Some republicans, including a certain self styled “republican royal watcher,” will use anything to divert the taxpayers’ hard earned money from hospitals, schools , water etc to fund their attempts to change our constitutional system and shred our flag.
One has been to suggest that the Duke of Windsor, briefly King Edward VIII, was actually working for Adolph Hitler.
To use this fantasy as a reason for constitutional change in Australia is really building a skyscraper on sand.
As the eminent Australian political scientist, John Paul observed in 2005 in Quadrant, Australia’s preeminent political journal ( “The Duke of Windsor and the Nazis”):
“I hold no brief for King Edward VIII. Ziegler has established conclusively that he was temperamentally unsuited to the role of a constitutional monarch.
“ He therefore performed a lasting service for the House of Windsor in abdicating in favour of his brother.
“I do, however, deplore the readiness of some people to brand the Duke of Windsor unjustly as a putative traitor on the strength of the half-hearted and near-farcical activities of some German officials in June and July of 1940, especially as these had their fons et origo in the febrile fantasies of an idiot like Ribbentrop.”
…all based on forged documents…
The principal source of this story about the Duke was a book by one Martin Allen, “Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies.”
It is now clear, as many suspected when it was publshed, that the book is based on forged documents.
So it seems are two other books by Allen, “The Hitler/Hess Deception,” which claims the flight to the UK of Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, in 1941 was part of a plot to oust Churchill, and “ Himmler's Secret War.”
According to David Leppard, writing in The Sunday Times and republished in The Australian on 5 May, 2008 (“Dear Mr Hitler: forgeries fool Brits”) the books rely heavily on forgeries inserted by a "master forger" into the records of the British National Archives.
Letterheads were created on a high-resolution laser printer, not in existence in the Second World War. Signatures were written over pencil tracings.
Handwriting of different officials was found to be suspiciously similar. Diplomatic titles and key dates were wrong.
According to Mr. Leppard, this began with a letter, which Allen claims he found in his attic.
It was addressed to "Dear Mr Hitler" and signed, "EP", for Edward Prince, an abbreviation the Duke of Windsor occasionally used.
“The letter makes veiled references to a tour of the French frontline defences that the duke had just made.
"It asks Hitler to pay close attention to information the man bringing the letter to him has memorised.
“The courier was a German spy, and Allen argues that through him the duke gave Hitler top-secret strategic information that enabled the Germans to attack France at the weakest points in its defences.
"France fell in six weeks and British forces were routed."
Before the book was published, The Sunday Times considered serialising it.
But when they commissioned experts to examine the document, they abandoned the project.
According to Mr. Leppard, a forensic documents examiner found "many discrepancies" that made him "highly suspicious".
Another expert concluded that the letter was "most probably a forgery". A paper analyst found evidence the letter had been written on a blank page from an old book, which is apparently a classic forger's trick.
But Allen insisted the letter was genuine. He claimed it had been given to his late father by Albert Speer, Hitler's former munitions minister.
He said he had found it in his attic. The book was then published, and gave some joy to Australian republicans.
One thing is certain.
Some Australian republicans will still brand the Duke a traitor merely to advance their agenda for constitutional and flag change here.
They have little else than fantasy to rely on at the moment.
This is because they have gone backwards since 1999, and now cannot even say what constitutional changes they actually want.