By James Aitchison

He was born a British prince.  His father was Queen Victoria’s youngest, brightest son.  He was educated at Eton.  Lewis Carroll, a family friend, dubbed him a “perfect little prince”.  Yet he was denounced in Britain as a traitor, became a highly honoured member of the Nazi Party, and died of cancer in relative poverty in Coburg, Germany.

His life’s journey was one of conflicted loyalties, violent extremist views, and ultimately, humiliation.

Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was born into royal privilege in Surrey on 19 July 1884.  His grandfather, Queen Victoria’s husband, was Prince Albert, also of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.  In fact, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha remained the historic name of British royalty until 1917.

Charles Edward’s father, Prince Leopold, died before his son was born.  For his first fifteen years, he was brought up as a British prince.  A sickly, highly anxious child, Charles Edward was devoted to Queen Victoria and his only sibling Alice.  In fact, brother and sister were dubbed “Siamese twins”.  It seems the young boy was Victoria’s favourite grandchild and often visited the queen at Balmoral Castle.  Blue-eyed, handsome but highly strung, the young royal’s life was set to progress from Eton College to Oxford University.

But in 1899, when Charles Edward was only 15, that life changed forever.

With his German uncle Duke Alfred in ill health, Charles Edward was chosen to succeed him to the throne of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.  He moved to Germany with his mother and sister Alice.  He spoke little of the language but was deemed young enough to be re-educated as a “good German”.  Queen Victoria acknowledged in her diary that it was “hard upon the poor child having to be uprooted like this and it is naturally a great wrench for him”.  Despite his attempts to prove his loyalty to his newly adopted country, his close association with British royalty unsettled both his subjects and the German elite.  His English accent rankled, as did his choice of pets — Scottish Terrier dogs.

Soon, though, he fell under the influence of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, who was himself Queen Victoria’s eldest grandchild.  Wilhelm treated Charles Edward as one of his own family, even choosing him a bride, Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein.  The relationship then took on a darker aspect; the emperor saw Charles Edward as impressionable and was soon inculcating him with views of German nationalism and antisemitism.

At sixteen, on his uncle’s death, Charles Edward inherited the ducal throne of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.  A year later he attended Queen Victoria’s funeral wearing the uniform of the Prussian Hussars.  His mother and Alice returned to Britain in 1903, leaving him to struggle alone with life in his new homeland.  As the years progressed, Charles Edward became an absolute ruler, isolated from his subjects, enjoying life in his various estates and mingling with European nobles and British royalty. 

With the First World War looming, he confessed to Alice that he wanted to fight for Britain but was obliged to take Germany’s side.  Many Germans accused him of being a “half-Englishman”, forcing the duke to publicly denounce Britain and accuse it of attacking Germany. 

In 1917, fuelled by anti-German sentiment in Britain, King George V changed the Royal name to Windsor, fearing that the historic name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha made his family sound “too German”.

The British press branded Charles Edward a traitor peer.  In truth, he was a traitor because he had never formally become a German national.  King George V stripped him of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and his British property worth several million pounds was confiscated.

Post-war Germany was riven with social unrest.  Charles Edward considered himself a monarchist, but when Emperor Wilhelm was exiled, he sought other ways to support German nationalism.  He feared Communism and was horrified by the execution of the Russian royals. He began funding antisemitic nationalist groups.  In 1922, after hearing him speak, he became the first German noble to support Hitler.  By 1929 he was financially supporting the Nazi Party, increasing its power and prestige.  When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he officially joined the party and stated publicly that he would “blindly follow Hitler forever”. 

He was given a Wehrmacht general’s uniform, retained all his castles, and was appointed head of the German Red Cross.  The organisation soon became a tool of Nazi Party eugenicist policies.  One such scheme murdered 5,300 disabled children, another killed 70,000 people through gassing.  The German Red Cross transported victims, and Red Cross nurses were involved in the actual murders.  There is little doubt that Charles Edward knew about these atrocities.

He also performed diplomatic duties for Hitler; in 1934 he visited Emperor Hirohito in Japan to help secure an alliance with Germany.  He was the perfect pawn for Nazi attempts to cultivate pro-German sentiments amongst the British aristocracy.  (For one, Edward, Prince of Wales and briefly Edward VIII, had strong pro-German views.)  In 1940 he was despatched to meet President Roosevelt at the White House and assure him that the German Red Cross was protecting the welfare of the recently conquered Polish people.  Hitler was so impressed with Charles Edward that he considered making him King of Norway after the war.

With Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945, Charles Edward was interned and subjected to a denazification tribunal.  He maintained that “no German was guilty of any war crimes”.  His trial lasted four years, finally designating him “a follower of lesser guilt”.  His sister Alice spoke on his behalf.

Losing his properties and having to pay fines levied by the tribunal, he and his wife were reduced to living in a Coburg flat.  His ultimate humiliation came in 1953, when he was taken by ambulance to a cinema in Coburg to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.  He was reported as close to crying as he watched all his royal relatives, including his sister, in attendance at Westminster Abbey.  Had his life been different, he would have been there.

He died in his apartment on 6 March 1954 aged 69.  The Times called him “Hitler’s man”; the British royal family made no comment.  At his funeral, a Lutheran dean proclaimed, “Charles Edward was a good man who had been manipulated by others and mistreated by the Allies”.  His sister Alice shared that opinion. 

Historians debate this enigmatic man to this day.  Had Charles Edward Saxe-Coburg and Gotha supported Hitler to save Germany from Communism?  Or was he simply a man born to royalty who did nothing to risk losing his wealth and comfortable lifestyle?

Some described him as “a feeble man”, questioning whether “the trauma of being elevated to a dukedom and losing it had somehow robbed him of his ability to tell right from wrong”.

History shows he was not a naïve victim of circumstances but a very active supporter of Hitler.  We can only ponder his innermost fears and deepest motivations.