On 15 October, the Duke and Duchess woke up in Essen after taking a night train. They visited the Krupp’s Armaments Factory, but Wallis, as a woman, was not allowed inside the factory. The Duke went inside to see the enormous Hindenburg Hall with working spaces for 3,500 men building locomotives. Wallis was taken to the tower of the office building and was being entertained with tea by Frau Bertha Krupp von Behlen und Halbach at the Krupp estate.
Later that day, they were the guests of honour at a reception given by the president of the Rhine province. They also visited a mine, where the Duke insisted on going down the shaft to see the conditions for himself. Dressed in miner’s clothing, he descended the 1,500 feet down a series of steel ladders. The German engineer who went down with him praised his knowledge of mines. When he re-appeared covered in grime, he told reporters, “I hope these photographs do not appear. We’ll never be received in polite society again.”1 In fact, one did appear in a later edition of the New York Times and can be seen here. The Duke is on the far right.
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A spooky picture, it looks as if they are intimidated. Who is holding the Duke’s shoulder ? Robert Ligthelm
I’m afraid I don’t know. The description given just says, “The Duke and Duchess of Windsor during their visit to Germany.”
Guy on left looks, at least from the back like his father’s first cousin Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and formerly also of Albany.