Andrew Lownie on Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson's Nazi Sympathies, Scandals and Tragic Life

Nov 6, 2025 | Andrew Lownie talks about his groundbreaking book Traitor King which tells the shocking true story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson's Nazi sympathies and how they betrayed the UK during WW2.

A Very Royal Crisis: A Countdown to Abdication | BBC Select

Sep 21, 2023 | The biggest scandal and constitutional crisis ever to engulf the British Royal Family - a forbidden love affair which had a devastating impact.

This BBC Select Original Documentary series recounts the story behind the ten days leading to Edward VIII abdicating his throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson It would change the royals, the press, and British history forever.

Watch A Very Royal Crisis: A Countdown to Abdication on BBC Select in the US here or if in Canada, here.

British Royal Connections to the NSDAP

Mar 17, 2023
In view of the very controversial nature of this extremely interesting documentary, I have decided not to embed it on this blog; rather, I have decided to provide you with a link to the documentary on YouTube instead. This documentary offers a surprising insight into leading characters in the United Kingdom prior to, and during, the Second World War. Click here to watch this fascinating documentary.
How Britain’s Nazi-loving press baron made the case for Hitler: The Daily Mail was once the country’s highest selling newspaper, but owner Lord Rothermere was more concerned with ‘Bolshevik troublemakers’ than an impending genocide »

Edward VIII, the Traitor King | Complete Documentary

Jul 16, 2014 Was Edward VIII a nazi sympathiser? Complete Channel 4 documentary from 1995. | Views on YouTube: 1,167,371

Please excuse the poor film quality of this documentary. But what it lacks in film quality, it makes up in interest. I hope you enjoy it. – Mark Alexander

The Former British King and the Nazis | Edward VIII: The Traitor King | BBC Select

May 19, 2022 | Historians examine newly discovered sources relating to the Duke of Windsor, the former king who renounced the throne to marry Wallace Simpson. This revelatory Edward VIII documentary explores his life after abdication, his connections with the Nazi Party, and evidence that he encouraged Germany to bomb the UK into submission during World War Two so he could regain the throne.

Edward VIII - The King Who Threw Away His Crown | Free Documentary History

This documentary tells one of the most dramatic stories of the 20th century. Using rare and previously unseen archive and interviews with Edward and Wallis Simpson, this is the real story of the man who gave up the throne to pursue his obsession with a twice-divorced American.

The strength of Edward’s feelings for his lover sparked the abdication crisis of 1936. Instead of a coronation in 1937, Edward married Wallis, and as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor the couple embarked into a life of exile and roleless celebrity.

Wallis Simpson's Hard Lessons for Harry and Meghan

BBC: A popular, playful prince falls in love with a strong-willed US divorcee, who ends up vilified by a hostile British press. In Harry and Meghan, some royal watchers see echoes of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the couple at the heart of the abdication crisis eight decades ago. But does the comparison hold up? It could do if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex end up reliving the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's tormented exile.

In December 1936, The King gave up his throne and an Empire of half a billion souls so he could wed a woman who was divorcing her second husband.

The public vitriol spewed on his bride-to-be, Wallis Simpson, might strike a chord with the latest American to marry into Britain's royal family.

On top of being condemned as a social climber from a Baltimore, Maryland, row-house, Simpson was reviled as a cheap adventuress, a lesbian, a nymphomaniac, a Nazi spy and a hermaphrodite.

She was portrayed as a sexual enchantress who supposedly learned "ancient Chinese skills" in the brothels of Shanghai, where her first husband, a US Navy pilot, had been stationed.

But the media's attacks on Simpson weren't just in print.

Daily Express reporters hurled bricks through the window of her rented Regent's Park, London, home, the newspaper's owner, Lord Beaverbrook, would later acknowledge. » | Jude Sheerin, BBC, Washington | Saturday, February 22, 2020

Edward on Edward

This is a 1996 documentary on the Duke of Windsor that aired on October 25, 1996.

Edward VIII the Traitor King – Documentary

Was Edward VIII a Nazi sympathiser? Complete Channel 4 documentary from 1995.

Edward VIII - The Uncrowned King

First Broadcast: May 30, 1972 (BBC1)

Two days after the death of the Duke of Windsor, Ludovic Kennedy asks what kind of monarch Edward VIII might have made if he had remained on the throne. Kennedy introduces an interview with the duke himself, filmed in 1969, in which the latter talks about his dislike for the formalities of his status, expresses strong opinions on the establishment and recalls many of the prime ministers he met while he was heir apparent and, subsequently, King.

In the studio, Kennedy discusses the duke's abdication and its effect upon the monarchy with historian AJP Taylor, Windsor family friend Lady Bridget Monckton, former Member of Parliament Lord Robert Boothby and journalist Colin Coote. The last word, thanks to the 1969 interview, is granted to the duke's wife, Wallis, Duchess of Windsor.