Unique microfilm revealed the innermost workings of the Nazi regime

Andrew Morton

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Unique microfilm revealed the innermost workings of the Nazi regime Found incriminating correspondence relating to former King of England New book by Diana biographer reveals the Duke of Windsor was willing to deal with Hitler to win back his throne Called Hitler a ‘great man’ and openly criticised Churchill the ‘warmonger’ Was convinced conflict could’ve been avoided if he stayed on the throne The Nazi leader would put the Duke back on the Throne as a puppet king
However, details of the secret deal were ordered destroyed after the war Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and American President Eisenhower among those who attempted to cover up damning dossier

It was the most unlikely place to find a treasure trove: tucked inside a battered metal canister covered in a tatty plastic raincoat and hidden in a remote German estate, where it had been hastily buried in the dying days of the Nazi regime.

The men who discovered it in the weeks following the end of the war were dubbed ‘documents men’, Allied soldiers charged with finding the secrets of Hitler’s Third Reich. Inside was unique microfilm that revealed the innermost workings of the Nazi regime. Back in London, the haul was triumphantly called pirates’ gold.

But within days, they realised with horror that the thousands of files detailing every part of the Nazi regime’s inner workings contained incriminating correspondence relating to the former King of England, Edward VIII, his wife – the divorced American Wallis Simpson, whom he married in 1937 – and their links to dictator Adolf Hitler.

This was dynamite that could explode beneath the Monarchy.

For the next 12 years, war leader Winston Churchill, post-war Prime Minister Clement Attlee, American President Eisenhower and others in the political elite attempted to destroy or cover up the damning Windsor dossier.

Even King George VI, at loggerheads with his elder brother, the Duke of Windsor, since his abdication in 1936, was ‘greatly agitated’.

Now my three years of research have uncovered the extent of Edward’s Nazi sympathies and the monumental efforts lasting more than a decade by the Establishment on both sides to trace, conceal and destroy vital documents that they feared could bring down the House of Windsor.

The jaw-dropping contents of the file concerned the wartime activities of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, particularly their brief stay in Spain and Portugal after the fall of France in 1940. The secret papers painted an astonishing portrait of a man who was disaffected with his position, disloyal to his family and unpatriotic towards his country.

The file revealed that such was his disaffection that Churchill, his friend and supporter, had threatened him with court martial unless he obeyed military orders.

During this Iberian sojourn, many of Edward’s unguarded utterances were secretly recorded by German diplomats and pro-Fascist Spanish aristocrats who sent the material in minute detail to Berlin, where Hitler and his right-hand man, foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, pored over the Royal runes.

The transcripts reveal that Edward, who felt he had been ostracised and humiliated in the wake of his abdication in 1936, was outspoken in his criticism of Churchill and the war and was convinced that, if he had stayed on the throne, conflict could have been avoided.

Read more: Unique microfilm revealed…

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