ties to Nazi Germany became common knowledge after the release in 2003 of papers compiled by U.S. naval intelligence agents asserting that Hitler saw the former king as a friend, even in the middle of World War II. The papers had remained secret for fear they would upset the Queen Mother, who died in 2002 aged 101. On Dec. 11, 1936, King Edward VIII gave up the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. Years later, the FBI investigated the couple’s links to Germany’s Nazi regime. ~SourceOf course, as it turns out, Edward VIII was also a Catholic Knight of Malta like many Nazi Nobility were.
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| Prince Philip walking in Nazi Funeral procession |
“If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”- Prince Philip (Charles’ father) ~ Source
Prince Philip has broken a 60-year public silence about his family's links with the Nazis.
In a frank interview, he said they found Hitler's attempts to restore Germany's power and prestige 'attractive' and admitted they had 'inhibitions about the Jews'.
The revelations come in a book about German royalty kowtowing to the Nazis, which features photographs never published in the UK.
They include one of Philip aged 16 at the 1937 funeral of his elder sister Cecile, flanked by relatives in SS and Brownshirt uniforms.
One row back in the cortege in Darmstadt, western Germany, was his uncle, Lord Mountbatten, wearing a Royal Navy bicorn hat.
Another picture shows his youngest sister, Sophia, sitting opposite Hitler at the wedding of Hermann and Emmy Goering.
Explaining the attraction of the Nazis, 84-year-old Prince Philip told an American academic: "There was a great improvement in things like trains running on time and building. There was a sense of hope after the depressing chaos of the Weimar Republic.
"I can understand people latching on to something or somebody who appeared to be appealing to their patriotism and trying to get things going. You can understand how attractive it was."
He added that there was 'a lot of enthusiasm for the Nazis at the time, the economy was good, we were anti-Communist and who knew what was going to happen to the regime?'
Philip stressed that he was never 'conscious of anybody in the family actually expressing anti-Semitic views'. But he went on to say there were 'inhibitions about the Jews' and 'jealousy of their success'.
Philip was born Prince of Greece and Denmark on Corfu in 1921, the youngest of five children and the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. All four of his sisters married German princes and three - Sophie, Cecile and Margarita - became members of the Nazi party.
Sophia's husband, Prince Christoph of Hesse, became chief of Goering's secret intelligence service and they were frequent guests at Nazi functions.
Philip went on to fight with distinction for the Allies in the Second World War before marrying the young Princess Elizabeth in 1947, five years before she became Queen. He served with the Royal Navy where, by 1945, he had risen to the rank of first lieutenant on a destroyer and was mentioned in despatches.
All of his sisters and brothers-in law are now dead but he keeps in contact with his German relatives.
His comments on the family's Nazi connections appear in Royals and the Reich, by Jonathan Petropoulos, to be published in Britain in May. Source
