False Accusations of Nazi Sympathies

"Over the last few years the Duke of Windsor has had very bad press - mainly in the shape of grotesque accusations that he was pro-Nazi and would happily have taken back the throne from his brother to rule as a puppet monarch over a conquered Britain. To me it is completely obvious that, with all his failings, he was an ardent patriot who would never have had anything to do with a Britain occupied by Germans."

-Phillip Ziegler to Duke and Duchess Society Member Lee Levine

"He did not understand half of what he saw or what was said to him," commented the youthful Nigel Law, the whole visit was "lacking in dignity". Yet it was no covert fascist but Winston Churchill who, briefed by his son Randolph, who had accompanied the tour, wrote to congratulate the Duke on its success. There had been loud cheering in the cinemas when newsreels of the Duke's tour were shown. "I was rather afraid beforehand that your tour in Germany would offend the great numbers of anti-Nazis in this country, many of whom are your friends and admirers, but I must admit that it does not seem to have had that effect, and I am so glad it all passed off with so much distinction and success." When there was criticism, as by Herbert Morrison in the left-wing magazine Forward, it related mainly to the fact that the Duke was pushing himself forward into the public view, not that he chose to do so in Nazi Germany.

-From King Edward VIII by Philip Ziegler