Hitler’s Favourite Royal

Hitler’s Favourite Royal covers the life of Prince Charles Edward was Queen Victoria’s youngest grandchild. Brought up in Claremont House and educated at Eton until he was 14, he was forced by his Grandmother to take up the Dukedom of Coburg in Germany after a series of unexpected deaths of uncles and cousins. Transformed overnight from a British Prince to a German Duke, the course of his life was altered in ways he could never have imagined as he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the advent of World War One Prince Charles Edward reluctantly fought for the German army once the war was over, he was stripped of his English titles (Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence, Baron Arklow) and his cousin George V’s Government branded him a traitor. A year later he lost his German titles as well, when Germany became a Republic. Depressed and disillusioned, he turned to far right politics which seemed to offer return to order and a new role for him. He became an enthusiastic early supporter of the emergent Nazi Party and unwittingly helped in Hitler’s rise to power. The British royal family had done everything they could to sever ties with the Germans. Now as President of the Anglo-German fellowship (a royal spokesman for Hitler and the Nazis) Charles Edward did everything he could to cement them and convince the British Government that Hitler was an ally. Charles Edward’s support for Hitler remained undiminished as War approached and he became linked to more sinister activities. While he was becoming more deeply embroiled with the Nazi Party, his oldest sister, Princess Alice, lived the life he should have had – a pillar of the British Royal family who was loved and adored by her public and relations, including our present queen. With the first ever interviews with his family, this film follows the extraordinary and tragic story of the little English prince who turned Nazi compared and contrasted with his sister’s dutiful life at the centre of the British Establishment.