When the telegrams finally came to light in 1957, the Duke of Windsor denounced their contents as “complete fabrications.

In state papers, Churchill claimed that the Duke of Windsor was not aware of the telegrams-though Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, was, and he too hoped that they would be suppressed.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, accustomed to the finer things in life, were also prohibited from traveling aboard a yacht “belonging to a Swedish magnate, Axel Wenner-Gren, whom American intelligence considered to be a close friend of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s second in command.” When the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited Palm Beach, Florida, in April 1941, they were under close surveillance by the F.B.I., which had reason to believe that the couple was being used by the Nazis to “obtain secrets which could wreck the allies’ war effort.” The strategy was formed three years after the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited Nazi Germany as guests of Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden-a visit which proved to be embarrassing to Edward’s brother King George VI and, according to The New York Times, “confirm Hitler’s view that the Duke of Windsor was an advocate of the Nazi cause and could be of future use.” But what is the real story of the Duke of Windsor’s visit with Adolf Hitler, and his alleged Nazi sympathies?Īs depicted on The Crown, Nazi officials are said to have concocted a 1940 plan to kidnap the Duke of Windsor and re-install him as a puppet leader after invading Britain. Alas, his plan is thwarted when Queen Elizabeth discovers incriminating documents about the Duke of Windsor’s reported relations with Nazi Germany.

Determined to find a life more meaningful than the pug-ensconced, poker-playing perma-holiday he has been living out in France, the Duke of Windsor receives permission from his niece to return to London, where he tries to shake up some sort of ambassadorship. The Duke of Windsor, played impeccably by Alex Jennings, has grown bored with his post-crown life: “I never thought I’d find myself saying it, but a life of pleasure really has its limits,” the former King Edward VIII complains to his wife, Wallis Simpson, after trying on pirate costumes for another dreaded masquerade ball. In “Vergangenheit,” the sixth episode of The Crown’s second season-named for the German word for “past”- Queen Elizabeth finds herself face to face with the person responsible for imprisoning her in “that miserable mausoleum,” Buckingham Palace: her uncle, the Duke of Windsor, whose 1936 abdication put her in direct line to the throne.

The Duchess of Windsor by Michael Bloch