Appendix One: Hitler’s British Connections

Important sections of the British establishment in the 1930s gave support to Hitler and the fascists. They believed that Britain could benefit from such a dictator as Hitler or Mussolini. On 3 February 1933, The Times of London, which had itself dabbled in anti-Semitism, wrote of Hitler, “No one doubts Herr Hitler’s sincerity. That nearly 12 million Germans follow him blindly says much for his personal magnetism.”

Montagu Norman, the then-Governor of the Bank of England, was certainly pro-fascist and hated Jews. On 30 September, 1933, the financial editor of the Daily Herald wrote an article exposing “Mr. Montagu Norman’s decision to give the Nazis the backing of the Bank.” Norman had made loans to the Hitler regime shortly after it took office in January 1933. According to his biographer John Hargrave, “It is quite certain that Norman did all he could to assist Hitlerism to gain and maintain political power, operating on the financial plane from his stronghold in Threadneedle Street.” The money given to the Nazis was not directly from the Bank but through financial arrangements for the fascists from other sources, such as from the Schroder Bank of London.  (Quoted in J. Pool and S. Pool, p. 311.)

Before Rosenberg [a leading Nazi] left England he saw Lord Beaverbrook, the owner of the Daily Express, the Sunday Express, and the Evening Standard. The British press would play a very important role in helping the Nazis to obtain money. (ibid., p. 312.)

Beaverbrook described Rosenberg as “a strong anti-Semite, [and] is Hitler’s representative”.

Even more obliging than Beaverbrook was Viscount Rothermere, the owner of the Daily Mail. He gave the Nazis pages of praise in his newspaper. There is some evidence to show that he actually gave financial support to Hitler through Putzi Hanfstaengl, the Nazi’s foreign press chief. But the publicity given by the Mail was worth far more than the money.

Shortly after Hitler’s election success in September 1930, the Viscount went to Munich to have a long discussion with the Führer. When he returned, he wrote an article praising the fascists:

These young Germans have discovered, as I am glad to note the young men and women of England are discovering, that it is no good trusting the old politicians. Accordingly, they have formed, as I should like to see our British youth form, a Parliamentary party of their own… We can do nothing to check this movement [the Nazis] and I believe it would be a blunder for the British people to take up an attitude of hostility towards it… We must change our conception of Germany… The older generation of Germans were our enemies. Must we make enemies of this younger generation too? If we do, sooner or later another and more terrible awakening is in store for Europe.

Let us consider well before we lay our course toward that peril. If we examine this transfer of political influence in Germany to the National Socialists we shall find that it has many advantages for the rest of Europe. It sets up an additional rampart against Bolshevism. (Daily Mail, 24 September, 1930.)

On 10 July 1933, Rothermere continued:

I urge all British young men and women to study closely the progress of the Nazi regime in Germany. They must not be misled by the misrepresentations of its opponents. The most spiteful detractors of the Nazis are to be found in precisely the same sections of the British public and press as are most vehement in their praises of the Soviet regime in Russia. They have started a clamorous campaign of denunciation against what they call ‘Nazi atrocities’ which, as anyone who visits Germany quickly discovers for himself, consists merely of a few isolated acts of violence such as are inevitable among a nation half as big again as ours, but which have been generalised, multiplied and exaggerated to give the impression that Nazi rule is a bloodthirsty tyranny.

On 7 December 1933, Hitler wrote to Rothermere in person:

I should like to express the appreciation of countless Germans, who regard me as their spokesman, for the wise and beneficial public support which you have given to a policy that we all hope will contribute to the enduring pacification of Europe. Just as we are fanatically determined to defend ourselves against attack, so do we reject the idea of taking the initiative in bringing about a war. I am convinced that no one who fought in the front trenches during the world war, no matter in what European country, desires another conflict.

In England, Rothermere became a well-known supporter of the British Union of Fascists, whose leader was Oswald Mosley and whose members wore fascist Blackshirts.  On 8 January 1934, the headline of the Daily Mail’s front page proclaimed: ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’.

This was accompanied by a piece on Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that read, in part:

If the Blackshirts movement had any need of justification, the Red Hooligans who savagely and systematically tried to wreck Sir Oswald Mosley’s huge and magnificently successful meeting at Olympia last night would have supplied it.

Subsequent articles emphasised the paper’s unwavering support, and on 15 January 1934, the BUF was described as:

[A] well-organised party of the right ready to take over responsibility for national affairs with the same directness of purpose and energy of method as Hitler and Mussolini have displayed.

This parallels the Mail’s similar enthusiasm for Fascist parties elsewhere in Europe, especially Adolf Hitler’s burgeoning Nazi movement: “The sturdy young Nazis are Europe’s guardians against the Communist danger”.

The newspaper stated that Italy and Germany were “beyond all doubt the best governed nations in Europe today.” More of this fascist propaganda filled the pages of the Mail, which claimed Hitler had saved Germany from “Israelites of international attachments” and the “minor misdeeds of individual Nazis will be submerged by the immense benefits that the new regime is already bestowing on Germany.” (Quoted in J. Pool and S. Pool, p. 316.) Later, Hitler expressed his gratitude for the Daily Mail’s “great assistance” for its pro-Nazi stance.

January Club

Apart from the open members of the British Union of Fascists, a powerful club composed of members of the ruling class was formed to back the Blackshirts. In a pamphlet entitled ‘Who Backs Mosley’ published by Labour Research, some enlightening facts were revealed:

On New Year’s Day 1934 was formed the January Club, whose object is to form a solid Blackshirt front. The chairman Sir John Squire, editor of the London Mercury said that it was not a fascist organisation but admitted that “the members who belonged to all political parties were for the most part in sympathy with the fascist movement”. (The Times, 22 March, 1934) The January Club held its dinners at the Savoy and the Hotel Splendide. The Tatler shows pictures of the club assemblies, distinguished by evening dress, wines, flowers and a general air of luxury. The leader is enjoying himself among his own class…

The members of this club were:

  • Colonel Lord Middleton: A director of the Yorkshire Insurance Co, Malton Investment Trust, British Coal Refining Processes Ltd, and three other companies. He owned about 15,000 acres of land and minerals in Nottinghamshire.
  • General Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough, GCMG, KCB, KCVO: Commander of the Fifth Army 1916-18 and Chief of the Allied Mission to the Baltic, 1919 (Russian intervention), now director of Siemens Bros, Caxton Electric Development Ltd, Enfield Rolling Mills, and two other companies.
  • Air Commodore Chamier, CB, CMG, OBE, DSO: Late Indian Army. Now aviation consultant and agent to, and lately director of, Vickers Aviation Ltd.
  • Vincent Vickers: Director of the London Assurance Corporation and a large shareholder in Vickers Ltd.
  • Lord Lloyd: Former Governor of Bombay.
  • The Earl of Glasgow: Privy Councillor, brother-in-law to Sir Thomas Inskip, the Attorney General, who was responsible for the Sedition Bill in the House of Commons. The Earl owns Kelburn Castle, Ayrshire, and about 2500 acres.
  • Major Nathan: Liberal MP for NE Bethnal Green. A member of the Jewish Agency under the mandate for Palestine. Chairman of the Anglo-Chinese Finance and Trade Corporation.
  • Ward Price: Special correspondent to the Daily Mail and director of Associated Newspapers and British Movietone News.
  • Wing Commander Sir Louis Grieg, KBE, CBO, RAF: Partner in J. and H. Scrimgeour, stockbrokers, director of Handley Page Ltd, and an insurance company and Gentleman Usher in Ordinary to the King.
  • Lady Ravendale: Baroness, sister-in-law to Mosley and granddaughter to Levi Leiter.
  • Count and Countess Paul Munster.
  • Major Metcalfe, MVO, MC: Brother-in-law of Lady Cynthia Mosley and Lady Ravendale, late aide-de-camp to the Prince of Wales and the Commander in Chief in India.
  • Sir Philip Magnus: Bart, a leading Conservative.
  • Sir Charles Petrie.
  • Hon. J.F. Rennell Rodd: Heir to Baron Rennell, and a partner in Morgan, Grenfell & Co.
  • Ralph D Blumenfeld: Chairman of the Daily Express, formerly editor. He was once editor of the Daily Mail. He is the founder of the Anti-Socialist Union and a member of its Executive Committee. (Quoted in T. Grant, The Menace of Fascism, pp. 5-7.)

In the early days of the fascist movement, Mosley was enthusiastically backed by a number of prominent capitalist and military figures. True, later, when Mosley became discredited and it was clear that the movement was not timely, many of them dropped away or fell into the background.

This reflected the pro-fascist tendencies within the British ruling class before the war, who greatly admired Hitler as well as Mussolini. However, with the outbreak of war, they quickly exchanged their Blackshirts for more patriotic British colours. In turn, their fascism was rapidly shelved and they became ardent ‘defenders of democracy’.

Hitler and Mussolini had other admirers. Lloyd George, the ‘Liberal’, described Hitler as a “bulwark” against Bolshevism. Churchill, speaking in Rome on 20 January 1927 only had praise for the fascists:

I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been wholeheartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. I will, however, say a word on an international aspect of fascism. Externally, your movement has rendered service to the whole world… Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people… She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. (ibid., p. 9.)

In regard to Hitler, he was just as flattering.

As early as February 1934, the British government published a memorandum which allowed for an immediate increase in all German armaments. “The German claim to equality of rights in the matter of arms cannot be resisted and ought not to be resisted. You will have to face rearmament of Germany,” declared the British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, on 6 February, 1934. Export to Germany of unwrought nickel, cotton waste, the basis for gun cotton, aircraft and tanks rose tremendously. When asked in March 1934, if Vickers Ltd were engaged in rearming Hitler’s Germany, the company chairman replied:

I cannot give you an assurance in definite terms, but I can tell you that nothing is being done without complete sanction and approval of our own government. (H. Owen in War is Terribly Profitable, quoted in T. Grant, The Menace of Fascism, p. 10.)

Ted Grant explained:

The big financiers and bankers openly advocated a policy of support and assistance for the Hitler regime. A short time after he came to power, the Governor of the Bank of England declared that loans to Hitler were justified as “an investment against Bolshevism”.

Therefore, large loans were given freely to Hitler.

His occupation of the Rhineland, the rearmament of Germany, the Anschluss with Austria, the seizure of Czechoslovakia – all were supported by the representatives of British capitalism. The reason: they feared a Nazi collapse and what might replace it. Just before the war, the British government, through R.S. Hudson, the then-Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade, made an offer of a loan of a thousand million pounds to assist the Nazis and prevent them from expanding their influence at the expense of British imperialism, while at the same time maintaining a bastion against Communism, the German workers and the working class throughout Europe. (ibid., p. 10.)

In the 1930s, Winston Churchill looked upon the Nazis with unbounded approval. In the 1939 edition of Great Contemporaries, Churchill wrote about Hitler’s rise to power in glowing terms:

The story of that struggle cannot be read without admiration for the courage, the perseverance, the vital force which enabled him to challenge, defy, conciliate, or overcome, all authorities or resistance which barred his path. I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war, I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. (Quoted in ibid., p. 11.)

Lord Beaverbrook, writing in the Daily Express on 31 October, 1938 said:

We certainly credit Hitler with honesty and sincerity. We believe in his purpose stated over and over again, to seek an accommodation with us, and we accept to the full the implications of the Munich document. (ibid., p. 11.)

Later, these views, of course, did not prevent Beaverbrook from holding ministerial office in the Coalition government in the ‘war against fascism’.

The Daily Mail and Evening News, were both flunkeys of Hitler and Mussolini before the war. At the beginning of the 1930s, the then-Viscount Rothermere (Harold Harmsworth) owned the Mail and the Mirror.

In January 1934, Rothermere wrote – under his own byline – articles that appeared in both the Mail and the Mirror. While the Daily Mail had as its headline ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’, the Daily Mirror had the headline ‘Give the Blackshirts a helping hand’.

Within the year, he had removed his support for Mosley’s party, the British Union of Fascists, though he remained a staunch admirer of both Hitler and Mussolini. Indeed, he met and corresponded with Hitler, even congratulating him on his annexation of Czechoslovakia. So, we can therefore be under no illusion that Rothermere the First was a supporter of the Nazis.

Royal Family

The British monarchy were also supportive of Hitler, especially King Edward VIII, who later became the Duke of Windsor. In April 1936, the King sent Hitler a telegram wishing him “happiness and welfare” for his forty-seventh birthday.

The Duke spoke at a meeting in Leipzig in the autumn of 1937, as Hitler’s honoured guest. This representative of the House of Windsor told his audience:

I have travelled the world and my upbringing has made me familiar with the great achievements of mankind, but that which I have seen in Germany, I had hitherto believed to be impossible. It cannot be grasped, and is a miracle; one can only begin to understand it when one realises that behind it all is one man and one will, Adolf Hitler. (Quoted in J. Pool and S. Pool, p. 318.)

During the twelve-day visit, Germany was bedecked with alternating Union Flags and swastikas, and Wallis accepted curtsies from high and low-born alike. She was even referred to as “Her Royal Highness”, a title King George VI had pointedly denied her.

The former King gave a Nazi salute when he met Hitler and other leaders. He later confirmed he did salute Hitler during their private fifty-minute conversation at his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, but insisted “it was a soldier’s salute”.

Recently, a telegram was discovered which had been sent from British intelligence to Alexander Cadogan, the Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. It was found at the National Archives and reveals the close links between Hitler and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who were to be made King and Queen and head a government after a fascist victory in Britain.

C/4653

London

7 July, 1940

Dear Cadogan,

A new source, on trial, whom we know to be in close touch with Neurath’s entourage in Prague, has reported as follows:

Germans expect assistance from Duke and Duchess of Windsor, latter desiring at any price to become Queen. Germans have been negotiating with her since June 27th. Status quo in England except undertaking to form anti-Russian alliance. Germans propose to form Opposition Government under Duke of Windsor having first changed public opinion by propaganda. Germans think King George will abdicate during attack on London.

Yours,

(Reported in BBC documentary on the ‘House of Windsor’, January 2017, emphasis added.)

Apparently, the strategy was formulated three years after the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited Nazi Germany as guests of Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden – a visit which proved a little embarrassing to Edward’s brother King George VI. According to The New York Times, documentations “confirm Hitler’s view that the Duke of Windsor was an advocate of the Nazi cause and could be of future use.” (The New York Times, 10 February, 1991.)

In July 1933, Prince Edward told former Kaiser Wilhelm II’s grandson, Prince Louis Ferdinand, that it was “no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else.”

Churchill personally urged the leaders of France and the United States to block publication of the captured German telegrams after the war. When the telegrams finally came to light in 1957, the Duke of Windsor denounced their contents as “complete fabrications… and gross distortions of truth.” The British conservative government, meanwhile, supported the Duke of Windsor, stating that “he never wavered in his loyalty to the British cause.” The problem was Windsor regarded the ‘British cause’ as very much as the ‘fascist cause’.

Edward VIII wasn’t the only son of King George V to conspire with the Nazis leaders to create a World War Two Anglo-German alliance. Prince George, the Duke of Kent and uncle to Queen Elizabeth II, played a key part in planning a coup d’état with Hitler’s deputy, Hess, to remove Prime Minister Winston Churchill and forge a treaty with the Führer. Some of the Windsors’ Nazi-supporting German relatives were involved. For a period, one was a welcome visitor to Buckingham Palace. Former British Prince Carl Eduard (Charles Edward), the Duke of Coburg, also known as ‘Charlie Coburg’, was Queen Victoria’s grandson, first cousin to King George V and confidant to the Duke of Windsor.

Coburg was employed by the Führer as a go-between for the German government to exploit the Royal Family’s pro-German and pro-fascist leanings. The Times, via The Weekend Australian, reports that Coburg wrote in his diary of often visiting the royals at Buckingham and Sandringham Palaces.

But it’s almost impossible, says Dr Karina Urbach, senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research at the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, that Coburg didn’t have a deep understanding of the gas chambers and the plans for the extermination of the Jews. In fact, Coburg’s cousin, Prince Josias Waldek-Pyrmont, was a high-ranking member of the SS and supervised one of the death camps in Buchenwald. The two men also shared a villa in Berlin where other SS officers constantly frequented.

An interesting piece of film footage came to light recently from the Royal archive, unbeknown to the Royal Family. There has been much debate about its context, but twenty seconds of footage obtained by The Sun newspaper, released in 2015 and thought to be shot in 1933 or 1934, appears to show Queen Elizabeth II, as a young girl, delightfully performing the Nazi salute before the camera, as coached by her Nazi sympathising uncle Edward. The Queen Mother is also pictured making the fascist salute. Yet, at this time, in 1933 or 1934, a network of concentration camps had already been established in Germany where political prisoners were being held, tortured and murdered.

Urbach writes that:

The video is pretty shocking. She was a child when this film was shot, long before the atrocities of the Nazis became widely known. But Edward was already welcoming the regime as Prince of Wales in 1933 and remained pro-Nazi after war broke out in 1939.

He could well be teaching the Queen and Princess Margaret how to do the salute. The film involves our monarch and is an important historical document that asks serious questions of the Royal Family.

We know that after ’45 there was a big clean-up operation. The royals were very worried about correspondence resurfacing and so it was destroyed.

Churchill employed a top-secret team called ‘the weeders’, sent to Berlin to find and conceal anything that documented the Duke’s relationships with Hitler and Nazi officials, to protect the Royal Family’s reputation. For the next twelve years after the war, 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.

However, a microfilm has come to light recently revealing the close relations between the Nazi regime and the Duke of Windsor. The Duke twice secretly contacted the Nazis via a Spanish diplomat, asking first if they would protect his two rented houses in Paris and Cannes and their contents. The captured microfilm revealed the potentially explosive negotiations – the Germans agreed to his request. Even the ambassador brother of Spanish dictator Franco was shocked by Edward’s behaviour. “A prince does not ask favours of his country’s enemies. To request the handing over of things he could replace or dispense with is not correct.” (Mail on Sunday, 28 February, 2015.)

Moreover, the couple’s defeatist attitude in private conversations greatly concerned the British ambassador. “The Duke believed that Great Britain faced a catastrophic military defeat which could only be avoided through a peace settlement with Germany,” observed historian Michael Bloch.

The Duke even stunned the American journalist Fulton Oestler by saying in an interview during the war, when he had been appointed Governor of the Bahamas: “It would be a tragic thing for the world if Hitler was overthrown, Hitler is the right and logical leader of the German people. Hitler is a very great man.”

Members of the Royal Family’s fascist sympathies are well known. The fact that a future king of England, Edward, was flirting with the Nazis and the Blackshirts is public record.

Other connections have been buried deep. However, the sisters of Prince Philip were, indeed, married to German noblemen who were members of the Nazi party and the German army. When his sister Cecile died in a 1937 plane crash, Philip, then sixteen years old, was photographed marching in a funeral procession with men wearing Nazi uniforms. Another of Philip’s sisters was said to have had lunch with Hitler, hardly an informal chat over champagne and oysters.

Prince Philip has admitted that during those years there was “a lot of enthusiasm for the Nazis at the time, the economy was good, we were anti-communist and who knew what was going to happen to the regime?” and that in his sphere there were “inhibitions about the Jews” and “jealousy of their success.”

The Royal connection is only one part of the British establishment’s links with the fascist movement; others involve high-flying bankers, businessmen and politicians. They very much admired Hitler and Mussolini and thought the experiment could be tried in Britain. To underline the point, “Dictators are very popular these days,” noted the Duke of Windsor. “We might want one in England before long.”