I have been wanting to watch the film, Edward VIII: Britain’s Traitor King, for several years and finally found the chance to sit down and have a look. The former King Edward VIII has always intrigued me. One wonders how differently history might have played out if he hadn’t abdicated. This film makes me wonder if England might have faced a far greater crisis than abdication.
Overview of Film
The core of the film is based on a cache of records known as the Marburg Documents, unearthed in a forest in Germany in the final days of the Second World War. These files—never meant to survive the war—contain communications between the German Foreign Ministry and Nazi intelligence agencies. Andrew Lownie, an author and historian, has examined the files in depth, and they present damning evidence of the Duke of Windsor’s involvement with the Nazi regime.
After the war, Whitehall sanitized and selectively published portions of the documents. The full truth of the Duke’s close ties to the Nazis was simply too explosive. I had known that the Duke of Windsor was pro-Nazi, but I didn’t realize just how close those connections were.
The film uses the Marburg Documents as a spine, tracking the Duke’s movements, associations, and loyalties through the late 1930s and early 1940s. What emerges is not the portrait of a misguided royal dabbling at the edges of dangerous politics—it is someone who repeatedly acted in ways that benefited Germany and undermined Britain.
In October 1937, the Duke visited Berlin and was feted by Hitler. He adored flattery and fanfare, and the Nazis were more than happy to indulge him. He even claimed he was “pure German” with no English blood—an exaggeration, but not entirely off base given the German lineage of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (renamed Windsor in 1917). But there is a vast difference between being pro-German and being pro-Nazi. The Duke of Windsor was both.
The film outlines the many ways in which the Duke and Wallis moved in pro-Nazi circles. They were married at a chateau in France owned by pro-Nazi American industrialist Charles Bedaux. On 8 May 1939, the Duke recorded a radio message urging Britain to avoid war and come to terms with Germany. It was distributed globally, but the BBC refused to air it in Britain.
When war broke out, the Duke was assigned to inspect the French Army. He found it alarmingly unprepared, but London ignored his warnings. Feeling rejected and embittered, the Duke shared his observations with Charles Bedaux—information that quickly reached the Nazis and proved valuable during the Blitzkrieg invasion of France in May 1940. His indiscretions didn’t just weaken France; they exposed information that put the British Expeditionary Force at greater risk.
If one gets the impression that the Duke of Windsor was a petulant and naïve fool… one would be correct. Britain had rejected his bride-to-be, and in rejecting her, they had rejected him. Wallis Simpson was prohibited from being styled Her Royal Highness, which infuriated the Duke. He craved adoration and, if the British wouldn’t give it to him, the Nazis were more than willing to fill that void.
His activities in France and his circle of acquaintances might have been brushed aside under Neville Chamberlain, but when Churchill came to power, patience evaporated. Churchill used the Duke’s military rank to threaten him into compliance, implicitly dangling the possibility of a court martial. The Duke was given safe passage from France to Spain and then on to Portugal. While Britain endured the Blitz, he golfed, swam, and attended lavish dinners. He stayed in the villa of banker Ricardo Espirito Santo, another pro-Nazi associate who sent reports on him to Germany.
In July 1940, the German ambassador in Lisbon reported: “[The Duke of Windsor] is convinced that if he had remained on the throne, war would have been avoided… The Duke definitely believes that continued severe bombing would make England ready for peace.” During wartime, the Duke openly encouraged the Nazis to intensify their bombing of his homeland. He cared nothing for the country—only for his own ambitions.
The Duke wanted the throne back, with Wallis as Queen Consort, and he was prepared to work with the Nazis to achieve that aim. Churchill eventually appointed him Governor of the Bahamas and shipped him as far from Europe as possible. Even in exile, he continued communicating with German contacts. By any reasonable standard, the Duke of Windsor was providing aid to the enemy. Had he been anyone else, he would have been charged under the Treachery Act of May 1940.
When the Marburg Documents surfaced in the mid-1950s, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office issued a predictable statement: “The German records are a tainted source… His Royal Highness never wavered in his loyalty to the British cause.”
Lownie’s response is blunt: “To pretend that the Germans were trying to trick him and he didn’t realize is frankly ridiculous.”
Summary
What the film ultimately exposes is not ambiguity but pattern. Edward VIII chose flattery over duty, ego over country, and personal grievance over national survival. The British government may have worked hard to bury the worst of it, but the Marburg Documents are uncompromising. Had the Duke of Windsor been anyone other than a former king, he would have faced a courtroom, not a Caribbean governorship.