Churchill Tried to Cover Up Nazi Plan to Woo Former King

  • Telegrams to Berlin reported disloyal comments by Edward
  • Eisenhower said he wanted to keep the documents secret

Winston Churchill

Photographer: Keystone/Getty Images
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Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower tried to suppress captured Nazi documents that showed Britain’s former King Edward VIII discussing his desire for peace with Adolf Hitler, according to files newly released in London.

The National Archives published more papers Thursday from the U.K. government’s secret basement storeroom in the Cabinet Office where papers deemed “too difficult, too sensitive” for the regular filing system were hidden away. They include a 1953 memo from Churchill, marked “top secret,” explaining the existence of a series of German telegrams carrying reports of comments by the Duke of Windsor, as Edward VIII was known after he abdicated in 1936.