Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, and Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, visited Nazi Germany in October 1937. Edward had abdicated the British throne in December 1936, and his brother George VI had become king. Edward had been given the title Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson in June 1937. He appeared to have been sympathetic to Germany in this period and, that September, announced his intention to travel privately to Germany to tour factories. His interests, officially researching the social and economic conditions of the working classes, were against the backdrop of looming war in Europe. The Duke's supporters saw him as a potential peacemaker between Britain and Germany, but the British government refused to sanction such a role, opposed the tour and suspected that the Nazis would use the Duke's presence for propaganda. Prince Edward was keen for his wife, who had been rejected by the British establishment, to experience a state visit as his consort. He promised the government to keep a low profile, and the tour went ahead between 12 and 23 October 1937.
The Duke and the Duchess, who were officially invited to the country by the German Labour Front, were chaperoned for much of their visit by its leader, Robert Ley. The couple visited factories, many of which were producing materiel for the rearmament effort, and the Duke inspected German troops. The Windsors were greeted by the British national anthem and Nazi salutes. They dined with high-ranking Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Albert Speer, and had tea with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden. The Duke had a long private conversation with Hitler, but it is uncertain what they discussed, as the minutes of their meeting were lost during the war. The Duchess took afternoon tea with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. Hitler was sympathetic to the Windsors and treated the Duchess like royalty.
The British government was unable to affect the course of events and forbade its diplomatic staff in Germany from having any high-level interaction with the Windsors. British popular opinion of the tour was muted, and most people viewed it as in poor taste and disrupting the first year of George's reign. The tour of Germany was intended to have been followed by one of the United States, but Nazi repression of working-class activists in Germany led to a wave of disapproval for the Windsors in the American labour movement, which led to the US visit being cancelled. Modern historians tend to consider the 1937 tour as a reflection of both the Duke's lack of judgment and his disregard for the advice that he received.
Background
Edward VIII became king after the death of his father, George V, in early 1936. Almost immediately, he announced his intention to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. On political and moral grounds, she was unacceptable as a royal consort to the British government and royal family. As king, Edward was the titular governor of the Church of England, which forbade the divorced from remarrying during the lifetime of their former spouses, and both of Simpson's previous husbands were still alive. The proposed marriage was believed by critics to breach Edward's coronation oath, and weakened his position as constitutional monarch. Edward knew that if he forced the issue, Stanley Baldwin's government would almost certainly resign en masse.
Edward realised that his family, the government, the Church and the people would not support the marriage. Thus, in December 1936, he abdicated. His younger brother, the Duke of York, succeeded him as George VI, and Edward was given the title of Duke of Windsor. Edward and Simpson married in France in June the following year, and having honeymooned in Vienna, they returned to Paris and established their headquarters there. Internationally, the journalist Andrew Morton stated that the Duke was viewed as being
Political context
The European political background to the tour was tense. The Spanish Civil War, which had broken out the previous year, upset the balance of power and drew in the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany. Also, Germany was becoming increasingly aggressive and had spent the previous few years rearming. In the United Kingdom, there was a sense of political unease towards the future and an expectation of war although foreign policy remained predicated on appeasement. Baldwin resigned as prime minister in May 1937 and was replaced by his deputy, Neville Chamberlain.