by Martha Schad
On his abdication Edward and Mrs Simpson were granted the title of Duke and Duchess of Windsor, but had to leave Britain immediately. Their wedding took place quietly in France, on 3 June 1937. Meanwhile, ‘Bertie’, the eldest of his three younger brothers, ascended the throne as King George VI, with his wife Elizabeth as queen.
One of the first big projects the Windsors undertook in 1937 was a trip to National Socialist Germany. Now would come the meeting that Edward had wished for: as Duke of Windsor he visited Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the German Reich, albeit not in Berlin, but at his private residence, the Berghof, near Berchtesgaden in Bavaria.
In the notes that Stephanie jotted down for her ghost-writer Rudolf Kommer, she points out that she played a major part in the planning and realisation of the ducal visit to Germany, though officially Fritz Wiedemann and Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, were responsible for it. Stephanie’s maid, Wally Oeler, later gave a detailed account to friends of hers in Berlin: ‘He [Wiedemann] was the one who officially invited the Duke of Windsor to Germany, as soon as they heard that he wanted to come over for a visit … Anyway, express airmail letters written in pencil were going back and forth, and there were telephone conversations nearly every day.’
During their twelve-day visit in the second half of October 1937, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were the official guests of Dr Robert Ley, the head of the German Labour Front. The travel and all the costs of their stay in Germany were paid for from German government funds. It was billed as a ‘study-trip’ to look at the country’s social institutions. But behind this there was another agenda. After the humiliating treatment his wife had received from the British, the duke wanted to show her a country that would extend her a truly ‘royal’ welcome. The men in power in Berlin expected that in the not too distant future the former king of England would return to the throne ‘under their patronage’.
The first call the Windsors paid was on Hermann Göring, at his extravagantly enlarged country house, Karinhall, on the Schorfheide heath, north-east of Berlin. The same evening, Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop gave a dinner for his guests at the very grand Horcher restaurant in Berlin. Paul-Otto Schmidt, chief interpreter at the Foreign Ministry, sat between the Duchess of Windsor and the actress Marianne Hopper. Goebbels found the duke a ‘nice, friendly young man, clearly equipped with sound common sense’; the propaganda minister became ‘really fond of him’. ‘His wife is unassuming, but distinguished and elegant; though without any “side”, a real lady … Magda is charmed by them too. Especially his wife.’
Then on 22 October, the Windsors visited Adolf Hitler in his mountain-top retreat, the Berghof. They only stayed a few hours, yet the visit provoked violently conflicting opinions in Britain, France and the USA. The tour of the German Reich by a former British monarch was taken to be a proclamation of solidarity with National Socialism.
Wiedemann picked the guests up at the railway station in Berchtesgaden, where a large number of press correspondents had gathered, among them Winston Churchill’s son Randolph. After a short stroll along the shore of the Königsee lake, the party drove up to the Berghof, where Hitler came down the steps in front of his house and greeted his guests warmly. Hitler’s mistress, Eva Braun, would have dearly loved to be introduced to the duke and duchess. But that was ruled out by Hitler, and she had to stay in her room.
To judge from the notes made by the interpreter, Paul Schmidt, the whole conversation that followed was very non-political. The duke, clearly well-disposed towards Germany, was very appreciative of the country’s progress in the social sphere, for example the workers’ welfare arrangements in the armaments company, Krupp of Essen. The duchess only contributed occasionally and with great reticence to the conversation, mainly when a topic of particular interest to her as a woman was raised.
After the Windsors’ visit to Germany the Nazi press sang the praises of the duke and duchess. The newspapers recounted the touching story of how, when leaving Germany at the frontier, she pressed the entire contents of her purse into the hand of an SA man. ‘It’s for the KdF’ [the ‘Strength through Joy’ organisation, which provided free holidays and recreation for industrial workers], were apparently her parting words.
The next time Stephanie von Hohenlohe met the Führer, she asked him what impression the duchess had made on him. ‘Well, I must say she was most ladylike’, Hitler replied. The princess was very pleased that, under the aegis of her friend Fritz Wiedemann, the Windsor visit had gone off to Hitler’s complete satisfaction.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Trips to the USA and their Political Background
Stephanie von Hohenlohe loved travelling. Not only did she drive by car all over Europe with friends but she also found herself being lured by America. Although her first two trips to the USA appeared to be of a private nature, it turns out that even then she made contact with people in the press, who would later be useful to her when she went into exile there. She made her third trip to the States in the company of Hitler’s adjutant, Fritz Wiedemann, and his wife Anna-Luise. Her fourth trip under the Third Reich was a political ‘assignment’ for Wiedemann.
In 1931, and again at the beginning of December 1932, Stephanie had travelled to New York, where she had been received by Kathleen Vanderbilt and her stockbroker husband, Harry Cushing Jr. From the first moment, Stephanie moved in America’s high society circles and was deluged with invitations. At these parties she met Dr Rudolf Kommer, the agent of theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt, as well as the art collector Jack Hay Whitney, the composer Cole Porter, hotel owner Honoré Palmer, car manufacturer Walter P. Chrysler, and her relative by marriage, Prince Alfred Konstantin Chlodwig von Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (1889–1948) and his wife Felicitas. Stephanie stayed at the Ambassador hotel; many of her friends gathered in her apartment there and though Prohibition was still in force alcohol flowed freely.
She spent Christmas in Wedgwood, Pennsylvania, with Alice and John C. Martin, owner of the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal magazines, a newspaper, the Philadelphia Ledger, and other titles in the Curtis Martin Press. They proved to be amazingly influential hosts, who took the princess very much to their hearts.
At that time no-one could guess that after the Second World War Stephanie would work as a journalist on Martin’s papers.
However, this trip ended with a bombshell. When Stephanie arrived on the liner at Southampton on 2 January 1933, she was collected in a Rolls-Royce by her mother. She seemed extremely nervous, and the joy at seeing her daughter’s return was for some reason clouded. Stephanie soon discovered why. While she had been away in America, a German newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse, had run a story on 24 December 1932 under the headline ‘Princess Hohenlohe arrested in Biarritz as a spy’. It said:
As reported in [the French newspaper] Liberté, a certain Princess von H [ohenlohe] has been arrested in Biarritz by the French political police, on charges of espionage and anti-French propaganda. It was claimed that the Princess had been engaged in intense correspondence with Lord Rothermere. These letters have been confiscated. Official sources in Paris, the Ministry of the Interior and the German embassy refuse to give further details. The local authorities in Biarritz immediately denied the report. However, Liberté claims it can confirm the mysterious arrest. The paper even claims to know that an application for bail has been turned down …
A day after Stephanie’s arrival in England, on 3 January 1933, the following ‘defence’ appeared in the German press, in the form of an extremely poorly researched article:
Princess Stefanie [sic] Juliana zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, about whom recent reports have appeared in certain French newspapers, to the effect that she had been arrested in Biarritz, arrived in Southampton yesterday from New York on board the MS Europa and immediately drove to London. The Princess, who spent December in New York, is absolutely appalled by these reports in the chauvinistic French press. Last year she only spent a few days in Biarritz and travell
ed direct from there to the United States. The whole affair appears to be a plot engineered by the Poles against the Princess. The Princess is blamed for the publishing policy of Lord Rothermere, who, in a series of articles in the Daily Mail, has been arguing for a return of the Polish Corridor to Germany.1 Princess Hohenlohe, who is a friend of Lord Rothermere, frequently accompanied him during his stays in Berlin to meetings with German politicians.
The fact is that in 1932 Stephanie had not spent a single day in Biarritz. She had long ago given up her villa there. She had travelled to New York from Southampton, not from France.
On her return to London, Stephanie immediately rang Lord Rothermere and asked his advice about what to do in this situation. He saw no reason at all for her to react either to the inaccuracies or the libellous statements in the article. But Stephanie’s son Franz certainly believes that was bad advice.
After the original story had appeared, Rothermere had instructed his Paris bureau to gather information. In the end, it proved to be a matter of barefaced blackmail. Photographs, letters and telegrams, purporting to come from Rothermere, were offered for a modest sum. But since all the documents, and even a cheque bearing Rothermere’s signature, proved to be forgeries, Rothermere, on the advice of his lawyers, took no action against the blackmailers. Stephanie was finally able to recall that, during her time in Paris, a ‘peculiar’ man had tried to sell her documents of some kind, but she had turned the offer down. Nonetheless, at the end of it all, the word ‘spy’ clung to the Princess.
In 1937 Stephanie succeeded in persuading Fritz Wiedemann to join her on a trip to the USA. Hitler certainly gave Wiedemann his blessing, but did not entrust him with any political mission. Nonetheless, Wiedemann managed to make it look as if he were on official business, since the American ambassador in Berlin, William E. Dodd, cabled the State Department on 16 November 1937: ‘Wiedemann … is travelling to Washington for the purpose of consultations with the German Embassy on matters concerning the Reich.’
Wiedemann had booked a first-class cabin from Cherbourg to New York, on the German liner Europa. He paid for his own ticket, and those of his wife Anna-Luise, the Princess and her personal maid, all from the ‘special fund’ that had been put at his disposal. Even as he was leaving from Berlin’s Lehrter station at about midnight, several American reporters had gathered despite the lateness of the hour. They wanted to know whether Wiedemann was being sent to take soundings among the German-American League. But Wiedemann said nothing.
Though Stephanie von Hohenlohe travelled in the company of the Wiedemanns, there was on board a strikingly handsome 41-year-old American baritone named Lawrence Tibbett, who at the time was adored by his female fans. Stephanie had first heard him sing at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she called on him in his dressing-room. The two of them hit it off, and from that developed a plan to travel to America on the same ship.
For the whole five-day crossing, Stephanie and Tibbett were inseparable. The fact that they spent the last night together in Stephanie’s cabin was indiscreetly revealed later by Wally Oeler, Stephanie’s personal maid. Until the end of June 1937, this young woman had been in service with Frau von Siemens in Berlin’s lakeside suburb of Wannsee. When Stephanie was looking for a maid, Wiedemann was able to help her. He arranged a permit for Wally Oeler to leave Germany and, on behalf of the Princess von Hohenlohe, sent her a third-class train-ticket from Berlin to Paris. This was the beginning of her nomadic life with the princess, which she frequently talked about to her friends. Wally Oeler was astonishingly well informed and kept a journal. Thus, the question is raised as to whether the young woman could have been a Gestapo informer, even though, or precisely because, she was employed through the good offices of Fritz Wiedemann.
The party’s arrival in New York on 25 November 1937 was hardly what they had been expecting. It was not just the German Consul-General, Dr Hans Borchers, who came to greet them. A large press contingent was waiting for them, as were seventy-five policemen, some mounted, and a crowd chanting hostile slogans. They carried banners reading: ‘Out with Wiedemann, the Nazi spy’ or: ‘I’m Wiedemann, Hitler’s agent, and I’ve come to destroy democracy.’ Security men had to hustle the new arrivals into waiting taxis.
Wiedemann then condescended to address a few words in English to the journalists. He said he was convinced that the opportunities for a lasting peace in Europe were better than a year before. He hoped to be received by President Roosevelt. But most of all, he just wanted to get to know the country he had heard so many good things about.
The travellers stayed for one night at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, where Lawrence Tibbett had also checked in. The next day they took the train to Washington. During the journey, sandwiches were served by a coloured steward, a fact that caused Wally, the maid, considerable amazement. She had to force herself to eat the sandwich, since in Germany an ‘abhorrence of negroes’ had been inculcated into her.
In Washington the travelling party stayed at the German embassy. Wiedemann did indeed have several discussions with the ambassador, Dr Heinz Dieckhoff. The latter was very concerned that Wiedemann should convey to the Führer the ‘unvarnished truth about the potential strength of the United States’.
Fritz Wiedemann was also received by Hugh R. Wilson, who would later be the USA’s last pre-war ambassador to Germany. Wiedemann was meant to provide him with some information about his future posting to Berlin. At the particular suggestion of President Roosevelt, Wilson was primarily interested in the German Labour Service and the organisation known as Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy). At all events, in spring 1938, Wilson set off for Berlin, full of good intentions. His spell of duty did not, however, last very long. Because of his protest against the anti-Jewish atrocities in November 1938, he was recalled and never returned to his post.
In the American capital, Wiedemann also met his friend Dr Hans Thomsen, the German chargé d’affaires in Washington. He was the son of a wealthy Hamburg merchant, and a qualified lawyer, who had built a considerable career for himself.2
The Wiedemanns continued their journey and left Washington for Chicago. There Wiedemann made contact with the German-American League. This was a highly pro-Nazi association of American citizens of German extraction. These were people who believed they could be of service to their former homeland by founding an organisation whose ideals were in sharp contradiction to those of their new democratic country. As one member of the League in Chicago told Wiedemann: ‘Of course I’m an American citizen and I’ve sworn the Oath of Allegiance. But if it should come to war, the bonds of blood are sure as hell stronger than any oath!’ Finally, Wiedemann’s journey took him to the West Coast, to San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Stephanie von Hohenlohe was accompanying her new lover to his concert performances in Philadelphia and Chicago, so that she could celebrate his success with him. But in the bitterly cold ‘windy city’ of Chicago, she contracted double pneumonia. She was so much in love with the new object of her adoration that she had wandered through the city dressed only in a party frock with a fur stole over her shoulders.
All the party foregathered in New York for the homeward voyage. In the Waldorf-Astoria, there was a stormy erotic encounter between Wiedemann and the ‘lady diplomat’, as Wally Oeler told some friends: ‘One day, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we wanted to get into our room. The chamber-maid, a waiter and I reached the bedroom, and the door was open. There was Captain Wiedemann having his pleasure with her, and they didn’t even notice the three of us. The other Germans in the hotel were so outraged by this that they said the fellow should be reported for racial dishonour, because they knew perfectly well that the princess was born Jewish. I think one of them went and told the Frau Captain [Wiedemann’s wife], but she did nothing about it. I acted as if I knew nothing. That man W[iedemann] behaves so badly, and yet he claims to be Hitler’s right-hand man.’
Wally Oeler also complained bitterly to her relatives about the behaviour of her em
ployer during the trip: ‘In spite of my repeated requests, she didn’t pay me a penny of my wages, and what’s more my overcoat didn’t arrive on the ship in time, so I didn’t have anything warm to wear in America, in all that pitiless cold. In Chicago I collapsed from cold in a blizzard, because the wind there had such strength that it simply swept you away. Then your legs feel so weak that you don’t want to stand up again.’
The princess was well known for not always paying her staff on time. An English chauffeur, who drove her for weeks all around Europe, never received his pay. On the contrary, he often spent his own money on the princess. Since it never occurred to her to reimburse him, he simply took her car away. Wally Oeler allowed herself to be fobbed off time and again, but since she very much wanted to go on living in the princess’s interesting world, she held her peace.
The princess brought back from the States a number of handsome books on American architecture, which she sent to the Führer as a Christmas present. On 28 December 1937 Hitler replied from the Obersalzberg to her Christmas letter:
My dear Princess!
I would like to thank you most warmly for the books about American skyscraper and bridge construction, which you sent me as a Christmas present. You know how interested I am in architecture and related fields, and can therefore imagine what pleasure your present has given me.