How Do We Feel About DOW?

[Brian Sheridan]

This group of LIFE pics of the stylish Duke of Windsor (http://images.google.com/images?q=duke+of+windsor&q=source:life)
got me thinking -- what do we think about this guy?

Sharp dresser yes! Great romantic, of course! But what about the whole fascism thing? Not bad enough to be an issue and can be overlooked? Bad enough to say that I loved his clothes but he is no role model?

Chime in...

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I feel

a bit like there is a new thread about him every day!

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=36118


lol




*please note this is humour, not griping.

 

[dhermann1]

His father, King George V was qouted as saying that Edward would "ruin himslef" within six months of becoming king. He was not far wrong.
But I don't think the accusations of out and out fascism are fair. He was too self involved and shallow to have political ideas of that sort.
You can call him a cad, or a cluck. When he was POW he presented a very sympathetic character, and I think he deeply DIDN'T want to be king.
Upper class twit of the century might be a good verdict.
But he sure did know how to dress!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm inclined to agree with the above -- he was basically a good-time-Eddie, a real-life Bertie Wooster without the sense of self-mockery, and absolutely without the strength of character necessary to be King. His abdication was likely the best thing to happen to Britain in the 20th Century.

 

[Bourbon Guy]

Style over substance

I posted this once before. Here it is again:

I have never understood what anyone admired about that man. Minutes after his father (the king) died, the Duke ordered that all his father's dogs be taken from the kennel and shot, nearly 100 of them, including some pregnant bitches. It has been reported that either he was angry because the king would not permit him to marry a divorce', or that the Duke hated the dogs because they drooled on his shoes. At any rate, it is only because the gamekeeper secretly saved some puppies that the Clumber Spaniel escaped destruction as a breed that night.

He couldn't even do the deed himself, but ordered his gamekeeper to do it. What a man!

 

[Dexter'sDame]

Source of dog info please?

fftopic: What's the source of the information about the dog shooting, please? Having read many books on Wallis and Edward (books both sympathetic and anti), including some making extensive use of official archival material, I've not come upon that story.

Not saying it couldn't have happened...But it doesn't fit his personality profile. The story does, however, sound like the anti-Edward propganda that was put out at the time by people who were upset by the abdication and its effect on Royal traditions.

Edward and Wallis, as detailed by their personal letters, had many beloved dogs over the years that they referred to as their "children" and even had on their property in France a small memorial area where the "children" were laid to rest after their passings...complete with memorial plaques. W&E also had sofa pillows depicting all the dogs' portraits.

Back on topic, as for my own feelings about W&E, I'm with the crowd that thinks Edward was probably too self-absorbed to have a large enough interest in politics to be a facist. It was, sadly, a trendy thing at the time for the glitteratti to meet Hitler and Mussolini because they were "powerful" and "important". The majority of them were fools who had no clue; it was just the "in" thing to do.

Regardless, it's a fascinating story from all angles. You couldn't make it up and have it sell in Hollywood (wouldn't be "believable" enough)!

 

[Tomasso]

How Do We Feel About DOW?

The man sure could wear a hat!

Seriously, I would have abdicated as well if forced into that chapeau.

 

[Tomasso]

fftopic: What's the source of the information about the dog shooting, please?

I second the request. Never heard that.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

The man sure could wear a hat!

Seriously, I would have abdicated as well if forced into that chapeau.

Good thing we aren't devoted to that type of hat. We'd be known as "The Bearskin Lounge"!

 

[Dr Doran]

My usual stance on this issue:

I have no deep-seated need for a person to fit my politics, or my stance on animal treatment, in order for me to feel some interest or even admiration for other parts of his personality. None whatsoever.

I do not like what I occasionally, or often, see, which is an all-or-nothing approach in regards to admiring or despising people, historical and otherwise. I understand why people do it if e.g. the Zapatistas killed their wife, of course.

But with more distant things ... no one I know admires Celine's wartime turn, but many people including myself will admire his writing for being completely, shockingly new, and remarkable in how it penetrated the depth of the human character, leaving nothing unsaid or too holy to say, the unadulterated pessimism mixed with hilarious humor from time to time. Plus, he was a doctor for poor people in Paris.

I don't find much to admire in Hitler -- quite the reverse -- but in the beginning of Mein Kampf he displays a genuine concern for wives battered by their husbands and the horridly crowded material living conditions that force the poor to be in such proximity to each other so that, rather than being able to withdraw to a dressing room when they are cross with each other as wealthier people can, they must confront each other in an angry state and this leads to violence. He also saw drunkenness contributing to this, and never drank partly, perhaps, because of the sympathy he felt for wives beaten thusly.

A glimmer of decency exists in the worst people and plenty of nastiness in some of the best.

If the dog story about the Duke is true, that's pretty bad; but to dismiss people for an attraction to Fascism means we must also dismiss other people for an attraction to Stalinism and even to Communism as it has played out in 20th century regimes. This means dismissing an absolutely huge number of twentieth-century intellectuals who have contributed a great deal to scholarship and letters. I can easily, very easily imagine how attractive both of these systems would be, especially to a naive person, especially in their inception in the early "Golden Era."

I can see how Communism could have seemed attractive to some people if the international monetary system seemed to have gone kaput, if Communism's stance of anti-racism and its downplaying of nationalism and ethnic matters were particularly important to an individual thinker because of what he had seen or experienced, if the romance of workers' unity was terribly attractive and if the only way to stop imperialism overseas and exploitation at home and overseas seemed to be through a worldwide socialist revolution.

And I can also see how Communism could, to many people, have seemed a terrible threat -- the destruction of national borders, for god's sake, the control of local affairs by someone in Russia -- and how Fascism might have seemed the only movement vital enough to combat it. A union between the manufacturers, the government, and the workers, a national socialism, in other words a form of socialism that respected a nation, its own borders (but not others'), that played up, rather than downplayed, the history and culture of the ethnic group that lived there. "Without Herr Hitler, the Reds will come west and rape our women and take our property and we'll be servants of the Soviets, or we'll get shot like what happened over there in 1917." (Cue picnic scene from Cabaret in which the wealthy bisexual German industrialist says that the aristocrats can 'control' Hitler.)

 

[Bourbon Guy]

I second the request. Never heard that.

Read it several places long ago. It's part of the history of the Clumber Spaniel breed. Been looking for it on the net, but haven't come up with a source with any detail yet, except for this general retelling of it:

http://www.clumberspaniel.pl/history.htm

It isn't the kind of history they are going to post on Sandringham's web site. However, it does seem consistent with the self-centered egotism that would lead a man to abandon the duty he was born to. Not exactly Rick Blaine at the airport, now was he?

 

[Bourbon Guy]

Here's another reference to it with a bit more detail, and an anecdote which may explain his antipathy toward the breed:

http://www.assisiclumberspaniels.com/breedarticle.cfm

 

[katiemakeup]

I'm inclined to agree with the above -- he was basically a good-time-Eddie, a real-life Bertie Wooster without the sense of self-mockery, and absolutely without the strength of character necessary to be King. His abdication was likely the best thing to happen to Britain in the 20th Century.

Right. I have always admired his style and of course, Wallace Simpson's. Definately scene stealers. I've always assumed it would be complete mayhem if the press/tabloids behaved back then, as they do now... As I understand, the British press are quite ruthless and would have had a field day, more so than the coverage we have all seen and heard about those two.

 

[Tomasso]

So I need to add Puppykiller to this..........

 

[Bourbon Guy]

It would seem so.

 

[Dexter'sDame]

My journalism professor: "Source it please"

Thank you Bourbon Guy. But with all due respect, regarding the puppy killing, my old journalism professor would have said "Sources please" (meaning, the source the student supplied was not deemed reliable enough, or the student neded more first-hand sources.) IMHO, one unsourced blurb appearing on two websites just doesn't stack up over volumes of books from both sides.

But if you want to hate the guy over it, you're certainly entitled to your opinion too.

As for the photo of them meeting Hitler, I don't condone or agree with any of their actions, but it is important to consider the times and how socially uninformed the people in the photo were. They weren't part of the informed intellectual set at the time; they were too busy going to parties to pay attention, or even to think beyond their own small bubble. "Social injustice? What? How do you spell that, dear?"

Shaking hands with Hitler was what the most shallow, socially uniformed glitteratti did at the time, because they wanted to rack up lists of "powerful" people they'd met. Some of the most shallow of their set wanted to meet Hitler simply because of his aesthetics: they liked the innovative design and architecture of his buildings and the lighting of Leni Riefenstahl's films. Many of them, such as Elsie de Wolfe (aka Lady Mendl), were later appalled at themselves.

Wallis and Edward, were in my estimation, no different than any of the other self-absorbed glitteratti of the day. Edward may have had the advantage of advisors warning him against it, but those briefings were delivered by people who never wanted him to be king, so it was easy for him to just ignore their advice and do what was "in" within his social circle.

 

[Bourbon Guy]

With all due respect, Dame, I don't have to prove anything to you or anyone else. I'm not a journalist writing a story. I've given you two sources, one of which has names to check. Beyond that, do your own searches.

Anecdotes like the one I related are always difficult to prove. They are just as difficult to prove as the stories about dead celebrities in the nature of who said what to whom at the club in 1939.

Admire whomever you want, and be known by it.