Operation Willi: The Nazi Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor

Following many other accounts full of guesses, this book reports with incrediblly precise and complete documentation Hitler's attempt to bring the former King Edward VIII to negotiate a peace between nazi Germany and England after the blitzkrieg against Franco-British troops. Edward had just abdicated in July 1936 to become Edward Windsor and marry the (twice divorced German spy) woman he loved. As an attempt to thwart Churchill's pressure, Walter Schellenberg the youg nazi evil genius had been sent to Portugal where the Duke was staying to prevent the couple from leaving for the Bahamas and bring them back into Spain. Edward was to be lured into regaining his throne with Wallis as Queen of England and Hitler was prepared to make a peace with England if he could put his hand on the British fleet. Then he could turn against Stalin with a quiet westeern fornt. Michael Bloch who is very supportive of the British Crown's concern with its image delivers a very factual report of Operation Willi itself. But... The book starts after a brief chapter on Edward official relationship with the nazis presented as a normal peaceful attempt towads the Reich. It doesn't mention the FBI report conocerning the affair between Ribbentrop and the duchess. It fails to underline that Wallis Simpson, according to FBI reports, had passed secret information to the nazis in 1935/1936 and had been constantly reporting to von Ribbentrop during the battle of France. It doesn't indicate that during his British-French mission in 1938/1939 the duke had inspected the Maginot line precisely where von Manstein would cut it in the Blitzkrieg. It fails to report on Anthony Blunt's mission confided by King George VI in Germany to retrieve all the correspondance of the Duke and the Duchess with their German cousins. It does not question the production of the Duke's reports by the British SI after Blunt's mission, presenting them as good intelligence reports in favor of the British. (When Churchill decided to check on the Maginot he just asked the French, he didn't have to spy on it. It doesn't underline that both Blunt and Schellenberg who knew too much about the Duke and the Duchess were protected against the court sentence each of them they deserved. Despite these essential lacks which leave the subject open, this book remains the most complete and the most documented on the sequence of events purely pertaining to Operation Willi. There are still archives on this matter,which are kept secret both in England and in the US : why if not owing to something which cannot be known by the general public? If you have an interest in the debate around Edward Windsor, and want only one book: this is the one, it goes further than any other, but will not tell you the end of the story