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Netflix’s ‘The Crown’ Has Scrubbed Nearly All Nazi References, Including Nazi Sympathizing Royals

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 17:06 PST, Jan 24, 2017

Netflix’s The Crown has done an amazing job at telling the story of Queen Elizabeth, starting with her time as Princess Elizabeth, but there is a certain uncomfortable aspect of the history that the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, nearly ignored, and that was the flirtation with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The Duke of Windsor, King Edward VIII and his wife, the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Warfield Simpson, both had an infatuation with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, and Prince Philip had changed his last name to Mountbatten to shake off the Germanic hint of Battenberg that his sisters embraced, as they allegedly “married Nazis.”

The royal family’s issues with Wallis Simpson were many, including the fact that she was American, divorced, and the reason why Edward VIII (known to family as David) abdicated the throne, says the Inquisitr. But history tells us that she was also fond of Adolf Hitler and did not have any issues with the Nazi views about Jews and others who didn’t fit in his Aryan ideal.

Even the royal family tried to dodge the taint of a German background, changing their name from Hanover to the more anglicized Windsor. But while other unpleasant things were at least addressed, King Edward VIII’s “friendship” with Hitler was just ignored, says the Daily Beast. David, as the Duke of Windsor was called by his family, was portrayed as a bit of a whiny fop who wanted to make sure he got his payday and was able to continue to live in the royal manner he was accustomed to. The Daily Beast said that “In The Crown, he [Duke of Windsor] appears as a cross between a tailor’s dummy and a drawling, embittered old toff that the family called David.”

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But nowhere was there a mention of David’s relationship and admiration of Adolf Hitler, or the Nazi plan to kidnap David (assuming he consented), and releasing him after Germany had taken hold of England. David had always been close to the still German side of the family, and that is how he was introduced to Hitler early on. In time, David was thought to be a “useful idiot” to spread Nazi propaganda. In 1937, David and Wallis Simpson went to visit Berlin and were greeted with cheers from the streets.

“Heil Windsor!” and “Heil Edward!”

David and Wallis referred to this as their “royal goodwill trip to Nazi Germany” without a touch of irony.

In the first season of Netflix The Crown, there is a snide one-liner at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip about his sisters marrying Nazis, but the royals all move on, and there is no other mention. It only comes up because the sisters, and their Nazi husbands, have taken a pass on attending the wedding, says Bustle.

Prince Philip had four sisters, Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie, and all were reportedly unwelcome at the big event because of their ties to the Third Reich. The wedding was just after World War II, and the feeling about Nazi and even Germans were not fond. Prince Philip’s sisters were all married back into German nobility, which made them unwelcome in England.

In 2006, Prince Philip finally spoke of his family’s German connections but said that he personally was never aware of any of them disliking Jews.

“There was a sense of hope after the depressing chaos of the Weimar Republic. I can understand people latching on to something or somebody who appeared to be appealing to their patriotism and trying to get things going. You can understand how attractive it was.”

Prince Philip’s sister Sophie had the closest contact to the Nazi party, as she was married to Prince Christoph of Hesse, a high-ranking SS officer. Sophie had joined the Nazi Women’s Auxiliary, and the couple was photographed entertaining Hitler.

As a side note, the creator Netflix The Crown, Peter Morgan had a personal connection to that time in history, as his father, a German Jew named Morgenthau, fled Nazi Germany for England, says the New Yorker. His mother, who fled Poland, was an “ardent royalist,” and Peter Morgan always thought of Queen Elizabeth as a “maternal figure.”

Why do you think the Nazi connections were removed from Netflix The Crown?

[Featured Image by Keystone/Getty Images]

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