At Armed Forces Press, we just ran a feature last month aiming to raise awareness about the historically buried and shocking British royal / Nazi duke trip across the US in Spring 1940, with hundreds of American elites visiting him at events, while the US was still neutral in WWII. That article links to a documentation webpage with seized and declassified US and Nazi German intelligence. Awfully, it was put forth that after WWII, it was not only that the Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha was a big Nazi, but he was also associated with the policy to exterminate the mentally ill and physically disabled.
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See "US Elites Behaving Badly: The Shocking Tour Of A British Royal / Hitler Ally Across America In Spring 1940" at Armed Forces Press.
See "Info About US Bad Actors & Nazi Looted Art? A Call To Declassify The Nazi-era Naval Intelligence For The San Francisco District (1933-42)". The intelligence likely includes details about the dodgy Duke and badly behaving Americans allied to the Nazi regime for business purposes, etc.
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Shockingly, over the weekend in a web search, I stumbled upon that Mt. Vernon, the treasured home of George Washington in Virginia south of DC, listed this genocidal duke among their selected "famous" visitors, with no further text.
A number of people around me also found this deeply disturbing.
I sent these two emails to a number of their senior staff members including their historian CEO, SVP of fundraising (development), library director, chief curator, VP of education, and VP of media / comm, to make sure this would receive administrative attention.
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On Monday, the webpage was taken down. I suppose this was, what the far left calls "a teaching moment", even for Mt. Vernon's esteemed historians. But I, the teacher in this case, STILL have not received a reply. (So the org's grade is a C-.)
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There's just one problem still— the Nazi duke is STILL listed on the Mt Vernon website, in a pdf of their document showing "Notable Visitors to Mount Vernon: A Compiled List of Important Visitors at Mount Vernon Post 1799, After the Death of George Washington selected famous visitors", in the section "Mount Vernon Staff Reports" (p. 80 of the 86 page document).
"Notable". "Important". The dodgy Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha?
I'll leave this article here to prompt a second teaching moment for the esteemed historians at Mt. Vernon. Do a web search "Gotha" on your website! (Maybe a reader or two might alert them.)
At the top of the document, we see that the list was compiled in 1997-2019 by a research historian and updated by a research library intern in 2024. So much for gatekeeping. It is unclear when the Nazi duke was added to the list, and there is no internet archive record of both website pages.
My teaching moment includes, as seen in my second email, clear guidance for Mt Vernon staff to learn more about the Nazi duke's visit to Mt. Vernon in March 1940, presumably with an entourage of Nazi German officials that were with the duke on numerous other visits.
In addition to the duke, we don't know who was at the Mt. Vernon visit and why. A few could have been informal US military spies or actual ones, in addition to the pack of Nazis. The Mt Vernon stakeholders at that time, some of them, could have been pro-Nazi, as a number in the DC social set were, or not. This would require deeper research.
RIGHT: Alleged seductress, recruiter of American Nazi agents, and wife of the "Head of Gestapo" for the US, Lelo Scholz, here spotlighted in The Washington Herald on December 23, 1937. LEFT: Oh, that's just Lelo's father, a businessman and socialite also with American ties, convicted for gruesome Nazi war crimes at his Nuremberg Trial.
I wonder if Frau Herbert Scholz, nicknamed "Lelo" and darling in the DC society pages accompanied the Nazi duke to Mt Vernon. She and her husband, "head of Gestapo for the US" travelled all the way from Boston to meet the duke and attend the celebratory parties.
But one thing is certain, the esteemed historians at Mt. Vernon, that overlooked this cock-up could 'fess up, SHOW us, not tell us, how long the genocidal duke has been put forth as "famous". They also should apologize to George Washington and admit that in this instance, it was THEY that chopped down the mythical cherry tree, instead of just someone deleting the webpage and staying quiet.
A Teaching Moment?
They also should use this as an opportunity to help raise awareness to this history as I have, and use this to provide a teaching moment to others in America. Plus who knows, maybe the site was an exciting spot, movie-like even, of US spying on the Nazi entourage. Let's even hope that the Mt. Vernon staff were involved, watching every move and informing the FBI, to catch out the dodgy duke and any badly behaving Americans.
All records at Mt. Vernon about the duke's visit should be made public as well. I, for example, certainly would welcome reviewing them.
It's what George Washington would have wanted, cherry tree and all, right?
