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The tales of the 'mad, mad Mitford girls', raised eccentrically in a rambling country manor, have long provoked nostalgia for a lost English way of life. Behind the froth, however, is the real story. Their biographer, Mary Lovell, gives a shocking account of how obsession, tragedy and a gunshot destroyed the golden days.
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On the first Sunday morning in September, 1939, millions of Britons heard on their radios that war had been declared on Germany. In Munich, a young English aristocrat - a tall, blonde, blue-eyed woman of impeccable Aryan appearance - also heard the news.
She went to the city's beautiful Englischer Garten beside the River Isar, where once she had sunbathed naked. She took out her pearl-handled revolver and shot herself in the head.
Once her identity had been established, Adolf Hitler was immediately informed. A news blackout was clamped onto the incident. Not even her parents were told.
The woman's name was Unity Mitford. She was one of the Mitford Girls: the six beautiful and able upper-class sisters - Nancy, Pam, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah in order of birth - whose exploits and achievements fascinated, and sometimes appalled, the British during the 1930s and 1940s, and whose books delighted the country during later decades.
The winter of 1939-40 was a bleak point in their lives. Unity was one of the most notorious figures of her day, "the English Nazi who loved Hitler". Another sister, Diana, was arguably the most hated woman in Britain for a while for her own links to Hitler and fascism. A third, Jessica, caused a scandal at the other end of the political spectrum as a communist. Imprisonment, death and marital strife overshadowed the family.
Six decades later, when there is anxiety about a surge of political extremism in Britain, new material that has come to light about the tragic experiences of the Mitfords is a reminder that such beliefs have deep roots in the fabric of British society. What the material also reveals, though, is how the sparkle of the Mitford sisters survived adversity during the war that started 62 years ago this weekend.
The Mitford girls were brought up - with a brother, Tom - near the Cotswold village of Swinbrook in Oxfordshire. Their pre-war childhood was one of private languages, family jokes and endless nicknames.
Their parents, Lord and Lady Redesdale - David Freeman Mitford and his wife Sydney - were honest, well-meaning, salt-of-the-earth, slightly eccentric, socially retiring minor aristocrats; thoroughly nice people who, because of their extraordinary daughters, were propelled unwillingly, blinking and unprepared, into an international spotlight.
Their eccentricities were later captured in Nancy's sparkling bestselling novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, for which she drew largely upon her family for characters.
Until I had read papers and correspondence not previously seen outside the family, and could draw on personal interviews, I did not realise how quickly or how completely the mirth of the sisters' childhood disintegrated into conflict, private passions and tragedies. Their father - previously a vigorous, handsome figure - was a broken man by the end of the second world war as a result of the family's vicissitudes.
Political strife entered his household in the early 1930s after the older sisters had left home and the younger ones gazed out at the world beyond the Cotswolds. Jessica, always known as Decca in the family, saw the injustices of the great depression and became a socialist at 13. Unity, three years older, moved towards a different form of depression-era politics - fascism.
Their ideological differences did not reduce the girls' affection for each other. Decca later wrote, in an unpublished tribute, that Unity had "a huge bright glittering personality, a sort of huge boldness and funniness and generosity - a unique character that is hard to explain to anybody who did not know her in those days. She was tremendous fun to be with."
As a debutante, Unity took her pet white rat Ratular to dances and even to a palace garden party. She would sit stroking it, almost daring young men to speak to her. Sometimes Ratular was left at home in favour of her grass snake, Enid, who performed as an unusual neck ornament. When either of these pets escaped - which was whenever Unity felt that things needed to be livened up - there was a huge amount of shrieking.
Unity was tall and not unattractive; she had her own little court of admirers, but nobody "stuck". She was too unusual: she needed to stand out, to draw attention to herself, to be accounted as someone in her own right, not simply one of the middle Mitford girls.
As Unity and Decca egged each other on, a line was drawn down the centre of their sitting room, and it became a miniature battleground of contradictory political fervour, with posters of Hitler and Lenin adorning opposite walls, swastikas, hammers and sickles scratched into the windows.
Diana, four years older than Unity, was also seeking an answer to political questions. Married to the heir to one of Britain's greatest fortunes, Bryan Guinness, she did not accept that the rich had to be brought down in order to raise the poor. In the spring of 1932, she met the dashing and dangerous Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. Despite their both being already married, she fell madly in love with him.
To anyone who lived through the second world war, Mosley's name has a sinister ring. But a decade before the war he was admired, feted and listened to with respect. When Diana listened to his stirring ideas, the missing piece in her own political conundrum seemed to fall into place. Unity, too, fell under his mesmeric influence. She referred to him as "The Leader" - and her allegiance to fascism became as deep, fulfilling and enduring as was Diana's emotional attachment to Mosley.
In the summer of 1933, Diana took Unity on holiday to Bavaria. She wanted to find out more about the new German chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Unity, 19, was not yet wholly committed to fascism - indeed John Betjeman, who knew her reasonably well, thought she was more interested in film stars and the cinema. But a streak of obsessive behaviour in her character, which might have made her ultra-religious had she leant towards the church, now fastened instead on Nazism.
The two blonde young women obtained tickets to privileged seats for the first Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, which had a major effect on both of them. Back in England, their father erupted when Unity gaily told him about the rally. "I suppose you know without being told," he wrote to Diana, "how absolutely horrified Muv [mother] and I were to think of you and Bobo [Unity] accepting hospitality from people we regard as a murderous gang of pests."
He was also furious when Diana divorced her husband in order to be with Mosley, whom he detested. He wrote Mosley's name on a slip of paper and locked it in a drawer: he believed strongly that this practice would bring an enemy to grief.
Unity took to appearing in Swinbrook's only shop and throwing up her hand in a smart Nazi salute before ordering a twopenny chocolate bar. She also began a determined campaign to persuade her parents to let her spend a year abroad in Germany. Her older sisters had gone to France to polish up their French, which Unity refused to consider.
Since her mother had spent some years trying to get the bored and rebellious Unity interested in anything at all, she probably regarded this as a new and positive attitude in this lovable but difficult daughter. She learnt of a Baroness Laroche who operated a sort of informal finishing-school for English girls in Munich. Nobody could have foreseen the tragedy that resulted from the Redesdales' decision to allow Unity to go there.
It was a subtly changed Unity who returned to Swinbrook from Germany for the summer. Photographs show that she had a poise and a singular beauty. She and Decca squabbled as usual about politics, but they sat down cheerfully afterwards to discuss what they would do should either of them have to give orders for the execution of the other.
Unity returned to Germany, determined to meet the Führer. She scanned the newspapers for his movements and made friends with some of the guards at the Brown House (the Nazi party headquarters in Munich) to find out when Hitler was expected. When he appeared she made small attempts to be noticed, such as dropping her book. Eventually this paid off. Hitler became used to seeing the tall, Nordic-looking girl - often alone - sitting in the same seat every time he visited the Osteria Bavaria, where he often lunched, and saw that her attention was fixed constantly on him.
To her huge delight he began to nod to her sometimes as he passed her table. Eventually he asked the restaurant owner who she was.
February 9, 1935, was, Unity wrote to her father, "the most wonderful and beautiful of my life". About 10 minutes after she arrived at the Osteria, she wrote, Hitler spoke to the owner and the two men glanced across at her. The owner walked over and said, "The Führer would like to speak to you."
"I sat and talked for about half an hour . . . I can't tell you of all the things we talked about . . . I told him he ought to come to England and he said he would love to but he was afraid there would be a revolution if he did."
He signed a postcard to her, writing in German: "To Fräulein Unity Mitford as a friendly memento of Germany and Adolf Hitler." Then he pocketed the slip of paper on which she had written her name for him to copy, and left after instructing the manager to put Unity's meal on his bill.
Her diary reveals that, between their first meeting in June 1935 and September 1939, on the eve of war, she and Hitler met and talked on 140 occasions - an average of about once every 10 days, remarkable when one considers what Hitler's schedule must have been like in those years.
So quickly did Unity find a place as a friend of Hitler that, within months, when members of her family visited her, she introduced them to him without any difficulty.
A meeting between Hitler and her mother was something of an embarrassment to Unity. Over tea at the Carlton tea rooms in Munich, Unity translated a lecture by her mother about the value of wholemeal bread. In fact, Hitler was something of a health-food fanatic and probably agreed about the bread. Lady Redesdale thought him very well-mannered.
Unity soon gave her family every reason to feel aggrieved, however. She wrote a letter to Der Stürmer, a publication owned and edited by Julius Streicher, the gauleiter of Franconia, a region he purged not only of Jews, but of all non-Aryans. He made a party of Jews clear a meadow by tearing out the grass with their teeth.
"As a British woman fascist," Unity wrote, "I should like to express my admiration for you. I have lived in Munich for a year and read Der Stürmer every week. If only we had such a newspaper in England! The English have no notion of the Jewish danger . . . Our worst Jews work only behind the scenes. They never come into the open, and therefore we cannot show them to the British public in their true dreadfulness.
"We hope, however, that you will see that we will soon win against the world enemy, in spite of all his cunning. We think with joy of the day when we shall be able to say with might and authority: England for the English! Out with the Jews! With German greeting, Heil Hitler! Unity Mitford.
"PS: If you find room in your newspaper for this letter, please publish my name in full . . . I want everyone to know that I am a Jew-hater."
Streicher invited her to a midsummer festival where, dressed in a military-style black shirt and her favourite gauntlet gloves, she was treated as an honoured guest and gave a speech. It was widely covered in the British press under headlines such as The Girl Who Adores Hitler and Peer's Daughter is Jew Hater, illustrated with photographs of Unity giving a Nazi salute. Her parents were appalled.
Unity began living more or less permanently in a flat in Munich, waiting to be invited by Hitler to join him for lunch, tea or dinner - sometimes in his flat. "The greatest moment in my life," she told a friend, "was sitting at Hitler's feet and having him stroke my hair."
Diana joined her for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and, when the games ended, they were driven to the Wagner festival at Bayreuth, in a Mercedes provided by Hitler. The relationship progressed to a stage where they could even hector him gently. At one luncheon party, he sat with Unity on one side and Diana on the other while they "attacked" him for appointing Ribbentrop as ambassador to London.
Such lèse majesté did not go down well with Nazi officials who were always on their guard in the presence of Hitler. Nobody ever contradicted him. For these two "over made-up British women" to do so did not make them popular.
Hitler appeared to enjoy their company, however. In their presence he could be tempted into one of his party pieces, either an elaborate pantomime of himself carefully rolling and smoking a cigarette, or an impersonation of Mussolini strutting and bellowing and receiving a ceremonial sword, which he flourished dramatically.
Back in London, the sisters' parents had a crisis on their hands. In February 1937, they had both lovingly settled 19-year-old Decca into her seat in the train on the first leg of what was supposed to be a holiday in Normandy. Two weeks later they discovered that she had eloped with her cousin Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill's radically left-wing nephew, and was trying to reach Spain to support the republicans in the civil war.
Coming on top of Diana's divorce and marriage to Mosley and Unity's obsession with Hitler, the defection of this much-loved daughter had a devastating effect on their father. What was to be a rapid physical decline appears to date from this point. Hurrying back to the family's London home - in Rutland Gate, Knightsbridge - Unity found him clumsily making pots of tea for her mother as both endured sleepless nights on end.
Unity wrote to Decca that she had discussed her elopement with Hitler. "He asked me to go to tea with him and I followed his car to his flat and sat with him for 2 hours alone, chatting. He wanted to hear all about you."
Decca, who was pregnant, married Esmond. Her mother attended the ceremony, but not her father. The day he had put her on the train to France, tucking the travel rug around her legs and handing her £10 as spending money, was the last time she saw him, although he lived for another 20 years.
Unity's friendship with Hitler went from strength to strength and her letters were full of incidents where he chanced to "spot her" in a crowd. Often, he would invite her back to his flat. "We sat for hours, chatting, quite alone," she wrote to Decca, and "the next night I went with him to the opera to see Aïda done by the Milan Scala company. It was lovely to be able to go as all the tickets had been sold out three months before and it was a wonderful performance."
Unity was a frequent guest at gatherings of Hitler's inner circle. Some senior officers regarded her naive prattling with the Führer as potentially dangerous, and were concerned about the niche she had established for herself in his life. She now signed her name "Unity Walkure", adding a small swastika underneath.
It has never been proved that Unity's intimacy with Hitler damaged anyone, though there are accusations that - wittingly or otherwise - she denounced various people to their serious disadvantage. Whether it is true or not, it is clear that her apparent naivety in such a situation made her dangerous.
Increasingly, Unity regarded some form of alliance between Britain and Germany as a personal mission: this was her destiny, to prevent war between the two countries she loved. And it was just this sort of conversation that worried and irritated Hitler's chiefs.
There has always been speculation about a possible sexual relationship with Hitler, and this was discussed at the time even in the Mitford family. Further research indicates that, if there was ever any sexual element to this relationship, it was never fulfilled by physical intercourse. Diana also believes this is the case. She herself spent many evenings alone with Hitler. She was an acknowledged beauty who had been courted and flirted with all her life; unlike Unity, she was experienced in assessing the motivations of men.
She told me she thought Hitler was not very interested in sex, and she was convinced that Unity had never slept with him. "He enjoyed her company and it ended there, I think," she said. Had he asked Unity to sleep with him, would she have agreed? "Oh, yes," she replied unhesitatingly.
Unity began referring to him as "Wolf" and he called her "Kind" - child. They were close enough to share private jokes. When Unity had been disparaging of Italy and Mussolini, and was ticked off by one of Hitler's adjutants, Hitler came to her defence, albeit without agreeing with her comments. Subsequently, even the slightest discussion of Italy would cause him to catch her eye and "blither" (Mitford secret language for giggle).
When one guest at a Hitler luncheon said that the Osteria Bavaria was just like an Italian trattoria, but cleaner, Hitler looked at Unity out of the corner of his eye, and the two began to giggle "quite uncontrollably".
In June 1939, only three months before the outbreak of war, Hitler helped Unity to find a new apartment in Munich. "It belongs," she wrote to Diana, "to a young Jewish couple who are going abroad."
The acquisition of this flat essentially placed Unity for ever over a line from which there could be no historical rehabilitation. She was not a fool: she had an excellent grasp of the situation of the Jews. She cannot have avoided seeing the treatment already inflicted on Jews in the streets of Munich.
Even if one is prepared to give Unity the benefit of the doubt, and accept that she could not have known what would be the ultimate fate of the majority of Germany's Jewish population, it is hardly conceivable that she would not have known what lay behind the statement that the young couple with the flat were "going abroad". As Diana said, sadly, to me in a recent interview: "It is impossible to defend Unity . . . she condemned herself out of her own mouth."
A week after acquiring the apartment, Unity was in England. She returned to Germany, her car laden with small items of furniture, lamps and curtain material. Larger items for the flat were shipped out to Germany with the assistance of a friend in the diplomatic corps.
The family grew more and more concerned about what would happen to her if and when war was declared. Diana joined her, and they lunched with Hitler on August 2. Diana remembers that he told them he believed England was determined on war and that, if this was so, it was now inevitable.
Afterwards, Unity told Diana that if war was declared she would not live to see the tragedy unfold: "She simply felt too torn between England and Germany to wish to see them tear themselves apart."
Unity amused herself through the final weeks of peace by decorating her apartment and sunbathing on its balcony. It was only towards the end of the month that she began to feel isolated. Hitler was in Berlin, occupied with affairs of state.
The British consul in Munich ordered her to return to England. She refused and was told that she would forfeit British protection. She retorted that she had far better protection than that: Hitler's. But she was miserable: all her foreign friends had pulled out, and German friends had retreated to their homes. Food was becoming scarce, although Hitler sometimes sent supplies to her flat. She wrote to Diana that she had not seen him for nearly three weeks. "I wish he would come," she said plaintively.
On the morning of Sunday, September 3, Unity received a message that there was a telegram for her at the British consulate. She walked round to collect it and was informed that Britain had declared war on Germany that morning. Immediately she went home and wrote to her parents: "This is to say goodbye . . ." It was light, matter-of-fact, final. The consul would deliver the letter for her.
She went to the office of the regional Nazi chief and handed him a large, heavy envelope. In it were a suicide note saying that she was unable to bear the thought of a war between England and her beloved Germany, a sealed letter for Hitler and her two most precious belongings: a signed framed photograph of Hitler and her special Nazi party badge.
Unity then drove to the Englischer Garten, one of her favourite places in Munich. There was a secluded little glade where, on occasions, she had sunbathed naked, giggling helplessly at the thought of what her mother would say if she knew. She was not laughing on September 3, and she did not seek seclusion. Just inside the park, close to the Haus de Kunst, an art gallery built under Hitler's direction, she took out her gun. For her it was a warrior's exit, an honourable departure from a situation she regarded as intolerable.
The bullet entered her right temple and embedded itself at the back of the skull. By something of a miracle, she survived. Hitler visited Unity in hospital on September 10 before she regained consciousness. A day or so later she came round. Deeply confused, she paid no attention to the flowers sent in by Goebbels, Ribbentrop and Hitler (his were roses).
Ten days after the shooting, Unity managed to say one or two words to Hitler on the telephone. He did not visit her again until November 8; by then she could hold a short conversation. He asked her what she wanted to do. She said she would like to go back to England for a few weeks, then return to Munich.
According to Julius Schaub, Hitler's adjutant, he was "deeply shaken" by Unity's appearance and manner. There was little resemblance to the beautiful, alert and lively girl she had been. Instead, she had the empty fixed stare of someone who had suffered a stroke. Hitler set in motion an arrangement to get her to Switzerland. He took personal responsibility for her hospital bills.
Her suicide attempt was declared a state secret. It is difficult to know whether Hitler did this out of consideration and affection for Unity, or whether he felt uncomfortable that yet another young woman with whom he was connected had attempted suicide. Two other women who were sexually linked, by rumour or fact, with Hitler, committed or attempted suicide with varying degrees of success: Geli, his half-niece, and Eva Braun, who made two attempts.
The Mitford family had no news of Unity, only rumours. It wasn't until early November that they heard through the American embassy that she was recovering from a suicide attempt. Finally, on Christmas Eve, a telephone call came from Switzerland. "When are you coming to get me?" Unity asked plaintively.
Deborah, the youngest sister - known as Debo - promptly set sail with their mother on a cross-Channel ferry. On reaching France the two women headed for Switzerland. It was midwinter, grey and freezing cold, and none of the trains ran to schedule, but at least there was no fighting yet. On December 29 they arrived in Berne. Nothing had prepared 19-year-old Debo for the shock.
Debo, now the Duchess of Devonshire, vividly remembers Unity's appearance. "She was completely changed," she recalled. "Her hair was short and all matted. Because of the wound, I expect they couldn't do much about washing or combing it, and her teeth were yellow; they hadn't been brushed since the shooting . . . She couldn't bear for her head to be touched. She had an odd vacant expression . . . the most pathetic sight . . . But it wasn't just her appearance; she was a completely changed person, like somebody who has had a stroke . . . Her memory was very jagged."
When Debo, the gravely ill Unity and their mother reached England, about 20 carloads of reporters and cameramen waited to ambush them at Folkestone.
Unity gradually recovered her mobility, but was incontinent and irascible, and she had the mental age of a 12-year-old. Her mother devoted herself to her care, but the tensions were high.
"Muv and Bobo [Unity] are getting awfully on my nerves," Debo wrote to Decca. "I must go away soon, I think. There was a dreadful row at breakfast this morning and I shouted at Muv . . ."
Soon there were other blows to the family. Diana and Oswald Mosley were interned as potential security risks. Esmond Romilly, who had become a navigator, died when his bomber crashed. Tom was killed fighting the Japanese.
Eventually, Unity was able to lead a reasonably active life. She visited friends, went to the cinema and shopped. Her chief consolation was a restless pursuit of religious activities. She enjoyed planning her own funeral.
In the spring of 1948, she and her mother arrived on Inch Kenneth, the family's remote island off the west coast of Scotland. Three weeks later she developed a feverish chill. Although the doctor was called, high winds and a rough sea prevented him from reaching her for several days and her condition worsened. Eventually, meningitis was diagnosed, caused by an infection at the site of the old head wound. She was transferred to the mainland but lost the fight to live.
Decca, living in America and no longer in regular contact with Unity, is said to have been "heartbroken". She once wrote: "Although I hated everything she stood for, she was easily my favourite sister." Their mother assured Decca that Unity's love for her had also been unchanged.
More than half a century later, two members of the Mitford family are still triumphantly alive. Debo, serene and utterly charming, celebrated her 81st birthday in March. Diana, at 90, is still chic and articulate and living in Paris.
Debo wants Unity remembered for her "huge, bold truthfulness, funniness, generosity, honesty and courage".
Diana told me: "I often disapproved strongly of things Unity said . . . but she was incapable of disloyalty to England."
As for herself, although deploring the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, and Hitler's subsequent activities, Diana has always rejected hindsight to rewrite the opinions of Hitler that she formed prior to 1939.
She liked and admired him when she met him, and she still believes that "it is not a question of right or wrong, but the impressions of a young woman in the 1930s. Of course it would be easy just to deny these, but it would not be very interesting, or true".
© Mary S Lovell 2001
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Extracted from The Mitford Girls by Mary S Lovell, to be published on September 13 by Little, Brown at £20. Copies can be ordered for £18 plus 99p p&p from The Sunday Times Books Direct on 0870 165 8585 or Sunday Times Direct.
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Great post!
There must be something about the upper class in England that encourages this sort of behavior; Decca had a life-long crush on Stalin.
Are you in the bookselling business?
No. I do read.
honestly, before seeing your post, i was wondering when the next book, 'milking the obscenity of HITLER' would be out.
I am waiting for a book about Ilya Ehrenburg 1891-1967. He is still acclaimed as a "respected" messenger of Soviet Communism and as "one of the most visible of Soviet figures".
Thanks for the post,great find.
Looks like an interesting book about terribly misguided people, but for sheer reading pleasure, I prefer the Mitford books of author Jan Karon myself.
Fascinating post. Found this in a search for Unity.
I am waiting for a book about Ilya Ehrenburg 1891-1967.
There's at least one, which I suspect you wouldn't like.
Thank you for this revealing post.
Pleasant and interesting read, nice post.
""The greatest moment in my life," she told a friend, "was sitting at Hitler's feet and having him stroke my hair." "
Reminds me of Monica Lewinsky or Chandra Levy.
Interesting but I only had time to read just nits and pieces. Here's what I got out this:
Once there was a young English aristocrat - a tall, blonde, blue-eyed woman of impeccable Aryan appearance She was one of the Mitford Girls: the six beautiful and able upper-class sisters who had sunbathed naked. Unity was tall and not unattractive :she had the mental age of a 12-year-old, she needed to stand out, to draw attention to herself. Photographs show that she had a poise and a singular beauty. She went to Germany. About 10 minutes after she arrived she wrote, "The Führer would like to speak to you." she and Hitler met on 140 occasions but she thought Hitler was not very interested in sex. Had he asked Unity to sleep (and have sex, too?) with him, would she have agreed? "Oh, yes," she replied unhesitatingly. . There was a secluded little glade where, on occasions, she had sunbathed naked, giggling helplessly at the thought of what her mother would say if she knew that under Hitler's direction, she took out her gun. The bullet entered her right temple and embedded itself at the back of the skull
Rudder,
. . . she needed to stand out, to draw attention to herself.”
Are you projecting again? Stick with humor. It is a healthier defense.
ABFAB! BUTTT!
ABFAB BUTTT!
Hitler's very words to Unity Mitford.
Nice play on words! I think in Deutche it is "Du hast ein schoerne bunzers."
All the words came from the article, not me...
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