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    17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up
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    17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up
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    17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up
    Ebook522 pages10 hours

    17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up

    By Andrew Morton

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    The true story of Edward Windsor and Wallis Simpson's involvement with the Nazi regime, and the post-war cover-up.

    The story of the love affair between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, and his abdication, has provoked endless fascination. However, the full story of their links with the German aristocracy and Hitler has remained untold.

    * 17 Carnations chronicles Hitler's attempts to matchmake between Edward and a German noblewoman, and Wallis's affair with the German foreign minister, who sent her a carnation for every night they had spent together.
    *Pro-German sympathizers, the couple became embroiled in a conspiracy to install Edward as a puppet king after the Allies' defeat.
    * The Duke's letters were hidden for years as the British establishment attempted to cover up the connection between the House of Windsor and Hitler.

    Thoroughly researched, 17 Carnations reveals the whole fascinating story, throwing sharp new light on this dark chapter of history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael O'Mara
    Release dateMar 9, 2015
    ISBN9781782434658
    Unavailable
    17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up
    Author

    Andrew Morton

    Andrew Morton is one of the world’s best-known biographers and a leading authority on modern celebrity and royalty. His groundbreaking 1992 biography of Diana, Princess of Wales—written with her full, though then secret, cooperation—changed the way the world looked at the British royal family. Since then, he has gone on to write New York Times and Sunday Times (UK) bestsellers on Monica Lewinsky, Madonna, David and Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The winner of numerous awards, he divides his time between London and Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for 17 Carnations

    3/5

    67 ratings14 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Having read and enjoyed author Morton's earlier books, particularly those about Princess Diana, Tom Cruise, and Madonna, I was really looking forward to this book. The topic is fascinating, a King who gave up his throne for the woman he loved. Morton certainly had a very interesting story to work with. I knew the some basic facts about the couple from other books and the movie The Kings Speech. This book will fill in any gaps in your knowledge and tell you much more than you need or really want to know. Unfortunately the telling is done in such a dreadfully dry and boring manner. I had to really push myself to get through this book. The supposed shocking aspect of this book was that the Edward and Wallis were purported to be Nazi sympathizers. I actually didn't find this to be surprising at all. After the couple was drummed out of England, they traveled the world seeking anyone who would revere Edward in the way he once was. Adoration was found at Hitler and the Nazi party's doorstep. The fact that the royal family wanted to cover this up is not surprising in the least. Everyone has a branch of their family tree that they would rather not discuss. For the royal family, the Duke Duchess were a limb they tried to saw off along with any trace of their German ancestry. Edward and Wallis are depicted in an extremely unflattering light in this novel and the gild is taken off their fairytale love story.
    • 2/5
      King Edward VIII abdicated the throne of England to marry the love of his life, Wallis Simpson, and the first part of this book dealing with that is OK. Edward and Wallis were Nazi sympathizers, and as such were ostracized by the British royal family and the citizens of England. The endless machinations and manipulations that took place surrounding the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's (as they were known after the abdication) living arrangements, movements, their very lives became quite tedious to plow through. The later cover-up of all of this by the British government seems kind of ridiculous. There are undoubtedly better books that have been written about this subject, and I don't recommend this one.
    • 2/5
      Rumors of their sympathy toward, and perhaps even collaboration with, the Nazis followed abdicated British king Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson throughout their long, purposeless, post-royal lives. Conventional wisdom says that Edward, who had abandoned the British throne just prior to WWII in order to marry "the woman he loved", hoped to become the nominal ruler of defeated Britain if Germany won the war. It is known that Edward and Wallis had private meetings with Hitler, and Wallis may have had an affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister ("17 Carnations" refers to Ribbentrop's habit of sending Wallis bouquets of seventeen flowers, supposedly in honor of their seventeen nights together. Wallis consistently denied the affair).Andrew Morton made a name for himself by writing engaging, informative biographies of iconic figures such as Princess Diana and Tom Cruise. In this book, he takes a drier approach than usual, and the results are disappointing. The writing is poor ("She made him happy and he needed her in a way that was frightening in its intensity was all she knew," runs one egregious example on p. 87). The stage is overcrowded with minor characters, and many intriguing personages (such as Princess Stephanie, a Jewish apologist for the Nazis and Hitler's personal friend) are introduced then dropped. The book's last chapter, in which Morton discusses the House of Windsor's efforts to "bury the '[h]ot potato'" of Edward's Nazi connections in order to protect the royal family's reputation, is its best. This chapter might have made a good stand-alone magazine article.If you are looking a book about Edward's and Wallis's as people, however, their story has been better told elsewhere.
    • 2/5
      A stupid and badly written book. The 17 carnations of the title refer to flowers sent to the Duchess of Windsor by von Ribbentrop,but there is very little evidence of any skullduggery by the lady. The Duke was assuredly stupid and was used by the Nazis because of his infantile statements, but the real villain is the King, who prevented Windsor from returning to England in any capacity. The only new news in this book is the fact that the Duchess would have stepped aside only Edward wanted her so badly.
    • 3/5
      17 CARNATIONS is the story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor during the second world war. It examines in great detail their dealings with the Nazis. It is the view that they were pro-Nazi and as such against their own country. There are great details to prove this point and while the Royals come close to treason it doesn't look as if they ever arrived there. You do get the sense that they were useless, self-concerned supercilious people which i suspect in fact they were. Theirs was a sad story in many ways. David's childhood was loveless and unhappy. He was raised by a series of German nannies with little attention from his parents. And when he had the attention of his father, King George, it was mostly unpleasant. So he was searching for someone to love, someone who loved him who he could trust and he found it in the Duchess. The Royal Family had no use for her as a twice-divorced woman with both ex-husbands living. The simply refused to recognize her and David/King Edward VIII was desperate to have the Royal Family accept her which they never did. This caused great trouble for the Duke his entire life. There is more detail about correspondence and meetings with high ranking Nazis than I cared to read. Remeber the Royal Family were Germans and Edward was raised speaking German. His cousins were the Royal Family of Germany which complicated matters. He was also traumatized by the execution of the Czar Nicholas II who was his godfather.
    • 2/5
      If you are familiar with the Windsor story, skip this. The "Biggest Cover-Up in History" actually wasn't since the covered-up material was officially published in 1957 as Captured German Documents FO370/3271 and concerned the account of the Duke of Windsor's relations with Nazi Germany in 1940. Morton does not jump into the cover-up aspect, even though this is trumpeted as part of the title, until the last three chapters of the book. The first chapters are a rehash of the courtship and abdication. Edward VII comes off as clueless; Wallis is self-serving; and the rest of the family is vindictive. The following chapters are the Windsors' ill-advised trip to Germany and their meeting with Hitler; Edward's blabbing about British war strategy: their almost Keystone Cop flight from Paris to Spain to Portugal before being evacuated to their new post in the Bahamas. All the while the German government is chomping at the bit to get hold of the ex-king to use him as a mouthpiece for a negotiated peace with Britain. Absolutely nothing new here.Finally, the cover-up chapters reveal the extent that the British government and the royal family try to keep the Duke's antics from becoming known. This, according to Morton, is because the can of worms would reflect very badly on the House of Windsor, not just the Duke. If there is one good point in this book, it is the sad truth that so many high-ranking individuals with better things to do (Churchill, Eisenhower Dean Acheson among others), wasted so much time trying to erase the follies of this freckless pair.Oh, the 17 carnations refers to the rumor that Von Ribbentrop sent the Duchess the flowers to commemorate their 17 sex acts. It occupies one paragraph of the book. No proof, however, is given anywhere that he and the Duchess were actually lovers. Yet another tease in the title which is unfulfilled.
    • 4/5
      Morton's book is about the abdication and marriage to Wallis Simpson by Edward VIII. It begins by leading us through the years of Edward growing up to be a very charismatic, popular young man who was sought as a possible marriage partner by many young women. He, however, was more interested in married women as mistresses and had a few.The real focus of the book is Edward and Wallis' fascination with Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. They honeymooned in Austria and visited Hitler. There was much evidence that Wallis was a good friend of the German Ambassador to England, Joachim Ribbentrop, and this is what the title of the book refers to. Ribbentrop use to send her 17 roses everyday and according to one German source, this was to acknowledge the 17 times they had made love.After the war commenced, Edward was one of many in the British aristocracy who favoured finding a peace settlement at any cost. One idea Hitler and company had was to defeat England and put Edward back on the throne as a puppet ruler. Whether Edward was aware of this is debatable but some of his behind the scenes negotiations bordered on treason and at one point Churchill warned him that if he did not listen to British officials and obey orders from London, he would be arrested.One thing is clear- both Wallis and Edward were self centred, selfish, privileged individuals who for the most part were only concerned about their position and possessions. They never seemed to be aware of the what the British people were suffering because of the blitz and the shortages brought on by the submarine war for they in one incident forced the British Embassy in Spain to rent an extra van to transport their 40 plus suitcases at extra cost and inconvenience to the British staff. After the war started, they communicated with German officials asking that their property in Paris and southern France be protected.While he appeared to be a pleasant man to sit down withover a drink, almost everything he did was for his benefit. Some roles it was suggested he could play, he turned down when he found out he would have to pay income tax. No matter where he lived or at what period of his life, he had all his alcohol imported by the British Embassy so he could avoid taxes and duties
    • 3/5
      An interesting look at the royal abdication and World War II
    • 3/5
      Last part is terribly boring and pointless. The first half is interesting regarding The Duke of Windsor and his machinations.
    • 4/5
      Not familiar with the story of the abdication of King Edward, this book does a nice job of giving the history of the period and the awkwardness that transpired after the abdication.
    • 4/5
      I knew very little about Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson...other than what everyone knows (his abdication to marry a twice-divorced woman). I think that is why I enjoyed the book more than most of the other reviewers below. I thought it was well written, and provided a clear and fascinating look at Edward VIII's relationship with his family, with Wallis, and with Hitler and his party.
    • 3/5
      Interesting, but could have used a good editor - got incredibly repetitive towards the end.
    • 2/5
      A little bait-and-switch. Author Andrew Morton goes through all the lurid rumors about Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII: that she was intersex, that she learned exotic sex techniques in Shanghai brothels, that she slept with all and sundry. And that he was bisexual, a show fetishist, and a traitor. There’s nothing but hearsay for any of this. Morton repeatedly mentions a “secret file” that British intelligence scrambled to recover from Germany after VE-Day to avoid embarrassing the Royals, but there’s no clue as to what might be in it. The best Morton can come up with is that Edward (as the Duke of Windsor and a major general in the British army) was tasked with inspecting French defenses in 1940, and somehow passed information on to the Nazis; I can’t see the German General Staff suddenly changing their war plans based on that. The Duke does come across as a grade-A jerk; a womanizer before his encounter with Wallis, childishly naïve, more concerned about his house in France than about the Blitz on London, and cluelessly entitled – but not a traitor; frankly, he doesn’t come across as smart enough to be treasonous. The Duchess, in turn, is supposed to have passed secrets she picked up by eavesdropping on to her “lover” von Ribbentrop – that’s where the title comes from, von Ribbentrop is supposed to have gifted her with a bouquet of carnations every time they slept together. Once again, Wallis comes across as hopelessly entitled and bitchy – but not treasonous. She did not, after all, ever pose in a Stahlhelm manning a FLAKvierling.
    • 4/5
      The story of Edward VIII giving up the British throne to marry the woman he loves is often regarded as one of the 20th Century’s great romantic stories. By focusing on the post abdication story Morton paints a very different picture of a pair of self absorbed feckless entitled people whose actions, careless talk, and dubious relationships and political views bordered on being traitorous at the time of their country’s greatest need.