The former King Edward VIII exploded with rage when asked if had been offered a return to the English throne under Nazi rule, his interviewer has recalled.
Georg Stefan Troller, 103, spoke to the Duke of Windsor in 1966, thirty years after he abdicated so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
Mr Troller, who had fled Vienna as a Jewish refugee before the war, recalls in an upcoming Channel 4 documentary how he got ‘a little bit angry’ during the meeting, before asking a question he ‘shouldn’t have asked’.
In October 1937, Edward and Wallis caused great consternation with the Royal Family when they visited Nazi Germany, where they met Hitler and were cheered by crowds.
Aware of Edward’s previous Nazi sympathies, Mr Troller said he asked him if it was true he had been offered ‘something like the governorship of England’ if Hitler had won the war.
Edward ‘exploded’ with anger and refused to answer the question, Mr Troller recalls in Edward Vs George: The Windsors at War.
In a clip from the programme that has been shared exclusively with MailOnline, he goes on to add: ‘In my intimate feelings, I think it was true, and I think that he would have done it.’
His belief is backed up by Edward’s biographer Alexander Larman, who told MailOnline: ‘I think it is more likely than not that Edward would have accepted a return to the throne on Hitler’s terms, but we have no proof.’
The former King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson stand alongside Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during a visit to Germany in October 1937
Georg Stefan Troller, 103, spoke to the Duke of Windsor in 1966, thirty years after he abdicated so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson
Earlier in the interview, Edward – who lived with Wallis in an opulent Paris home – bristled when Mr Troller said he had spent three decades ‘in exile’.
He responded in fluent German: ‘…I am not exiled! Exiles are people who cannot return to their country. I can go back to England whenever I wish.’
The new documentary is based on Mr Larman’s book The Windsors at War: The Nazi Threat to the Crown.
Mr Larman told MailOnline: ‘There’s no real indication in any of the letters that I read that he was particularly happy about Nazi Germany’s defeat. He didn’t share everyone else’s joy.
‘He was obsessed by the communists and Russia; he saw the Second World War as having been mishandled and as opening the door to a greater conflict.’
He added: ‘I don’t think he was an actual Nazi. But he looked at Hitler and Germany and was very impressed by what he had done.
‘You have to see him as having Nazi sympathies.’
Mr Troller he interviewed Edward after agreeing to pay him and Wallis a fee of more than $1,000.
He says in the programme, which airs on Saturday: ‘Considering my own story, as a Jewish refugee from Vienna, lots of my family members had perished in the Holocaust.
The Duke of Windsor bristled when Mr Troller said he had been ‘in exile’ for thirty years. Above: The former king in the 1966 interview with Mr Troller
In October 1937, Edward and Wallis caused great consternation with the Royal Family when they visited Nazi Germany, where they met Hitler and were cheered by crowds. Above: Edward appears to perform a Nazi salute during his visit
‘I was a survivor. I wanted to know whether this man had really been on our side, or was it just a fake?
‘I got a little bit angry, and I asked a question I shouldn’t have asked: “Was it true that he, and his wife, had visited Hitler, that Hitler offered him, in case he won the war against England, something like the governorship of England?”
‘He exploded: “No, not this question. That’s not on our list. Forget about it. I will not answer.
“No, go away, please, thank you, goodbye…” I had the feeling of uncompleteness.
‘Yes I felt I had been thrown out. But I would have really have liked to know was it true? And in my intimate feelings, I think it was true, and I think that he would have done it.’
Edward and Wallis married in France at the opulent Chateau de Cande, which was owned by pro-Nazi businessman Charles Bedaux.
He had agreed to let them use the venue on the agreement that the couple would visit Nazi Germany, where Bedaux had business interests.
Historian Christopher Wilson tells Channel 4: ‘Edward was a bit of a fool. What he wanted to do was to show Wallis what it was like to be royal.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor walking down stairs alongside Adolf Hitler during their visit to Nazi Germany, October of 1937
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor seen arriving in Berlin, October 12, 1937
Edward VIII giving his abdication broadcast to the nation and the British Empire, December 11, 1936
‘He wanted the crowds out in the street, shouting for both of them.
‘And the only way that was going to happen was to go to Nazi Germany, where they would roll out the red carpet for him, willingly, happily.’
By 1937, Hitler, who was initially elected in 1933, had become a dictator in Germany, and tensions with Britain were rising.
During the quasi-royal visit, Edward was pictured seemingly performing a Nazi salute and meeting with both Hitler himself and other senior Nazi officials.
After the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Edward was stationed across the Channel with the British Military Mission to France, but was then sent to be the governor of the Bahamas.
The five-year posting was the last official role he performed for the British state.
The first episode of Edward Vs George: The Windsors at War airs on Saturday on Channel 4 at 9.15pm.
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