Duke of Windsor wanted 'closest cooperation' with Hitler's Germany, letter claims
The Duke of Windsor wanted "the closest cooperation" with Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1936, according to a newly emerged letter.
The letter, written on behalf of a high-ranking Nazi, asks former King Edward VIII to give evidence in his favour at the Nuremberg war trials.
The typed document was written by the legal team of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's minister of foreign affairs, in Jan 1946.
He was instrumental to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, which triggered the start of the Second World War. He also encouraged the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.
After the war, he was arrested and put on trial at Nuremberg.
He made a desperate bid to improve his situation by calling on the Duke of Windsor, a suspected Nazi sympathiser, to appear as a witness on his behalf.
In the letter, Ribbentrop recalled a meeting in 1936 in which the pair agreed to work towards the "closest possible relationship" between England and Germany.
The Nazi sought to use the Duke's evidence to disprove counts one and two, of crimes against peace and deliberately planning a war of aggression, which he had been charged with.
Ribbentrop was found guilty and was the first Nazi defendant to be executed by hanging.
The five-page letter, written on Ribbentrop's behalf by his legal team, is now coming up for auction on Nov 30.
The letter reads: "When presenting his credentials in 1936, von Ribbentrop expressed to the then King Edward VIII the desire of the Reich Chancellor (Hitler) for the closest cooperation between Germany and England.
"In the course of this audience, King Edward VIII declared that he, too, deemed such a cooperation necessary".
The letter was kept by Dr Hans Werner, responsible for directing the printing of the Record of the Trial of Major War Criminals in 42 volumes.
It is tipped to sell for £2,600 at International Autograph Auctions of Malaga, Spain.
Richard Davie, specialist at the auctioneers, said: "King Edward VIII's beliefs regarding Adolf Hitler and the Nazis have long been the subject of speculation.
"Many historians have suggested that Hitler was prepared to reinstate the Duke of Windsor as king in the hope of establishing a fascist puppet government in Great Britain after Operation Sea Lion, which was the secret Nazi plan for the invasion of the UK.
"It is widely believed that the Duke and Duchess sympathised with fascism before and during World War Two and were moved to the Bahamas to minimise their opportunities to act on their feelings.
"Reading the document, you get a sense of Ribbentrop's desperation. He was desperately trying to do something to get out of his situation.
"He was trying to deflect responsibility - a pattern seen time and again with defendants at Nuremberg.
"It also suggests how deluded he was - the idea that a member of the Royal family would appear as his witness at Nuremberg is quite remarkable."
Edward VIII was king for less than a year before his abdication in Dec 1936.
In 1937, just two years before the Second World War, he and his American wife, Wallis Simpson, toured Nazi Germany.
The Nazis rolled out the red carpet for the royal couple and the itinerary included a private meeting with Hitler at his retreat at Berchtesgaden.
The Duke of Windsor declared the Nazi economic model to be a "miracle" and was infamously photographed giving Nazi salutes on the trip.
His links with the Nazi high command were detailed in the top-secret Marburg files, signed by Ribbentrop, whose discovery in Germany by American soldiers at the end of the war was famously depicted in season two of Netflix's hit series, The Crown.
In the show, Edward attempts to return to public life in England from France but is turned away by Queen Elizabeth, who berates him for his "betrayal".
During the war, Edward was at first stationed in France but, after its fall, was appointed governor of the Bahamas.
After the war, Ribbentrop was convicted of crimes against peace, deliberately planning a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity at the Allies' International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.
His judgment stated that he was "actively involved" in planning the invasions Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland and the "final solution", the Nazi term for the systematic murder of Jews.
As early as 1942, he had ordered German diplomats in Axis countries to hasten the process of sending Jews to death camps in the east.
At trial, Ribbentrop repeatedly argued that Hitler made all the key decisions and that he had been "deceived" by the Fuhrer's claims of "only wanting peace".
On Oct 16 1946, Ribbentrop became the first of those sentenced to death at Nuremberg to be hanged, after Herman Göring took his own life.
