George VI and Alfred Rosenberg

George VI's younger brother Prince George Duke of Kent who died in a mysterious aircrash in August 1942 had frequently visited Nazi Germany and invited Nazi Ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and British Double Agent De Ropp to London in 1938 to brief him on Nazi Ideology so he could better inform King George VI 

"At the close of last year we received the message that the King of England has expressed himself to be very dissatisfied over the official press agency. The visit of the Duke of Kent to Munich (March 1937) had made matters still worse pertaining to the King's views on the press agency. Consequently we one day received the request from London to make possible that our English agent take a trip to London in order to orient the Duke of Kent in every detail pertaining to national socialism in order to convey this information to the King. R. went with me to London exactly as requested and there had an over three hour long unobserved conference with the Duke of Kent, who then conveyed this to the King of England. One can assume that this instruction has served its purpose and exerted a definite strengthening pressure for change of cabinet and head it in a direction of closer cordiality for Germany."

Source : Captured Nazi Foreign Office documents

George VI and the Most Noble Order of the Crusaders

One of the little known secret societies which sprung up in the 1920's in England was the Most Noble Order of the Crusaders, which was founded by a Colonel Walter Faber in 1921. Apart from the ruling council, the membership was secret and initates like freemasons identified each other by secret sign and symbols. One of the leading lights of the Crusaders was it's patron the Duke of York who attended the Sacred Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey on November 28th  1923.

The group shared the Duke's agenda of Class unity but it also had many fascist overtones and was strongly anti-communist and anti-trade union. Led by the Pro-Grand Master Colonel Faber who also initiated an annual eve of Derby fundraising dinner for the Conservative Party at the same time which was taken up by Maundy Gregory at his death in 1928. The group was designed to unite ex-servicemen on a 10th Crusade against the forces of evil which would be extinguished in a holy fire. The Order held services in Priory Churches in London, Temple, St Bartholomews, Southwark and set up groups across the Empire before affiliating with the Royal Society for St George and disappearing in 1941.  A very strange and odd secret society with a membership which included the Grand Scribe Arthur Paterson - author of  The Strike Weapon,  Grand Master Sir Archibald Boyd-Carpenter (Conservative Minister and MP 1918-37)   Grand Seneschal Major TH Hague, Grand Keeper of the Records General Sir Edward Bethune, Grand Keeper of the Chest  Colonel John Josselyn, Grand Custodian Captain Gee (Conservative Candidate for Newcastle East in 1923), and Grand Abbot Reverend F Murray Tapply of Twickenham.

 Featured in many pathe newsreels of the time and did a lot of charity work amongst other things...
Interestingly in June 1923, Walter Faber started his Annual Eve of Derby Dinners among his first guests to be invited to the Naval and Military Club on June 5th 1923 included: Major Oscar N Solbert (US Military Attache), Duke of Northumberland (founder of the Anti-Semitic Patriot and Owner of the Morning Post), Lord Younger (Tory Treasurer), Sir Reginald "Blinker" Hall, General Sir Edward Bethune (Grand Master of the Crusaders), Geoffrey Dawson (Times Editor and Cliveden Set), Captain Drummond (Presumably George Drummond of Drummonds Bank) Commander Greig (Wing Commander Sir Louis Greig) HA Gwynne (Editor of Observer) General Seeley (later Lord Mottistone)  and Sir Charles Wakefield (later Lord Wakefield - who was a member of the Duke of York's Industrial Welfare Society and had an official  representative of the merged St George/Crusaders at his funeral in 1941.
By the 1927 Faber Derby Dinner - J Maundy Gregory, JCC Davidson, Lord Mount-Temple, General Horwood and others were in attendance.

Churchill's Secret Enemy - Joseph Ball, John Bailey, & Henderson Transvaal

It appears that Sir Joseph Ball began to invest in South African Apartheid prior to his departure from Downing Street in 1940. As early as 1936 he was chairing the AGM of Sir Abe Bailey's Henderson Transvaal Estates before taking over. The Financial Times  (11th June 1936) show him boasting of South African profits and being listed as a being on the Board along with John MilnerBailey (Sir Abe Bailey's son) who would be a member of the Pro-Nazi Right Club in 1939 having been divorced from Winston Churchill's daughter Diana in 1935. Also on the board Mr W E Lawson-Johnson (presumably Lord Luke's younger son)
In his speech to investors Ball boasted: "The present era of prosperity is undoubtedly largely due to the high price of South Africa's prinicpal product -namely gold...It would be to deny that the adverse influence of unsettled conditions in europe may yet cause a setback to the economic progress and prosperity of the Union. But, excluding any unforeseeable international complications, there would seem to be no reason why, under the sound and sane government which now controls it's affairs South Africa should not continue the progress which it has achieved  during the past 3 years and why this company should not continue to enjoy it's share of increased prosperity."

Don't forget that the National Government of South Africa included Prime Minster Hertzog whose reforms in the 1920's & 1930's increased discrimination against Black Africans "In a sense, therefore, the discriminatory social and economic policies pursued by the Pact Government helped pave the way for the eventual establishment of the Apartheid state" including the deregistration of Black Africans in 1936. Hertzog refused to enter the Second World War on the British side  with Pro-Nazi Oswald Pirow he formed his own breakaway party NNP. Interestingly Hertzog thought highly of Neville Chamberlain and the reported the fact the Queen Mother in conversation.

His Majesty's Secret - Fascism and the Duke of York's Camps

King George VI was an passionate advocate of organised youth camps and from 1921 to 1939 sponsored and attended his boys camps held on the Romney Marsh in Kent and Southwold in Essex. There was even a camp at Southport in Lancashire and at Balmoral in Scotland. The key movers in this was the Industrial Welfare Society organised by the Reverend RH Hyde, Captain JG Paterson who was the Camp Commandant. Boys from public schools mixed with those from industrial towns and the camps were "mobilised" into 20 sections led by section leaders. In the 1929 camp one section leader was Lord Clydesdale, later known as the Duke of Hamilton who was appointed as George VI's Chief Stewart in 1940 when he was compelled to sack the Duke of Buccleuch because of the Duke's Pro-Nazi views. Interestingly Hamilton then known as Clydesdale was one of the first public schoolboys to attend the First Duke of York's Camp at Romney Marsh in 1921 organised by Louis Greig and then came back in 1929 as an organiser and in 1933 as a speaker to tell the boys all about his adventures on the Mount Everest Expedition of 1933 which had been sponsored by British Fascist funder Lady Houston  (on the Everest committee was Lord Wakefield, John Buchan, & the Master of Sempill - who helped Japan develop airpower) In the following year the Bursar for the camp was Mr I J Pitman (Issac James) who had married Lord Luke's (The Bovril King , and funder of Sir Joseph Ball's anti-semitic Truth) daughter. Pitman a rugby international would become a Tory MP after having appointed to the Bank of England in 1941. Over 8,000 boys attended camps, many RAF flyers attending as section leaders. In 1937 at a camp at Chatsworth, 10 German boys were invited who "apparently returned singing england's praises"(Rene Kraus - 1941.  The Men around Churchill)

The Duke of York ran a network of pro-fitness organisations in the 1920's such as the National Playing Field Association which included Ronald Waterhouse, Noel Curtis Bennett and Louis Greig. This move mirrored similar movements in Germany such as the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) movement of the Nazis which had been studied by Hamilton spouse Prunella Stack and mirrored the pro-fitness obsessions of the British Fascists. In January 1939 the Reverend Hyde advocated a German style Kraft durch Freude approach to fitness. In February King George VI met Nazi Fitness leader Doctor Ley when he came to London to attend the World Congress for Recreation and Leisure.

The last camp was held near Balmoral in 1939 and included the Royal Family.

His Majesty's Secret - George VI and Mussolini

King George VI actually met Benito Mussolini in 1930 on his visit to Rome when he was Duke of York. While attending the wedding of Prince Umberto, George VI is reported to have met with Mussolini and had a long talk, the details were confidential. The British Ambassador at the time was Lord Ronald Graham, a pro-fascist  and Pro-Nazi who became a key figure in the notorious anti semitic Right Club in 1939.

When George VI became King in 1937 his Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sponsored a secret backchannel to Mussolini via Italian Maltese Adrian Dingli, and the relationship with Mussolini was key to the four power pact at Munich in 1938. In January 1939 Chamberlain visited Rome to see Mussolini in person and in 1940 when US envoy Sumner Welles visited 10 Downing Street he found Neville Chamberlain had a signed photograph of Mussolini on his mantlepiece.
George VI's connections with Italian Royalty and Fascist Italy predate all of this when in 1923 King George V visited Rome, King Victor Emmanuel III visited England in 1924 and interestingly King George V seemed unalarmed to have a British Fascist guard on honour for his train.