Calling the Fuehrer a "great man," the abdicated king of England sought to enlist President Roosevelt in a conspiracy to appease Adolf Hitler and end World War II, according to a secret 50-year-old interview made public Thursday.
In 1940, four years after giving up the crown, the Duke of Windsor made the treasonous statements in an interview on the Caribbean island of Nassau with Fulton Oursler, editor-in-chief of Liberty magazine who had close ties to Roosevelt.The interview, in an article in the December issue of American Heritage magazine, was written by Fulton Oursler Jr., who used his father's previously unpublished notes.
Edward VIII became king of England in 1936 but abdicated so he could marry an American, Wallis Warfield Simpson. In 1937, as duke of Windsor, he visited Germany and met Hitler, Goebbels and Goring. He died in 1972.
According to the notes, in 1940, the duke described rumors that the Italian defeat in Greece might lead to a revolution in Germany as "too much wishful thinking; that there would be no revolution in Germany and it would be a tragic thing for the world if Hitler were overthrown."
"Hitler, he said, was the right and logical leader of the German people . . . He regarded Hitler as a great man," the senior Oursler wrote.
The duke told Oursler that the war was "between two very stubborn peoples" and suggested that Roosevelt soon would have to act as a mediator between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Hitler, telling them that "you two boys have fought long enough and now you have to kiss and make up."
The morning after the interview, the duke's aide-de-camp visited Oursler to confirm that the journalist would use his access to Roosevelt to enter into "a Machiavellian conspiracy" and deliver the duke's request.
"Tell Mr. Roosevelt that if he will make an offer of intervention of peace, that before any one in England can oppose it, the duke of Windsor will instantly issue a statement supporting it and that will start a revolution in England and force peace," the duke's aide told Oursler.
The aide also told Oursler that if he published what the duke had said, "the lid would be blown off the British empire."
When Oursler broached the subject with Roosevelt, the president seemed to already know of the duke's treasonous views, leading the journalist to conclude that British intelligence had clandestinely been listening in on his interview with the duke and passed the information on to Roosevelt.
"Did the duke harbor hopes that such a revolution would restore him to the throne?" Oursler Sr. wrote. "The question seems almost irrelevant. By sending his plea to the president, he had already stepped beyond the bounds of diplomacy and trespassed on treason."
Oursler's notes on the interview surfaced after his death in 1952, but his son said he did not make them public earlier because "others convinced me that (my father) would not have released the memo while the duke and duchess were still living.
"Now that both are dead, and 50 years have passed since the interview, I believe the story should be told," he said.
He said his father published a "bland" article based on the interview at the time but left out the duke's treasonous statements because "he feared for his life."
Oursler Jr. said his father's interview confirms persistent rumors and speculation, most based on secondhand sources, that the duke sympathized with Germany at the height of World War II.
Churchill and Roosevelt also had a stake in suppressing the duke's sentiments, Oursler said, considering the Nazi bombing of London at the time.
"What more demoralizing thing could have happened to England" than for the British people to learn that the former king felt the country was wrong to continue the war against Germany, Oursler said.