Unity Mitford
Encyclopedia
Unity Valkyrie Mitford was a member of the aristocratic Mitford family
, tracing its origins in Northumberland
back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England
. Unity Mitford's sister Diana
was married to Oswald Mosley
, leader of British Union of Fascists
. In Britain and Germany, Unity was a prominent and public supporter of fascism
and from 1936, a part of Hitler's
inner circle of friends and confidants for five years. Following the declaration of World War II, Mitford attempted suicide, although subsequently doubt of the attempt was cast in the media, following the declassification of MI5
government documentation.
, conceived in the town of Swastika, Ontario
where her family had gold mines. She came from a large family
with five sisters and one brother. Her biographer, Jan Dalley, believes that, "Unity found life in her big family very difficult because she came after these cleverer, prettier, more accomplished sisters.""Hitler's British Girl", Part Two. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video. Accessed 2010-08-26 While another biographer, David Pryce-Jones
, added: "If you come from a ruck of children in a large family, you’ve got to do something to assert your individuality, and I think through the experience of trying to force her way forward among the sisters and in the family, she decided that she was going to form a personality against everything". Mitford appears to have turned to right-wing politics as a way to distinguish herself within the family. As Dalley states: "I think the desire to shock was very important, it was the way that she made herself special. When she discovered Nazism and discovered that it was a fantastic opportunity to shock everybody in England she’d discovered the best tease of all.. She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey
.
Her younger sister, Jessica
, with whom she shared a bedroom, was a dedicated communist. The two drew a chalk line down the middle. One side was decorated with hammers and sickles and pictures of Lenin, and the other decorated with swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler
. Dalley commented "they were kids virtually, you don’t know how much it was just a game, a game that became deadly serious in later life."
in 1932. That same year her elder sister Diana
left her husband for an affair with Oswald Mosley
who had just founded the British Union of Fascists
. The sisters’ father was furious at the disgrace and forbade the family from seeing either Diana or "The Man Mosley", as he termed him. Unity disobeyed and that summer met with Mosley at a party thrown by Diana where she was promised a party badge. Mosley's son, Nicholas, stated that: "Unity became a very extrovert member of the party, which was her way [...] She joined my father's party and she used to turn up, she used to go around in a black shirt uniform, and she used to turn up at communist meetings and she used to do the fascist salute and heckle the speaker. That was the sort of person she was". He adds that although his father admired Unity's commitment, Mosley felt "She wasn’t doing him any good, because she was making an exhibition of herself."
Unity and Diana Mitford travelled to Germany as part of the British delegation from the British Union of Fascists, to the 1933 Nuremberg Rally
, seeing Hitler for the first time. Unity later said, "The first time I saw him I knew there was no one I would rather meet." Mitford biographer Anne de Courcy confirms: "The Nuremberg rally had a profound effect on both Diana and Unity... Unity was already, as it were, convinced about Hitler, but this turned conviction into worship. From then on she wanted to be near Hitler as much as possible".
close to the Nazi Party headquarters. Dalley notes "She was obsessed with meeting Hitler, so she really set out to stalk him." Pryce Jones elaborates:
After ten months Hitler finally invited her to his table where they talked for over half-an-hour with Hitler picking up her bill."Hitler's British Girl", Part 3. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video. Accessed 2010-08-26 In a letter to her father Mitford wrote: "It was the most wonderful and beautiful [day] of my life. I am so happy that I wouldn’t mind a bit, dying. I’d suppose I am the luckiest girl in the world. For me he is the greatest man of all time". Hitler in turn had also become obsessed with the young blonde British student. He was struck by her curious connections to the Germanic culture including her middle name, Valkyrie
. Mitford's grandfather, Algernon Freeman-Mitford
, had been a friend of Richard Wagner
, one of Hitler's idols, and had translated the works of Houston Stewart Chamberlain
, another inspiration for Hitler. Dalley says "Hitler was extremely superstitious, and he believed that Unity was sort of sent to him, it was destined." Mitford subsequently received invitations to party rallies and state occasions, and was described by Hitler as "a perfect specimen of Aryan
womanhood."
Hitler and Mitford became close, with Hitler reportedly playing Mitford off against his new girlfriend apparently to make her jealous. The girlfriend, Eva Braun
wrote of Mitford in her diary: "She is known as the Valkyrie and looks the part, including her legs. I the mistress of the greatest man in Germany and the whole world, I sit here waiting while the sun mocks me through the window panes." Braun regained Hitler's attention after an attempted suicide and Mitford learned from this that desperate measures were often needed to capture the Fuehrer's attention.
Mitford attended the Nazi Youth festival in Hesselberg
with Hitler's friend Julius Streicher
, where she gave a virulently anti-Semitic speech. She subsequently repeated these sentiments in an open letter to Streicher's paper Der Stürmer
which read: "The English have no notion of the Jewish danger. Our worst Jews work only behind the scenes. We think with joy of the day when we will be able to say England for the English! Out with the Jews! Heil Hitler! P.S. please publish my name in full, I want everyone to know I am a Jew hater. The letter caused a public outrage back in Britain but Hitler rewarded her with an engraved golden swastika badge, a private box at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and a ride in a party Mercedes to the Bayreuth Festival
."Hitler's British Girl", Part four. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video footage. Accessed 2010-08-26
in 1938, she appeared with him on the balcony in Vienna
. She was later arrested in Prague
for distributing Nazi propaganda. Pryce Jones reports that "She saw him, it seemed, more than a hundred times, no other English person could have anything like that access to Hitler","Hitler's British Girl", Part one. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video footage. Accessed 2010-08-26 and the suspicions of the British SIS
were aroused. MI5
head Guy Liddel wrote in his diary: "Unity Mitford had been in close and intimate contact with the Führer
and his supporters for several years, and was an ardent and open supporter of the Nazi regime. She had remained behind after the outbreak of war and her action had come perilously close to high treason. A 1936 report went further, proclaiming her "more Nazi than the Nazis" and stated that she gave the Hitler salute to the British Consul General in Munich, who immediately requested that her passport be impounded. After five years, in 1938, Hitler gave her a choice of four apartments in Munich, one flat lived in by a Jewish couple. Mitford is reported to have then visited the apartment to discuss her decoration and design plans, while the soon-to-be-dispossessed couple still sat in the kitchen crying. Immediately prior to this, she had lived in the house of Erna Hanfstaengl
, sister of early Hitler admirer and confidante Ernst Hanfstaengl
, but was ordered to leave when Hitler became angry with the Hanfstaengls.
Many prominent Nazis were also suspicious of the English girl and her relationship to their Fuhrer. In his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich
, Albert Speer
said of Hitler's select group: "One tacit agreement prevailed: No one must mention politics. The sole exception was Lady (sic
) Mitford, who even in the later years of international tension persistently spoke up for her country and often actually pleaded with Hitler to make a deal with England. In spite of Hitler's discouraging reserve, she did not abandon her efforts through all those years". Mitford summered at the Berghof
where she continued to discuss a possible German-British alliance with Hitler, going so far as to supply lists of potential supporters and enemies.
At the 1939 Bayreuth Festival
Hitler warned Unity and Diana Mitford that war with England was now inevitable within weeks and that they should return home. Diana returned to England where she was arrested and imprisoned, while Unity chose to remain in Germany, though her family sent pleas for her to come home. After Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Unity was distraught. Diana told an interviewer in 1999: "She told me that if there was a war, which of course we all terribly hoped there might not be, that she would kill herself because she couldn’t bear to live and see these two countries tearing each other to pieces, both of which she loved." Mitford went to the English Garden in Munich
, took a pearl-handled pistol, given to her by Hitler for protection, and shot herself in the head. Surviving the suicide attempt she was hospitalised in Munich
, where she was visited by Hitler, despite the on-going war. He paid her bills and arranged for her return home.
, where her mother and youngest sister, Deborah, went to collect her. In a 2002 letter to The Guardian
Deborah relates the experience: "We were not prepared for what we found - the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost two stone (28 pounds), was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull. The bullet was still in her head, inoperable the doctor said. She could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke. Not only was her appearance shocking, she was a stranger, someone we did not know. We brought her back to England in an ambulance coach attached to a train. Every jolt was agony to her."
Stating she could remember nothing of the incident, Mitford returned to England with her mother and sister in January 1940 amid a flurry of press interest and her comment, "I’m glad to be in England, even if I’m not on your side", led to public calls for her internment as a traitor. Due to the intervention by Home Secretary
John Anderson
, at the behest of her father, she was left to live out her days with her mother at the family home at Swinbrook
, Oxfordshire
. Under the care of Professor Cairns, neurosurgeon at the Nuffield Hospital in Oxford, "She learned to walk again, but never fully recovered. She was incontinent and childish." Mitford was keen to visit her sister Diana in Holloway Prison, and Norah Elam offered to look after Unity at their home in Logan Place for a short period. Norah Elam and her husband Dudley escorted Mitford to see Diana and Oswald Mosley in Holloway on 18 March 1943.
Up to 11 September 1941, Mitford is reported to have had an affair with RAF Pilot Officer
John Andrews, a test pilot, who was stationed at the nearby RAF Brize Norton
. MI5
learned of this and reported it to Home Secretary
Herbert Morrison
in October. He had heard that she "drives about the countryside … and picks up airmen, etc, and … interrogates them." Andrews, a former bank clerk, a married father, was "removed as far away as the limited extent of the British Isles permits." He was reposted to the far north of Scotland where he died in a Spitfire
crash in 1945. Authorities then concluded that Mitford did not pose a significant threat.
She was taken seriously ill on a visit to the family-owned island of Inch Kenneth
and was taken to hospital in Oban
. Doctors had decided it was too dangerous to remove the lodged bullet, and she eventually died of meningitis
caused by the cerebral swelling around the bullet. "Her sisters, even those who deplored her politics and hated her association with Hitler, mourned her deeply." She was buried at Swinbrook Churchyard. Her gravestone reads, "Say not the struggle naught availeth."
The novel Unity, by Michael Arditti, concerns the making of a film about Mitford's life. A young British aristocrat takes the title role, however the film is abandoned when the actress gets mixed up with Baader-Meinhof gang and leftist politics and is killed in a terrorist incident.
head Guy Liddell
), investigative journalist Martin Bright
published an article in The Observer
that claimed Home Secretary
John Anderson
intervened to prevent Mitford being questioned on her return from Germany and that the shooting, which "has become part of the Mitford myth," may have been invented to excuse this.
In the article Bright pointed out that press photographers and other observers that witnessed the return of Mitford, and "her entourage" that he claims included other known Nazi supporters, to Britain on 3 January 1940 said that, "there were no outward signs of her injury." Liddell's diary entry for 2 January states "We had no evidence to support the press allegations that she was in a serious state of health and it might well be that she was brought in on a stretcher in order to avoid publicity and unpleasantness to her family." He had wanted to search her upon her return but had been prevented from doing so by the Home Secretary. On 8 January Liddell notes receiving a report from the Security Control Officers who were responsible for meeting the arrivals that states "there were no signs of a bullet wound."
Mitford's cousin, Rupert Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale
, replied to the accusations by saying, "I love conspiracy theories but it goes a little far to suggest Unity was faking it. But people did wonder how she was up on her feet so soon after shooting herself in the head." Unity's sister, Deborah, rebutted by stating that the entourage that returned with Unity consisted of herself and their mother and although she doesn’t remember them being searched upon return that Unity, "could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke", and that she has detailed records from Professor Cairns, neurosurgeon at the Nuffield Hospital in Oxford, on her condition, including X-rays showing the bullet.
In a subsequent article for The New Statesman
Bright states "In fact, Liddell was wrong about her injuries. She had indeed shot herself and later died of an infection caused by the bullet in the brain."
stating that following a previous article on Unity Mitford, he had received a phone call from a Ms Val Hann, a member of the public, offering new information on the story. The caller said that during the war, her aunt, Betty Norton, had run Hill View Cottage, a private maternity hospital in Oxford where Mitford had been a client. According to Hann's family legend, passed from Betty to Val's mother and then on to Val herself, Mitford had checked into the hospital after her return to England where she had given birth to Hitler's child, who was subsequently given up for adoption. Bright states he was initially sceptical.
Bright travelled to Wigginton
where the current owner of Hill View confirmed that Norton had indeed run the cottage as a maternity hospital during the war. Bright met with elderly village resident Audrey Smith, whose sister had worked at Hill View. She confirmed seeing "Unity wrapped in a blanket and looking very ill" but insisted that she was there to recover from a nervous breakdown and not to give birth. Bright also contacted Unity's sister Deborah who denounced the villager's gossip and claimed she could produce her mother's diaries to prove it. Bright returned to the National Archives where he found a file on Unity sealed under the 100-year rule. He received special permission to open it and discovered that in October 1941, while living at the family home in Swinbrook
, she had been consorting with a married RAF test pilot — throwing doubt on her reported invalidity.
Bright then abandoned the investigation, until he mentioned the story to an executive from Channel 4
who thought it was a good subject for a documentary film. Further investigation was then undertaken as part of the filming for Hitler's British Girl
. This included a visit to an Oxfordshire register office, showing an abnormally large number of birth registrations at Hill View at that time, apparently confirming its use as a maternity hospital. No records were found for Mitford, although the records officer stated many births were not registered at this time. The publication of the article and the broadcast of the film the following week stimulated media speculation that Hitler's child could be living in the United Kingdom.
(28 November 1904 - 30 June 1973)
Pamela Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
Diana Mitford
(17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
Unity Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
Jessica Mitford
(11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
Deborah Mitford
(born 31 March 1920)
Mitford family
The Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...
, tracing its origins in Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
. Unity Mitford's sister Diana
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...
was married to Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
, leader of British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
. In Britain and Germany, Unity was a prominent and public supporter of fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and from 1936, a part of Hitler's
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
inner circle of friends and confidants for five years. Following the declaration of World War II, Mitford attempted suicide, although subsequently doubt of the attempt was cast in the media, following the declassification of MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
government documentation.
Childhood
Mitford was born in London, England to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron RedesdaleDavid Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale
David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, , was an English landowner and was the father of the Mitford sisters, in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted.-Ancestry:...
, conceived in the town of Swastika, Ontario
Swastika, Ontario
Swastika is a small community founded in 1908 around a mining site in Northern Ontario, Canada, and today within the municipal boundaries of Kirkland Lake, Ontario....
where her family had gold mines. She came from a large family
Mitford family
The Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...
with five sisters and one brother. Her biographer, Jan Dalley, believes that, "Unity found life in her big family very difficult because she came after these cleverer, prettier, more accomplished sisters.""Hitler's British Girl", Part Two. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video. Accessed 2010-08-26 While another biographer, David Pryce-Jones
David Pryce-Jones
David Eugene Henry Pryce-Jones FRSL is a conservative British author and commentator.- Career :He was educated at Eton and read History at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied under A.J.P...
, added: "If you come from a ruck of children in a large family, you’ve got to do something to assert your individuality, and I think through the experience of trying to force her way forward among the sisters and in the family, she decided that she was going to form a personality against everything". Mitford appears to have turned to right-wing politics as a way to distinguish herself within the family. As Dalley states: "I think the desire to shock was very important, it was the way that she made herself special. When she discovered Nazism and discovered that it was a fantastic opportunity to shock everybody in England she’d discovered the best tease of all.. She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey
St Margaret's School, Bushey
St Margaret's School is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 4–18 in Bushey, Hertfordshire.As well as day places for all age groups the school offers a range of flexible boarding options for both UK and international pupils from year 7 and is situated in of countryside...
.
Her younger sister, Jessica
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...
, with whom she shared a bedroom, was a dedicated communist. The two drew a chalk line down the middle. One side was decorated with hammers and sickles and pictures of Lenin, and the other decorated with swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. Dalley commented "they were kids virtually, you don’t know how much it was just a game, a game that became deadly serious in later life."
Social debut
Mitford was a debutanteDebutante
A débutante is a young lady from an aristocratic or upper class family who has reached the age of maturity, and as a new adult, is introduced to society at a formal "début" presentation. It should not be confused with a Debs...
in 1932. That same year her elder sister Diana
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...
left her husband for an affair with Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
who had just founded the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
. The sisters’ father was furious at the disgrace and forbade the family from seeing either Diana or "The Man Mosley", as he termed him. Unity disobeyed and that summer met with Mosley at a party thrown by Diana where she was promised a party badge. Mosley's son, Nicholas, stated that: "Unity became a very extrovert member of the party, which was her way [...] She joined my father's party and she used to turn up, she used to go around in a black shirt uniform, and she used to turn up at communist meetings and she used to do the fascist salute and heckle the speaker. That was the sort of person she was". He adds that although his father admired Unity's commitment, Mosley felt "She wasn’t doing him any good, because she was making an exhibition of herself."
Unity and Diana Mitford travelled to Germany as part of the British delegation from the British Union of Fascists, to the 1933 Nuremberg Rally
Nuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the NSDAP in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. Especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, they were large Nazi propaganda events...
, seeing Hitler for the first time. Unity later said, "The first time I saw him I knew there was no one I would rather meet." Mitford biographer Anne de Courcy confirms: "The Nuremberg rally had a profound effect on both Diana and Unity... Unity was already, as it were, convinced about Hitler, but this turned conviction into worship. From then on she wanted to be near Hitler as much as possible".
Arrival in Germany
Mitford returned to Germany in the summer of 1934, enrolling in a language school in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
close to the Nazi Party headquarters. Dalley notes "She was obsessed with meeting Hitler, so she really set out to stalk him." Pryce Jones elaborates:
After ten months Hitler finally invited her to his table where they talked for over half-an-hour with Hitler picking up her bill."Hitler's British Girl", Part 3. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video. Accessed 2010-08-26 In a letter to her father Mitford wrote: "It was the most wonderful and beautiful [day] of my life. I am so happy that I wouldn’t mind a bit, dying. I’d suppose I am the luckiest girl in the world. For me he is the greatest man of all time". Hitler in turn had also become obsessed with the young blonde British student. He was struck by her curious connections to the Germanic culture including her middle name, Valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
. Mitford's grandfather, Algernon Freeman-Mitford
Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale
Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale GCVO, KCB , of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire, and Birdhope Craig, Northumberland, was a British diplomat, collector and writer...
, had been a friend of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, one of Hitler's idols, and had translated the works of Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a British-born German author of books on political philosophy, natural science and the German composer Richard Wagner. He later became a German citizen. Chamberlain married Wagner's daughter, Eva, some years after Wagner's death...
, another inspiration for Hitler. Dalley says "Hitler was extremely superstitious, and he believed that Unity was sort of sent to him, it was destined." Mitford subsequently received invitations to party rallies and state occasions, and was described by Hitler as "a perfect specimen of Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
womanhood."
Hitler and Mitford became close, with Hitler reportedly playing Mitford off against his new girlfriend apparently to make her jealous. The girlfriend, Eva Braun
Eva Braun
Eva Anna Paula Hitler was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and, for less than 40 hours, his wife. Braun met Hitler in Munich, when she was 17 years old, while working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer and began seeing him often about two years later...
wrote of Mitford in her diary: "She is known as the Valkyrie and looks the part, including her legs. I the mistress of the greatest man in Germany and the whole world, I sit here waiting while the sun mocks me through the window panes." Braun regained Hitler's attention after an attempted suicide and Mitford learned from this that desperate measures were often needed to capture the Fuehrer's attention.
Mitford attended the Nazi Youth festival in Hesselberg
Hesselberg
Hesselberg is the highest point in Middle Franconia and the Franconian Jura and is situated 60 km south west of Nuremberg, Germany. The mountain stands isolated and far from the center of the Franconian Jura, in its southwestern border region, 4 km to the north west of Wassertrüdingen...
with Hitler's friend Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher was a prominent Nazi prior to World War II. He was the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine...
, where she gave a virulently anti-Semitic speech. She subsequently repeated these sentiments in an open letter to Streicher's paper Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer was a weekly tabloid-format Nazi newspaper published by Julius Streicher from 1923 to the end of World War II in 1945, with brief suspensions in publication due to legal difficulties. It was a significant part of the Nazi propaganda machinery and was vehemently anti-Semitic...
which read: "The English have no notion of the Jewish danger. Our worst Jews work only behind the scenes. We think with joy of the day when we will be able to say England for the English! Out with the Jews! Heil Hitler! P.S. please publish my name in full, I want everyone to know I am a Jew hater. The letter caused a public outrage back in Britain but Hitler rewarded her with an engraved golden swastika badge, a private box at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and a ride in a party Mercedes to the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
."Hitler's British Girl", Part four. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video footage. Accessed 2010-08-26
Inside the inner circle
From this point on Mitford was inducted into Hitler's inner circle and remained with him for five years. When Hitler announced the AnschlussAnschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
in 1938, she appeared with him on the balcony in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. She was later arrested in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
for distributing Nazi propaganda. Pryce Jones reports that "She saw him, it seemed, more than a hundred times, no other English person could have anything like that access to Hitler","Hitler's British Girl", Part one. Channel 4 Documentary 2007. Video footage. Accessed 2010-08-26 and the suspicions of the British SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
were aroused. MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
head Guy Liddel wrote in his diary: "Unity Mitford had been in close and intimate contact with the Führer
Führer
Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also...
and his supporters for several years, and was an ardent and open supporter of the Nazi regime. She had remained behind after the outbreak of war and her action had come perilously close to high treason. A 1936 report went further, proclaiming her "more Nazi than the Nazis" and stated that she gave the Hitler salute to the British Consul General in Munich, who immediately requested that her passport be impounded. After five years, in 1938, Hitler gave her a choice of four apartments in Munich, one flat lived in by a Jewish couple. Mitford is reported to have then visited the apartment to discuss her decoration and design plans, while the soon-to-be-dispossessed couple still sat in the kitchen crying. Immediately prior to this, she had lived in the house of Erna Hanfstaengl
Erna Hanfstaengl
Erna Hanfstaengl was the elder sister of Ernst Hanfstaengl and was an acquaintance of Adolf Hitler. She also befriended Unity Mitford, who lived with Erna for a period.-Romantic involvement with Hitler:...
, sister of early Hitler admirer and confidante Ernst Hanfstaengl
Ernst Hanfstaengl
Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl , was a Harvard-educated German businessman who was an intimate of Adolf Hitler before falling out of favor and defecting. He later worked for Franklin D...
, but was ordered to leave when Hitler became angry with the Hanfstaengls.
Many prominent Nazis were also suspicious of the English girl and her relationship to their Fuhrer. In his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich
Inside the Third Reich
Inside the Third Reich is a memoir written by Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, serving as Hitler's main architect before this period...
, Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
said of Hitler's select group: "One tacit agreement prevailed: No one must mention politics. The sole exception was Lady (sic
Sic
Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, —when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source...
) Mitford, who even in the later years of international tension persistently spoke up for her country and often actually pleaded with Hitler to make a deal with England. In spite of Hitler's discouraging reserve, she did not abandon her efforts through all those years". Mitford summered at the Berghof
Berghof (Hitler)
The Berghof was Adolf Hitler's home in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany. Other than the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Hitler spent more time at the Berghof than anywhere else during World War II. It was also one of the most widely known of Hitler's...
where she continued to discuss a possible German-British alliance with Hitler, going so far as to supply lists of potential supporters and enemies.
At the 1939 Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
Hitler warned Unity and Diana Mitford that war with England was now inevitable within weeks and that they should return home. Diana returned to England where she was arrested and imprisoned, while Unity chose to remain in Germany, though her family sent pleas for her to come home. After Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Unity was distraught. Diana told an interviewer in 1999: "She told me that if there was a war, which of course we all terribly hoped there might not be, that she would kill herself because she couldn’t bear to live and see these two countries tearing each other to pieces, both of which she loved." Mitford went to the English Garden in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, took a pearl-handled pistol, given to her by Hitler for protection, and shot herself in the head. Surviving the suicide attempt she was hospitalised in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, where she was visited by Hitler, despite the on-going war. He paid her bills and arranged for her return home.
Return to England
In December, she was moved to a hospital in Bern in the neutral country of SwitzerlandSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, where her mother and youngest sister, Deborah, went to collect her. In a 2002 letter to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
Deborah relates the experience: "We were not prepared for what we found - the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost two stone (28 pounds), was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull. The bullet was still in her head, inoperable the doctor said. She could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke. Not only was her appearance shocking, she was a stranger, someone we did not know. We brought her back to England in an ambulance coach attached to a train. Every jolt was agony to her."
Stating she could remember nothing of the incident, Mitford returned to England with her mother and sister in January 1940 amid a flurry of press interest and her comment, "I’m glad to be in England, even if I’m not on your side", led to public calls for her internment as a traitor. Due to the intervention by Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
John Anderson
John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley
John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, PC, PC was a British civil servant then politician who served as a minister under Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill as Home Secretary, Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Exchequer...
, at the behest of her father, she was left to live out her days with her mother at the family home at Swinbrook
Swinbrook
Swinbrook is a village on the River Windrush, east of Burford in Oxfordshire, England. The village is in the civil parish of Swinbrook and Widford.-History:...
, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
. Under the care of Professor Cairns, neurosurgeon at the Nuffield Hospital in Oxford, "She learned to walk again, but never fully recovered. She was incontinent and childish." Mitford was keen to visit her sister Diana in Holloway Prison, and Norah Elam offered to look after Unity at their home in Logan Place for a short period. Norah Elam and her husband Dudley escorted Mitford to see Diana and Oswald Mosley in Holloway on 18 March 1943.
Up to 11 September 1941, Mitford is reported to have had an affair with RAF Pilot Officer
Pilot Officer
Pilot officer is the lowest commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countries. It ranks immediately below flying officer...
John Andrews, a test pilot, who was stationed at the nearby RAF Brize Norton
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, about west north-west of London, is the largest station of the Royal Air Force. It is close to the settlements of Brize Norton, Carterton and Witney....
. MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
learned of this and reported it to Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, CH, PC was a British Labour politician; he held a various number of senior positions in the Cabinet, including Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Morrison was the son of a police constable and was born in...
in October. He had heard that she "drives about the countryside … and picks up airmen, etc, and … interrogates them." Andrews, a former bank clerk, a married father, was "removed as far away as the limited extent of the British Isles permits." He was reposted to the far north of Scotland where he died in a Spitfire
Supermarine Spitfire
The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries throughout the Second World War. The Spitfire continued to be used as a front line fighter and in secondary roles into the 1950s...
crash in 1945. Authorities then concluded that Mitford did not pose a significant threat.
She was taken seriously ill on a visit to the family-owned island of Inch Kenneth
Inch Kenneth
Inch Kenneth is a small grassy island in the parish of Kilfinichen and Kilvickeon, Argyllshire. The island is situated at the entrance of Loch Na Keal, off the west coast of the Isle of Mull, Scotland, to the south-southeast of Ulva...
and was taken to hospital in Oban
Oban
Oban Oban Oban ( is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. It has a total resident population of 8,120. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William and during the tourist season the town can be crowded by up to 25,000 people. Oban...
. Doctors had decided it was too dangerous to remove the lodged bullet, and she eventually died of meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
caused by the cerebral swelling around the bullet. "Her sisters, even those who deplored her politics and hated her association with Hitler, mourned her deeply." She was buried at Swinbrook Churchyard. Her gravestone reads, "Say not the struggle naught availeth."
The novel Unity, by Michael Arditti, concerns the making of a film about Mitford's life. A young British aristocrat takes the title role, however the film is abandoned when the actress gets mixed up with Baader-Meinhof gang and leftist politics and is killed in a terrorist incident.
Faked shooting
On 1 December 2002, following the release of declassified documents (including the diary of wartime MI5MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
head Guy Liddell
Guy Liddell
Guy Maynard Liddell, CB, CBE, MC was a British intelligence officer during World War II.-Early life & career:...
), investigative journalist Martin Bright
Martin Bright
Martin Bright is a British journalist. He worked for the BBC World Service and The Guardian before becoming The Observer's education correspondent and then home affairs editor...
published an article in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
that claimed Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
John Anderson
John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley
John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, PC, PC was a British civil servant then politician who served as a minister under Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill as Home Secretary, Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Exchequer...
intervened to prevent Mitford being questioned on her return from Germany and that the shooting, which "has become part of the Mitford myth," may have been invented to excuse this.
In the article Bright pointed out that press photographers and other observers that witnessed the return of Mitford, and "her entourage" that he claims included other known Nazi supporters, to Britain on 3 January 1940 said that, "there were no outward signs of her injury." Liddell's diary entry for 2 January states "We had no evidence to support the press allegations that she was in a serious state of health and it might well be that she was brought in on a stretcher in order to avoid publicity and unpleasantness to her family." He had wanted to search her upon her return but had been prevented from doing so by the Home Secretary. On 8 January Liddell notes receiving a report from the Security Control Officers who were responsible for meeting the arrivals that states "there were no signs of a bullet wound."
Mitford's cousin, Rupert Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale
Rupert Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale
Rupert Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale is a British peer and politician. He currently sits in the House of Lords as a life peer, Baron Mitford with the Liberal Democrats.Mitford succeeded to the title in 1991...
, replied to the accusations by saying, "I love conspiracy theories but it goes a little far to suggest Unity was faking it. But people did wonder how she was up on her feet so soon after shooting herself in the head." Unity's sister, Deborah, rebutted by stating that the entourage that returned with Unity consisted of herself and their mother and although she doesn’t remember them being searched upon return that Unity, "could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke", and that she has detailed records from Professor Cairns, neurosurgeon at the Nuffield Hospital in Oxford, on her condition, including X-rays showing the bullet.
In a subsequent article for The New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
Bright states "In fact, Liddell was wrong about her injuries. She had indeed shot herself and later died of an infection caused by the bullet in the brain."
Hitler's baby
In December 2007, Bright published an article in The New StatesmanThe New Statesman
The New Statesman is an award-winning British sitcom of the late 1980s and early 1990s satirising the Conservative government of the time...
stating that following a previous article on Unity Mitford, he had received a phone call from a Ms Val Hann, a member of the public, offering new information on the story. The caller said that during the war, her aunt, Betty Norton, had run Hill View Cottage, a private maternity hospital in Oxford where Mitford had been a client. According to Hann's family legend, passed from Betty to Val's mother and then on to Val herself, Mitford had checked into the hospital after her return to England where she had given birth to Hitler's child, who was subsequently given up for adoption. Bright states he was initially sceptical.
Bright travelled to Wigginton
Wigginton, Oxfordshire
Wigginton is a village and civil parish about southwest of Banbury in Oxfordshire.Remains of a large Roman villa have been found in the village about southwest of the parish church....
where the current owner of Hill View confirmed that Norton had indeed run the cottage as a maternity hospital during the war. Bright met with elderly village resident Audrey Smith, whose sister had worked at Hill View. She confirmed seeing "Unity wrapped in a blanket and looking very ill" but insisted that she was there to recover from a nervous breakdown and not to give birth. Bright also contacted Unity's sister Deborah who denounced the villager's gossip and claimed she could produce her mother's diaries to prove it. Bright returned to the National Archives where he found a file on Unity sealed under the 100-year rule. He received special permission to open it and discovered that in October 1941, while living at the family home in Swinbrook
Swinbrook
Swinbrook is a village on the River Windrush, east of Burford in Oxfordshire, England. The village is in the civil parish of Swinbrook and Widford.-History:...
, she had been consorting with a married RAF test pilot — throwing doubt on her reported invalidity.
Bright then abandoned the investigation, until he mentioned the story to an executive from Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
who thought it was a good subject for a documentary film. Further investigation was then undertaken as part of the filming for Hitler's British Girl
Hitler's British Girl
Hitler’s British Girl is a Channel 4 documentary film about British Nazi sympathiser Unity Mitford and her relationship with Adolf Hitler. The film was made by following an investigation by journalist Martin Bright which revealed that she may have secretly given birth to Hitler’s...
. This included a visit to an Oxfordshire register office, showing an abnormally large number of birth registrations at Hill View at that time, apparently confirming its use as a maternity hospital. No records were found for Mitford, although the records officer stated many births were not registered at this time. The publication of the article and the broadcast of the film the following week stimulated media speculation that Hitler's child could be living in the United Kingdom.
Siblings
Nancy MitfordNancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
(28 November 1904 - 30 June 1973)
Pamela Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...
(17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
Unity Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...
(11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
Deborah Mitford
Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Deborah Vivien Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire DCVO , née The Hon. Deborah Freeman-Mitford is the youngest and last surviving of the six noted Mitford sisters whose political affiliations and marriages were a prominent feature of English culture in the 1930s and 1940s...
(born 31 March 1920)
Biographies
- Pryce-Jones, David; Unity Mitford: A Quest (W&N, 1995) ISBN 978-1857993707; Unity Mitford: An Enquiry into Her Life and the Frivolity of Evil (Dial Press, 1977) ISBN 978-0803788657
- Gordon, Roberta; Unity Mitford's Unwritten Autobiography (1914-1948) (Ploughshares, Vol. 10, No. 2/3, 1984) ISSN: 00484474
See also
- Mitford familyMitford familyThe Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...
- Diana MitfordDiana MitfordDiana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...
- The Mitfords: Letters Between Six SistersThe Mitfords: Letters Between Six SistersThe Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters is a 2007 book of selected letters between the legendary Mitford sisters. The book was edited by Diana Mitford's daughter-in-law, Charlotte Mosley. An estimated five percent of letters between the six sisters were included in the 834 page publication...
- Asthall ManorAsthall ManorAsthall Manor is a gabled Jacobean Cotswold manor house in Asthall, Oxfordshire. It was built in about 1620 and altered and enlarged in about 1916The house was the childhood home of the Mitford sisters.-History:...
- Unity's childhood home - Nancy MitfordNancy MitfordNancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...