The Nazi relative that the Royals disowned

The Nazi relative that the Royals disowned

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The scene was one of devastation and squalor.

At a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, in the weeks following the death of Hitler and the fall of the Third Reich, a 60-year-old man, crippled by arthritis, stumbled painfully round a rubbish dump.

He scrabbled in the rotting refuse until he discovered an old tin can. Starving, he pulled up grass to add to the thin soup his American captors allowed him for sustenance.

No one looking at him would have believed that this forlorn figure had once been one of the richest and highest-ranking men in Britain, a royal duke, the grandson of Queen Victoria, a Knight of the Garter, and the first cousin of kings and emperors.

Ostracized: Prince Charles Edwards, a German duke, was branded a 'traitor peer' in Britain

Against his own wishes, fate had exiled him to a land where he never chose to live and placed him on the losing side in two World Wars.

Now he was a prisoner, ostracized by his royal relations and branded a traitor to his country.

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I can't say that I am surprised that Great Britain's Royal family would want to perpetuate the obscurity of this particular individual.

I am rather incredulous to the fact that I have never heard of him before though.

One can't help but find this story at least mildly interesting, especially when bearing in mind that in 1900, Queen Victoria forced the reluctant 16 year old prince to leave England and assume the position of Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the German principality from which the Queen's husband Albert had come.

Prince Charles Edward's granddaughter Victoria was quoted as saying: "He didn't know anything about Germany. He couldn't even speak the language. He didn't want to go".

But Queen Victoria would have none of that and sent him off to claim his title and fortune.

Only later to be scorned and vilified by the British Royals as a convicted Nazi!

It would appear that this would be best described now as a conspiracy of silence.

I would assume that you folks in the U.K. are more familiar with this individual's history.

One final offering and I suppose I will allow this thread to sing it's swan song.

It would appear that Charles Edward was a rather prominent Nazi being a member of the Sturmabteilung(SA) or "Stormtroopers" a paramilitary division of the party as well as being the head of the German Red Cross and serving as president of the Anglo-German Friendship Society after being appointed by Hitler.

According to the British Chanel 4 documentary titled "Hitler's Favorite Royal" (Dec. 6 2007) on this subject, he was aware of the euthanasia program that killed 100,000 disabled people in Germany.

It is astounding to consider that he was so thoroughly assimilated into German society/culture that he could so flippantly accept the murder of handicapped people.

Was this callous attatude facilitated perhaps by his being raised as a "Royal" and feeling no empathy or connection to the common man???

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