17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up

by Andrew Morton

  Furious and feeling beleaguered, the duke abruptly decided that he would communicate with the British embassy in Lisbon only via courier, fearing that if he went into the embassy building he might be arrested. The lack of trust was mutual: The embassy held the ducal passports for their security—and to forestall flight out of the country.

  Even as the duke and duchess absorbed this magisterial rebuke, Churchill, with the king’s agreement, had worked out a solution to the conundrum of what to do with an ex-king in a time of war. The answer, as he gleefully told Lord Beaverbrook, was to make him the governor and commander in chief of the Bahamas. Dictating a telegram to the duke, he said to Beaverbrook: “It is a good suggestion of mine, Max. Do you think he will take it?”

  “Sure he will,” said Beaverbrook, “and he will find it a great relief.”

  “Not as much as his brother will,” replied Winston.

  The archipelago, which comprised seven hundred tropical islands, was one of the farthest and most insignificant outposts of the British empire, and had the advantage of keeping him out of Britain, out of mischief but with something useful to do.

  In a draft telegram to the prime ministers of the Dominions, Lord Caldecote, secretary of state for Dominion affairs, writing as if he were Churchill, bluntly laid out the underlying reason for the decision—essentially, the duke was viewed as a potential Fifth Columnist.

  The activities of the Duke of Windsor on the Continent in recent months have been causing HM [His Majesty] and myself grave uneasiness as his inclinations are well known to be pro-Nazi and he may become a centre of intrigue. We regard it as a real danger that he should move freely on the Continent. Even if he were willing to return to this country his presence here would be most embarrassing both to HM and the Government.

  Though the eventual message was reworked considerably by Churchill, it does demonstrate the raw hostility and suspicion felt by the governing class towards the ex-king. In spite of Churchill’s evident enthusiasm, the curious appointment was a classic compromise that suited nobody. Tory grandee Leo Amery described it as “a rather absurd appointment which is likely to be pretty freely criticized.”

  He was proved to be correct. The queen wrote to the colonial secretary, Lord Lloyd, predicting a “difficult” situation for the “good people of the islands who were used to looking up to the king’s representative.” The duchess, she scornfully observed, “is looked upon as the lowest of the low.” She was not alone in this attitude, the Duke of Kent seeing the appointment as an opportunity to stop the ex-king from making trouble, telling Prince Paul of Yugoslavia that “my brother has behaved disgracefully.”

  On July 4, the unhappy tidings were relayed to the duke and duchess, not by their friend Ambassador Selby, who was a shadow of the man he once was, but by British diplomat David Eccles. He drove to the large villa near Cascais, along the coast from Lisbon, where they were staying as guests of banker Dr. Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva. The well-connected businessman, a Salazar loyalist who had played host during the recent visit of the Duke of Kent, was also a friend of the German ambassador to Portugal, Baron von Hoyningen-Huene.

  Eccles, like many in the ruling class, took a dim view of the ducal couple, considering the duke part of the “canker in public life” that had led to the dramatic collapse of France. “I distrust the Duke of Windsor,” he wrote to his wife, Sybil. “I shall watch him at breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a critical eye.”

  Nor was his opinion improved on closer acquaintance, subsequently describing the duke as “pretty Fifth column” and seeing the duchess as “a poor creature . . . a battered war horse in a halo hat.” Later, Eccles relented somewhat and allowed himself to be seduced by the charm of a couple he described as “the arch beachcombers of the world.”

  As the duke and duchess sullenly mulled over Churchill’s job offer—Eccles recommended acceptance on the ground of safety—it meant that, whatever their decision, they would remain in Portugal for the near future until they could acquire suitable berths on a passenger ship. As it was, the duke accepted the same day, morosely telegraphing Churchill: “I am sure you have done your best for me in difficult circumstances.”

  It was left to the wife of the new governor to express the couple’s true feelings. She considered it a “pathetic little job in a ghastly backwater,” the social equivalent of Napoleon’s exile to St. Helena.

  The only consolation was that the prime minister allowed them to make their own travel arrangements. It was a fatal mistake. The ducal couple planned to sail for New York on August 1 onboard the liner Excalibur for a few days’ shopping and relaxation before heading onward to the Bahamas.

  They were not about to escape the Continent so easily. For the next few weeks they were at the centre of Nazi intrigues to frighten and cajole them back to Spain and into the German sphere of influence. As the Germans discovered, the Portuguese were not such willing accomplices as Franco’s Fascists. For a start the man in charge of the security surrounding the Duke and Duchess of Windsor was well known to the former king. Captain Agostinho Lourenço, the head of the PVDE, the Portuguese secret police, had fought in France on the British side during World War One but, more important, he had been made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for personal services to the then Prince of Wales when he visited Lisbon in April 1931.

  It was a matter of high professional honour that nothing happen to the royal couple. As Professor Douglas Wheeler, an authority on contemporary Portuguese history, asserts:

  Lourenço knew everything that was going on in Lisbon as his men took bribes from both sides. He would never have let anything happen to the Duke and Duchess as he would have been held responsible. While Salazar was afraid of German designs and the possibility of being invaded, they were not going to allow a senior personality of their closest European ally to be kidnapped.

  As an added precaution, which the duke and duchess were not aware of at the time, any news about the royal couple was stopped from appearing in local and international media by British officials. Ambassador Hoare’s press attaché, Tom Burns, was sent from Madrid to Lisbon to beef up the propaganda effort, using political and media contacts to counter Axis misinformation about the couple. The duke’s access to the local media was controlled by the Allies and heavily restricted, as it had been in Madrid, so that nothing said privately by the royal couple could be exploited by the Germans.

  Besides a news blackout, the ducal couple were monitored closely by an ad hoc team of watchers. For example, British journalist Josie Shercliff, a Times correspondent who served as a wartime agent, was encouraged to keep an eye on their movements. She was joined by, among others, Tom Burns and a young intelligence officer called Ian Fleming who hung around the casino at Estoril waiting for the duke to make one of his regular appearances. The casino—“a haunt of spies and many shady characters”—was the inspiration for his future James Bond books.

  In a true-life Casino Royale moment, Burns was playing roulette when a voice behind said: “Dix mille sur le noir.” It was the unmistakable voice of the duke, who stayed at the gaming tables that night until four in the morning.

  While the duke spun the gaming wheel, the Germans, aided by Franco and assorted Spanish politicians and diplomats, endeavoured to encourage the duke and duchess to cash in their chips and head back to Spain. Even the public announcement on July 9 that the duke had accepted the post of governor of the Bahamas did little to dim German enthusiasm for snaring the duke.

  If anything, reports received by von Ribbentrop from his ambassadors about the duke’s defeatist attitude made him more hopeful and enthusiastic about effecting a return.

  On July 10, the day after the announcement of the duke’s appointment, ambassador Hoyningen-Huene reported that the duke intended to postpone his journey to the Bahamas for as long as possible, at least until August.

  He continued:

  He is convinced that had he remained on the throne war could have been avoided and describes himself a
s a firm supporter of a peaceful compromise with Germany. The Duke believes with certainty that continued heavy bombing will make England ready for peace.

  If true, the duke’s attitude was recklessly disloyal, if not treasonous. (When shown this document in 1953, he wrote “NO” beside it in capital letters.) There was more. Ambassador Huene later confided to a senior Portuguese politician that if the duke returned to England he faced certain arrest. Once Germany prevailed in the conflict he was, according to Huene, destined to become “our first President of the Great British Republic.”

  The duke’s attitude was music to von Ribbentrop’s ears, the foreign minister desperate for the duke and duchess to march to his tune. For one delicious moment they seemed to be playing right into his hands: The ducal couple, fretting about the security of La Croë, their home in the South of France, briefly toyed with the idea of returning to collect their important possessions. As their passports were held by the British embassy, the duke asked officials to obtain the necessary visas for France and Spain so that they could undertake this mission. When it was pointed out to the duke and duchess that it would be neither prudent nor safe to undertake a hazardous journey in these uncertain times, they abandoned the scheme.

  The duchess, agitated by the inconvenience of war, had other pressing concerns. She had left her favourite Nile-green swimsuit behind at La Croë. It was vital it be returned before she sailed for the Bahamas. To this end she enlisted the American minister in Lisbon and the American consul in Nice to repatriate the garment. Even though their rented villa was locked and shuttered and that part of the coast was occupied by the enemy, American diplomats duly did her bidding. In the midst of war the swimsuit was found and dispatched safely to the grateful duchess. The task was known privately as “Operation Cleopatra Whim.”

  The duchess was also worried about their possessions at their rented home in Paris, particularly their fine bed linens and the contents of a locked safe. She suggested that her trusted French maid Mademoiselle Moulichon travel to the French capital and bring them to Lisbon so they could take them to the Bahamas.

  As with their previous request regarding the safekeeping of their French properties, the duke asked the Spanish authorities to act as intermediaries with the Germans. He sent word through the Spanish ambassador to Portugal, Don Nicolás, the rotund elder brother of General Franco, for a trusted Spaniard to be sent to pick up an important if mysterious message. Once more the duke did not trouble to inform his embassy, and again the eager Germans were intrigued by this latest development.

  When the trivial nature of the mysterious ducal request was revealed, even the Spanish were astonished. It was one thing to ask for informal protection of a royal home, quite another to ask an enemy to be caretaker of the ducal pillows and sheets, however dense the thread count. Ambassador Don Nicolás expressed his disgust freely to Dr. Luis Teixeira de Sampaio, a senior advisor to Dr. Salazar: “A prince does not ask favours of his country’s enemies. To request the handing over of things he could replace or dispense with is not correct.”

  Distasteful or not, the Spanish complied with the duke’s wishes, their great friend Tiger Bermejillo arriving in Lisbon to discuss the mechanics of obtaining travel visas from the Germans for their maid. During his five-day stay Tiger, who was as close to the Spanish leadership as he was to the ducal couple, once again formally invited them to sit out the war in Spain. He also passed on a warning for them not to go to the Bahamas as they would be in danger. It was the beginning of the German-inspired scare tactics to keep the duke and duchess in Europe.

  Once back in Madrid, Tiger briefed the German ambassador and Spanish foreign minister about the duke’s agitated state of mind. Based on his account, Ambassador Stohrer telegraphed von Ribbentrop, informing him that Churchill had threatened to court-martial the duke unless he took up the post of governor, and that his relations with the British embassy in Lisbon were very chilly. As far as von Ribbentrop was concerned, things were boiling up very nicely.

  He had his own scheme for the duke and duchess. He outlined his thinking in a lengthy telegram marked “Top Secret, Confidential Handling,” which he sent to Ambassador Stohrer in Madrid on July 11. In the dispatch he explained his plan to entice the Windsors back to Spain. He suggested that their Spanish friends might invite them for a brief visit or the Spanish authorities warn the duke that there was a British plot to assassinate him and that he should flee across the border for his own safety.

  “After their return to Spain,” continued the German foreign minister, “the Duke and Duchess must be persuaded or compelled to remain on Spanish soil.” In the worst-case scenario the Spanish could detain him as a “deserting military refugee.” At no point should it become known that the Nazis were behind the plot.

  Once back in Spain, the duke would be told by a suitable trusted emissary that the only hindrance to Germany’s ambition of peace with England was the Churchill clique. As von Ribbentrop explained to Stohrer: “Germany is determined to force England to peace by every means of power, and upon this happening would be prepared to pave the way for the granting of any wish expressed by the Duke, especially with a view to the assumption of the English throne by the Duke and Duchess.” Even if he did not wish to avail himself of that opportunity, von Ribbentrop promised that he could lead a life “suitable for a king.”

  While it was clear that the duke and duchess were to be tricked into returning to Spain, the tone of von Ribbentrop’s telegram suggested a belief that the duke might be amenable to collaborating with the Nazis. It was a belief based on the duke’s current disenchantment with Churchill and the royal family, his desire for peace, and the mutual respect felt by both sides, Hitler and the duke enjoying continued cordial relations. It was a gamble but not a quixotic one. With Hitler actively preparing for the invasion of Britain, the duke was undoubtedly the preferred candidate for the job of puppet king.

  Stohrer put the von Ribbentrop plot in motion, he and the Spanish interior minister, Ramón Serrano Suner, asking the duke’s long-time friend, the playboy Duke Miguel Primo de Rivera, to travel to Lisbon to warn the duke about the threat to his life and to suggest a hunting expedition in the mountains by the border as his pretext for leaving Lisbon.

  In the meantime Ambassador Stohrer suggested to von Ribbentrop that the duchess’s maid be granted a visa from the German embassy in Madrid, which would allow her to travel to Paris to collect the cherished royal possessions. Then, he suggested, she should be deliberately held up on her way to Lisbon so as to postpone the departure of the ducal couple to the Bahamas.

  While the duchess’s maid waited for her visa, Don Miguel and his wife enjoyed the company of his English friend in Lisbon, returning a few days later to Madrid, where he was debriefed by ambassador Stohrer. Unsurprisingly, the Duke of Windsor felt like a prisoner in Lisbon, suspecting that he was surrounded by spies.

  Stohrer duly cabled von Ribbentrop:

  Politically the Duke has moved further and further away from the King and from the present English government. The Duke and Duchess do not fear the King, who is utterly stupid, as much as the clever Queen, who is said to intrigue constantly against the Duke and particularly the Duchess. The Duke is toying with the idea of disassociating himself from the present tendency of British policy by a public declaration and breaking with his brother.

  He went on to outline how the ducal couple were enthusiastic about returning to Spain, though they were concerned that they would be taken prisoner. When the duke was shown this German Foreign Office telegram in 1953, he agreed with the sentiments regarding his family but disagreed that he planned a public declaration.

  In a second dispatch, Stohrer added a further—rather telling—report from Don Miguel. It indicated that the English duke was not as keen on getting back his old job as von Ribbentrop might have hoped.

  When he [Don Miguel] advised the Duke not to go to the Bahamas but to return to Spain as the Duke might yet be destined to play a large part in English po
litics and even ascend the English throne, both the Duke and Duchess seemed astonished. Both seemed completely enmeshed in conventional ways of thinking, for they replied that under the English constitution this would not be possible after the abdication. When the confidential emissary then expressed the expectation that the course of the war might produce changes even in the English constitution, the Duchess in particular became very thoughtful.

  The duke may have been reluctant to reclaim the throne, but nonetheless von Ribbentrop remained excited by the mouth-watering prospect of the ex-king “doing a Pétain” and making a broadcast or issuing a public statement asking his people to lay down their arms for the sake of peace.

  While von Ribbentrop and Stohrer pondered the duke’s possible role in the Nazi plans to conquer Europe, the duke was fighting more important battles, insisting that his two soldier servants be withdrawn from active service and join him in the Bahamas. He felt so strongly about the fact that it would be a “serious handicap starting with a new valet” that he sent his comptroller, Gray Phillips, to see Churchill personally to plead his case. It was a telling sign of how out of touch the duke now was from his countrymen. Even his supporters described him as acting like a “petulant baby,” while Churchill’s secretary, Jock Colville, said he was “cantankerous and maddening.”

  On top of that, it was belatedly realized that a stopover in New York would present the duke with the opportunity to make mischief in the midst of a presidential election campaign. It was feared that any indiscretion by the duke would give succour to the isolationist cause. Nerves were further jangled by a story in the New York Times suggesting that the duke was urging his brother the king to form a peace cabinet around Chamberlain, Halifax, and Lloyd George with a view to making an “honourable” peace with the Nazis. Was this the public declaration he had discussed with Don Miguel, and would he elaborate on the subject once on American soil? That was the abiding fear.