Nazi Princess (16 page)

One of Stephanie’s closest friends in London was Lady Emerald Cunard, an American who had married the heir to the Cunard Steamship line. She was well known in society circles as a lavish and generous host, and her parties in London were a major centre of Nazi influence. Wallis and Edward were frequent guests at her house in Grosvenor Square, and they regularly shared her box at the opera at Covent Garden. One commentator described Emerald’s parties:

Her drawing room, glowing with Marie Laurencin paintings, was alive night after night, with excited conversation about the merits and demerits of Mussolini, of the British prime minister, and of the new Führer. The conversation would eddy and flow as Emerald twittering and extravagant on her tiny feet and bedecked in gold lame, would lead Wallis, the prince, Ernest [Wallis’ husband whom she divorced in favour of Prince Edward] and all her other guests into the dining room …
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Joachim von Ribbentrop, by then German ambassador, was frequently among the guests, and naturally Princess Stephanie was a regular part of the company too. As MI5 recorded: ‘She has succeeded through introduction from Lady Oxford, Lady Cunard and others in worming her way into certain society circles where she speaks favourably of the present regime in Germany.’ British intelligence also noted that the Nazi leadership had a scheme to invite people of influence in England to meet Hitler personally. ‘The difficult job of selecting from British “neutrals” possible future friends of Hitler and Nazi Germany has been given to some of Hitler’s most trusted friends in this country. Hitler is counting on the help of Princess Hohenlohe, his Vienna-born friend and talent spotter.’

Emerald Cunard was Wallis Simpson’s greatest supporter. She kept her guests in thrall using her waspish and frequently cruel tongue; stimulating provocative conversation in support of the National Socialist views she passionately espoused. Chips Channon was another regular at Lady Cunard’s celebrated soirées. His diary records: ‘Much gossip about the Prince of Wales’ alleged Nazi leanings; he is alleged to have been influenced by Emerald Cunard (who is rather eprise with Herr Ribbentrop) through Wallis Simpson.’ Channon went on to note the Prince of Wales had made an extraordinary speech to the British Legion advocating friendship with Germany; ‘If only the Chancelleries of Europe knew that this speech was the result of Emerald Cunard’s intrigues, themselves inspired by Ribbentrop’s dimple!’ To which Channon might have added, ‘and Princess Stephanie’s duplicity’.
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According to a Metropolitan Police Special Branch report, it was at one of Lady Cunard’s parties in January 1935 that Edward, then Prince of Wales, first met Oswald Mosley.

The prince showed keen interest in the Blackshirts and questioned Mosley on the strength and the policies of his British Union of Fascists. He was later to comment that Mosley would make a first-rate prime minister.
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Edward was never much worried about expressing indiscreet views in public. In July 1933 Sir Robert Vansittart, a diplomat and socialite, recounted in his diary that at a party where there was much discussion about the implications of Hitler’s rise to power, ‘The Prince of Wales was quite pro-Hitler and said it was no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re- the Jews or anyone else, and added that dictators are very popular these days and we might want one in England.’
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In March 1935, with scarcely concealed motives, the January Club became the Windsor Club; its members for the most part well-connected right-wingers.

Princess Stephanie was being referred to openly in reports in newspapers abroad, circulated by the International News Service, as ‘Europe’s Number One secret diplomat’ and ‘Hitler’s mysterious courier’. The
New York Mirror
described how she was exerting her influence in London:

Her apartment has become the focus for those British aristocrats who have a friendly stance towards Nazi Germany. Her soirees are the talk of the town. Prominently displayed in her drawing room is a huge portrait of Hitler. So it was only natural that her efforts on the Führer’s behalf would also bring her into contact with the ‘Cliveden set’ whose members include some of the most important statesmen of the British Empire.
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Stephanie was a regular weekend guest at Cliveden, the home of Lord and Lady Astor, as notes she wrote herself confirm. The Astors’ house parties became notorious for attracting members of aristocratic society supportive of Hitler and his policies, and for enthusiasts of appeasement. Lord Astor owned both the
Observer
and
The Times
; Geoffrey Dawson, editor of
The Times
, was another of Princess Stephanie’s acquaintances and also regularly attended at Cliveden. The house parties were therefore fruitful occasions for Stephanie to work her brand of subtle propaganda: persuasive, clever conversation which traded heavily on her personal contacts with Hitler. She was to later write, in an effort to distance herself from her energetic dissemination of Nazi propaganda in London in the 1930s: ‘It is true that at Cliveden a number of recurrent guests were those in favour of appeasing the new Germany, but appeasement was by no means a bad word at that time.’
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Ribbentrop, a regular visitor to London even before he was appointed Hitler’s ambassador to Britain in October 1936, became one of the most sought-after party guests in the capital. He was a natural social climber, and dressed to give the impression of being the perfect English gentleman. He liked nothing more than rubbing shoulders with royalty and aristocrats, and was frequently seen in London’s most fashionable circles with ardent pro-Nazis like Emerald Cunard, Lord and Lady Londonderry and others in Wallis’ and Princess Stephanie’s circles.

Princess Stephanie’s work with others who agreed an alliance with the new German regime was the way forward, and led to a campaign to form influential organisations, working within British society, who were sympathetic to the Nazis. Prominent names stand out as having common connections or membership with several of these organisations. The Link, which received financial backing from Berlin, included many members of the Cliveden set and of the Anglo-German Fellowship, though on a more modest scale also encompassed members from the Cliveden and London house parties. Stephanie and Ribbentrop were both regulars at Cliveden weekends, and in a report to Hitler on Anglo-German relations written in December 1937, Ribbentrop described the Cliveden set as a group trying hard to impress on Chamberlain the need to really understand Germany and Nazi policy. But he said they were being sidelined by unconditional opponents of Germany, in particular from hostility within the Foreign Office.
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The Link was overtly pro-German and expressed strong anti-Semitic and fervent pro-Nazi views. It had been founded by Sir Barry Domville, a retired admiral who had also been a one-time director of naval intelligence. Domville was another prominent figure in British society with whom Stephanie had forged a friendship. The Link’s membership spanned both the upper and middle classes. It included a number of retired military officers and businessmen, but there was also an important element of the aristocracy among its ranks. They included Lord Redesdale, father of the Mitford girls; Lord Semphill and the Duke of Westminster – all of them friends with Hitler’s ‘dear Princess’. By the middle of 1939 The Link had around 4,300 members.
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Significantly, The Link’s founder, Sir Barry Domville, is picked out in MI5’s files as a particularly close contact of Princess Stephanie and with him she seems to have been one of the prime movers in the organisation’s creation. Domville was among those interned by Churchill as a threat to national security under the 18B orders in May 1940. The Duke of Westminster, one of the richest men in England, joined The Link as late as 1939 when even some of its most ardent supporters were beginning to have second thoughts about Hitler’s Third Reich. It was said one of his motives for joining was to try to prevent Hitler dropping bombs on London, because he owned so much of it!

The other prominent pro-German organisation was the self-consciously elitist Anglo-German Fellowship, established in 1935 with the outward aim to promote ‘good understanding between England and Germany and thus contribute to the maintenance of peace and the development of prosperity’. The Fellowship worked closely with its counterpart in Berlin, the Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft. Although it sought to suggest that membership did not necessarily imply approval of National Socialism, in reality the Fellowship operated – as Princess Stephanie wanted it to – as a tool of Nazi propaganda. There is also evidence to suggest that there were links between the Fellowship and the Nazi intelligence-gathering organisation the Auslands-Organisation, or more cryptically, AO, which operated in countries outside Germany.

A leading member of the Fellowship was the merchant banker Ernest Tennant, who had been a guest of Rothermere and Stephanie at the dinner in Berlin the press baron hosted during his first trip to meet Hitler. Tennant had also arranged the Fellowship’s financial backing. Another prominent member was T.P. Conwell Evans, who had been instrumental in organising visits to meet the Führer for several pro-German aristocrats, including Lord Lothian. Membership overwhelmingly demonstrated wealth and influence.

MPs, generals, admirals, businessmen and bankers figured on its membership list. Both the governor of the Bank of England and the chairman of the Midland Bank were members.
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A number of financial institutions were corporate supporters together with some leading industrial firms, including Unilever and Dunlop. Directors of companies as prominent in British life as ICI, Tate & Lyle and the Distillers Company were private members. The Fellowship’s chairman was Lord Mount Temple, a former Conservative minister and father-in-law of Lord Mountbatten. Although the Fellowship was not as passionately pro-Nazi as The Link, Sir Barry Domville was a welcome member. Once again, in what MI5 observed was Stephanie’s closeness to Domville, there are multiple links between her and the Fellowship’s membership.

The Fellowship grew rapidly. By the end of 1936 it numbered some 450 people. By now the aristocratic element of its membership read like a substantial roll-call of the House of Lords: Lords Abedare, Airlie, Arbruthnot, Arnold, Barnby, Brocket, Douglas Hamilton, Ebbisham, Eltisley, Hollenden, Londonderry, Lothian, McGowan, Mottistone, Mount Temple, Nuffield, Nutting, Pownall, Rice, Redesdale, Semple and Strang, the Earl of Glasgow and later the Duke of Westminster. In July 1936 the Fellowship held a glittering dinner in London to honour the kaiser’s daughter, the Duchess of Brunswick, and her husband, at which guests sat at tables decorated with swastikas. In December the same year the Fellowship threw another grand dinner in honour of Ribbentrop.

The Nazis regarded these Anglo-German societies as propaganda platforms where prominent Germans could meet and influence sympathetic audiences. They also formed part of Ribbentrop’s intelligence network of ‘listening posts’, which fed back reports to the German Embassy on the state of British public opinion. In 1935 a rival to the Anglo-German Fellowship was formed called the Nordic League. It was set up by Nazi agents sent to London by the Abwehr and the SS to rival the Ribbentrop-orientated Fellowship. The Nordic League was an offshoot of the Nordische Gesellschaft run in Berlin by Alfred Rosenberg, an acquaintance of Prince George, Duke of Kent. It was regarded as the British branch of international Nazism and too extreme even for Mosley, who refused to get involved in it, although some of his lieutenants were founder members.

It was widely believed in society circles that Wallis Simpson was having an affair with Ribbentrop because of his constant visits to her apartment at Bryanston Court. Before he was appointed ambassador in the UK and was a foreign affairs adviser to Hitler, Ribbentrop routinely arranged to have a bouquet of seventeen red roses delivered to Wallis Simpson’s flat whenever he was in London. It was an open secret in the city’s social and diplomatic circles that Ribbentrop was infatuated with her, or perhaps it was a politically inspired infatuation?
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Even Hitler teased Ribbentrop about his methods of gaining the lady’s attention. Rumours began to circulate and the friendship between Ribbentrop and Edward’s mistress made Wallis a positive security risk. The FBI informed MI5 that the reason Ribbentrop sent seventeen flowers was because each bloom represented an occasion they had slept together. MI5 were probably not convinced by that, but nevertheless, they kept Bryanston Court under surveillance and noted the salacious gossip circulating about Wallis. It was easy for them to do so – they were already monitoring Stephanie’s apartment in the same building! The scandalous tales so annoyed Mrs Simpson, however, that in 1937 she gave an interview to an American journalist strongly denying she was being used as a tool by the Nazis.

Yet stories continued to emerge, suggesting that Ribbentrop was paying Wallis to influence the king with funds coming directly from Berlin.
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There were fears in some official circles that crucial information from state papers relating to the international situation, sent by government departments in red boxes for the king’s eyes only, was finding its way to Berlin. Edward was easily bored by official paperwork and was careless with state papers. Wallis was thought by many to be the source of these leaks. So concerned were officials in the Foreign Office that they began screening documents to ensure nothing highly secret was included before being sent to Buckingham Palace or Fort Belvedere, Edward’s private home. Sir Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, was convinced Wallis Simpson was the person responsible for passing information to the German government, and conveyed his fears to Prime Minister Baldwin. Within a few months of Edward becoming king, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden restricted all confidential documents from the king’s eyes. Eden had no time for Edward, and the feeling was mutual. Behind the scandal of the king’s mistress, the government were well aware of a growing danger that had nothing whatsoever to do with the question of an unsuitable royal marriage, and everything to do with the king and Wallis Simpson’s Nazi sympathies.