rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

OPERATION SEA LION: THE THWARTED INVASION OF BRITAIN 707promised to get the Generalissimo in on the plot and carry out the followingplan. The Spanish government would send to Lisbon an old friend of the Duke,Miguel Primo de Rivera, Madrid leader of the Falange and son of a formerSpanish dictator. Rivera would invite the Duke to Spain for some hunting andalso to confer with the government about Anglo-Spanish relations. Suner wouldinform the Duke about the British secret-service plot to bump him off.The Minister [the German ambassador informed Berlin] will thenadd an invitation to the Duke and Duchess to accept Spanish hospitality,and possibly financial assistance as well. Possibly also thedeparture of the Duke could be prevented in some other way. In thiswhole plan we remain completely in the background.Rivera, according to the German papers, returned from Lisbon to Madridafter his first visit with the Windsors on July 16 and brought a message to theSpanish Foreign Minister, who passed it along to the German ambassador, who,in turn, flashed it to Berlin. Churchill, the message said, had designated theDuke as Governor of the Bahamas ”in a very cool and categorical letter” andordered him to proceed to his post at once. Should he fail to do so, ”Churchillhas threatened Windsor with a court-martial.” The Spanish government agreed,the dispatch added, ”to warn the Duke most urgently once more against takingup the post.”Rivera was back from a second visit to Lisbon on July 22, and the next daythe German ambassador in Madrid duly reported on his findings in a ”mosturgent, top secret” telegram to Ribbentrop.He had two long conversations with the Duke of Windsor; at thelast one the Duchess was present also. The Duke expressed himselfvery freely . . . Politically he was more and more distant from theKing and the present British Government. The Duke and Duchesshave less fear of the King, who was quite foolish, than of the shrewdQueen, who was intriguing skillfully against the Duke and particularlyagainst the Duchess.The Duke was considering making a public statement . . . disavowing presentEnglish policy and breaking with his brother . . . The Duke and Duchess saidthey very much desired to return to Spain.To facilitate this, the ambassador had arranged with Suner, the telegramadded, to send another Spanish emissary to Portugal ”to persuade the Duke toleave Lisbon, as if for a long excursion in an automobile, and then to cross theborder at a place which has been arranged, where the Spanish secret police willsee that there is a safe crossing of the frontier,”Two days later the ambassador added further information from Rivera in an”urgent and strictly confidential” telegram to Ribbentrop.When he gave the Duke the advice not to go to the Bahamas, butto return to Spain, since the Duke was likely to be called upon toplay an important role in English policy and possibly to ascend theEnglish throne, both the Duke and Duchess gave evidence of astonishment.Both . . . replied that according to the English constitution