An author says her new book will challenge the popular image of Edward VIII as lazy and unintelligent and shed light on his visit to Nazi Germany before the Second World War.
Jane Marguerite Tippett spoke to The Telegraph about her forthcoming book, which will shed a “very different light” on Edward and delves into his journey to Nazi Germany.
Edward gave up the throne in 1936, a year before his trip to Hitler, to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.
Edward and Wallis visited Germany and met the Führer in 1937 – although British officials strongly discouraged them from doing so due to tensions between the two countries at the time. Two years later the Second World War began.
Of Edward’s trip to Germany to visit Hitler, Tippett told the Medium: “In the new materials we get a better idea of why he went to Germany, something that has been misrepresented in popular culture.”
“It brings some nuance when we look at things from his perspective, what he thought he was doing in Germany.” “That wasn’t quite the way his actions were translated.”
Jane Marguerite Tippett spoke to The Telegraph about her forthcoming book, which will shed a “very different light” on Edward and delve into his trip to Nazi Germany in 1937
Edward gave up the throne in 1936, a year before his trip to Hitler, to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. Pictured: The couple
The author added that the series of pictures depicting Hitler in 1937 “did not serve him well.”
During his stay in Germany, Edward was infamously photographed giving the Hitler salute and later also toured industrial facilities and even a concentration camp, whose watchtowers were allegedly explained to him as meat depots.
The former king is said to have said in 1941 that Hitler was the “correct and logical leader of the German people.”
This comes as a prominent royal historian has claimed that confidential documents from the royal archives suggest that the exiled Duke of Windsor was a Nazi sympathizer who abandoned detailed plans for Buckingham Palace that were subject to bombing in the Second World War World War made possible.
Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday, royal expert Alexander Larman said that although he had been given access to the archives for a book about the royal family during the war, he had been surprised at the extent of the Duke’s condemnation and The archivist had told him: “We are not concerned with protecting the reputation of the Duke of Windsor.”
He said: “The Nazis knew what they were doing and that was because they had inside information.” [from the duke].
“I don’t think he wanted to see it [his brother King George VI] “Dead, but he was in a position where he knew exactly where everyone was at Buckingham Palace.”
During the conflict, the palace suffered nine direct bomb hits and one death – PC Steve Robertson, a police officer on duty there, who was killed by flying debris in 1941.
Edward and Wallis visited Germany and met the Führer – although British officials strongly discouraged them from doing so due to tensions between the two countries at the time. Two years later the Second World War began
During his visit, the Duke was photographed inspecting German troops
Edward’s proposal to marry Wallis – while divorce proceedings with her second husband were still ongoing – triggered a constitutional crisis that culminated in Edward’s decision to abdicate. Pictured: The couple on their wedding day in 1937
Tippett’s book, Once a King, will also challenge the stereotypes that surrounded the former monarch.
Commenting on the Netflix series The Crown, Tippett also told The Telegraph: “That series was the apotheosis of his view of him as lazy, unintelligent, someone he never thought critically about his life.”
In contrast, her book sheds a different light on Edward’s time as Prince of Wales before he became king.
She said he was “not lazy at all” during this time, citing the fact that in 1919 he toured India and the East for a year and then went to Canada for four months.
Tippett said royal tours now only last a few days, and she called Edward “the hardest-working British royal” at the time.
The author added that the former monarch’s abdication “erased” the influence he had on the company and its development over the last century.