Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld

Prince Bernhard married the heir to the Dutch throne, flew with the RAF against the country he was born in, and was disgraced at sixty-four for taking money from an aircraft manufacturer. He was a minor German noble who had joined the Nazi party's motor corps and the SS riding unit as a student - facts he spent his life minimising and which were confirmed from his own papers after his death - and he married Princess Juliana in 1937. When Germany invaded in 1940 he sent his family to Britain and Canada, stayed to organise resistance at the palace, and then went to England, learned to fly, and flew Spitfires and bombers with the RAF. He was made commander of the Dutch forces of the interior in 1944 and accepted the German surrender of the Netherlands at Wageningen in 1945. That war record made him genuinely popular. Afterwards he became a professional intermediary - founder of the Bilderberg conferences, first president of the World Wildlife Fund, board member and lobbyist across Dutch industry - and in 1976 an American investigation established that he had accepted more than a million dollars from Lockheed to promote its aircraft to the Dutch air force. A commission of inquiry found the conduct proven. He was stripped of his military posts and forbidden to wear uniform, Juliana threatened to abdicate if he was prosecuted, and he was not. He lived another twenty-eight years, gave a final interview to be published after his death, and admitted most of it. His daughter Beatrix became queen in 1980 and reigned for thirty-three years. He kept a private aircraft and flew until he was in his eighties. The Lockheed affair also brought down governments in Japan and Italy and led directly to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.

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