Mrs Guinness

by Lyndsy Spence

  Inspired by the success of the Albert Hall, Mosley planned to stage a rally at the Olympia – a venue significantly larger than the previous one. He planned a skilfully choreographed production reminiscent of a miniature Nuremberg Rally, with marching men, banners, spotlights and full militaristic paraphernalia. But regardless of his large following, there was growing unrest amongst the communists and anti-fascists, who were determined to stop Mosley at any cost. The Daily Worker published the BUF’s schedule of talks and they encouraged their subscribers to take part in their anti-fascist marches by enclosing a map showing the route to the Olympia, bearing the warning: ‘The challenge of Mosley will be met by the determined workers … All roads lead to Olympia tonight!’

  Planning ahead for trouble, 2,000 Blackshirts lined up to guard the platform and were scattered through the crowd of 12,000. A total of 2,000 free tickets were distributed on the day and 2,000 protesters also gathered outside Olympia, where 500 policemen struggled to control the angry mob. When Mosley took the stage, the heckling broke out and he warned that if it did not stop, his stewards would evict the troublemakers. The heckling soon turned into a brawl and people were removed from Olympia unconscious, with their clothing torn and blood gushing from their faces. Many of the anti-fascist protesters were Jewish, and it did not help Mosley when his BUF were viewed as the aggressors.

  Distaste for fascism did not improve when, only three weeks later, news broke of Hitler’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’ – the event in which the Nazis dragged Ernest Röhm, the chief staff of the SA (Sturmabteilung) and others from their beds and shot them dead for posing a threat to Hitler. The public pondered whether Mosley could be capable of doing the same should his party rise to a similar power. The BUF had briefly risen in glory – ‘on the edge of respectability’ – and in a flash was torn down and labelled as a paramilitary organisation led by a lunatic leader.

  Diana had every intention of attending Olympia and prior to it she dined in the Eatonry’s miniscule dining room which seated six – ‘Diana’s dining room is very nice, once you get in,’ Emerald Cunard often teased her – with Gerald Berners and Vivian Jackson.* However, as the evening progressed, she retired to bed with a temperature. Although Diana had missed the Olympia meeting, it did not prevent her from defending Mosley: ‘I have always regretted this. I wish I had seen it for myself.’ The newspaper and eyewitness reports of violence, she declared, were untrue: ‘If half of their stories had been true, the hall would have been strewn with dead and dying and the hospitals full of casualties.’ Berners and Jackson went along to the meeting and they, too, agreed with her sentiments that ‘no one was badly hurt’, even though Jackson had been arrested and Berners stood bail.

  To an extent Diana’s claims were justified: no lives were lost and although the hospitals were busy dressing wounds, only one person, a fascist, spent the night in hospital. However, it did not distract from the fact Mosley had misjudged public support.

  Mosley’s message was simple. He often reminded Britons that they must foster home production by putting high tariffs on foreign imported goods. To do so, he warned, the home industries must put their house in order, otherwise they were not worthy of protection. It sounded like common sense, but Mosley’s economical warning was overshadowed by violent brawls and his role as a strong leader became a ludicrous image in the public’s mind. Many big industrialists were swayed by Mosley’s ideals and they would have financed him but his high-handedness and tactlessness drove them away. All the while, Diana’s loyalty to Mosley was unwavering; in her opinion, he was never at fault.

  To many Britons, Mosley was a figure of hate and they felt the BUF must be stopped. He was banned from speaking on the BBC and Lord Rothermere, ‘frightened out of his wits’ of a boycott from the advertisers of his Daily Mail, withdrew his financial assistance. Furthermore, those respectable members who had once agreed with his manifesto cancelled their membership. The Conservative MP William Anstruther-Gray co-signed a letter to The Times, accusing the Blackshirts of ‘wholly unnecessary violence’. Unity, who sided with Diana in her views, was ‘longing to see him thoroughly beaten up. He does deserve it.’

  Mosley warned Irene that if fascism failed ‘his life was over and done with’. Diana could not risk losing him; if he left her it would prove her critics correct that he would eventually abandon her. Bolstering his ego became her priority, for if he gave up the BUF, he would likely give her up and settle into a rootless existence of casual affairs.

  As much as Diana longed to be useful to Mosley, he rebuffed her, warning her that since Cimmie’s death he ‘had been haunted by the idea that she had worn herself out by political activities beyond her strength’. Cimmie worked tirelessly in her role as Labour MP for Stoke-On-Trent and, having been elected in 1929, she resigned in 1930 when Mosley left the Labour Party. She was mocked for her ‘Hyde Park sentiments delivered in a Park Lane accent’ and the toll of the campaign was blamed for a miscarriage she suffered shortly afterwards. According to Irene, Cimmie’s political development was all for Mosley’s benefit and because of this devotion to him she turned herself into an admirable speaker. After a maiden speech at Harrow, Cimmie told a women’s meeting: ‘I cannot speak. I only ask you to send my husband to the poll, as polling day is his birthday.’ There was a roar of applause from the audience who were moved by Cimmie’s sincerity and courage.

  Paralleling her political interest in Mosley’s work with Cimmie’s efforts, Diana decided that her work for the BUF should be ‘entirely connected with business and not at all with propaganda’. She believed him emphatically, obeying his warning as a testament of his love for her, and now all thoughts of ever campaigning or making a public speech filled her with dread. Diana’s moment would come, but in the meantime she and Mosley fled to the South of France.

  Life at Savehay had become unbearable for Irene, who tiptoed on the edge of a potentially explosive situation. She voiced her opinion in her diary: ‘I resent the way I am looked on as a sort of governess, no thanks, no love, and Baba and Tom [Mosley] arm-in-arm all over the place and Ma and I looking like two waiting housemaids.’ Provoked by Mosley’s ill-treatment of her, Irene announced she was taking a holiday. With Irene’s absence pending, Mosley was forced to resume his parental role. Relating the eldest children’s comment: ‘We don’t cry when you talk to us about mummy, but we always cry when we talk about her among ourselves,’ Irene convinced him it would be in the children’s best interest to continue the family tradition of taking a house in Europe. Mosley rented a huge white house in Toulon perched high above the sea and, sparing little thought to Irene or Baba’s wrath and his children’s feelings, he invited Diana along.

  When Irene and Baba learned of his plans they reacted with horror. Tensions flared, tearful arguments ensued and Mosley tried to pacify the ladies with his usual excuse: ‘She’s just a friend.’ To prove this, he resorted to reverse psychology and invited Baba to join them in Toulon for the last two weeks in August. Mosley went to great lengths to pry into Diana and Baba’s schedules for August, usually the month when the wealthy travelled extensively around Europe and the Mediterranean. Combining his skills at juggling many women at once (he had become a master at planning), and by sheer fluke of their travel arrangements, Mosley was confident he could handle this ominous schedule of holidaying with both women.

  Diana was the first to arrive, appearing at the rented house with her maid. In her present situation and with her children in Ireland with Bryan, she did not need to plan ahead for extended trips. Her numerous trunks must have given off a sense of ambiguity, for Mosley wondered if she was planning to stay longer than two weeks and was momentarily relieved when Diana told him of her plan to travel on to Ravello. With his mind at ease, he and Diana settled into a relaxing routine and the children had no reason to feel suspicious of their father’s ‘friend’.

  During the uneventful fortnight, Diana sunbathed with Mosley on the terrace and the children thought her a good sport when sh
e climbed down the hundreds of rocky steps at the side of the house to swim in the Mediterranean Sea. Leaving the day before Baba arrived, Diana flew to Ravello to stay with Edward James in the Villa Cimbrone, overlooking the stunning beauty of the Amalfi Coast.

  Bryan, too, had departed on his own travels at the end of August and, from the Empress of Australia, he sent Diana a sad note, inspired by his loneliness at sea. ‘There is no one at all to be in love with … I miss you so much. Sometimes they play our tune from Carmen at dinner, and I water the soup with tears in my eyes.’59

  Diana had no time to mull over Bryan’s sentimentality and from Ravello she travelled to Munich, where Unity had been living for several months en pension with Baroness Laroche. There was a promise to visit the Parteita, and another piece of news puzzled Diana as much as it impressed her – by a stroke of luck, Unity managed to fulfil her extraordinary mission and had succeeded in catching a glimpse of her hero, Adolf Hitler.

  NOTES

  * The newspaper folded in May 1934.

  * ‘Mosley: Leader of thousands!/ Hope of our manhood, we proudly have thee!/ Raise we this song of allegiance/ For we are sworn and shall not fail thee!’

  * Vivian Jackson’s twin brother Derek married Pamela Mitford in 1936.

  57 ‘No sensibilities as far as I could see; nor snobberies; immense superficial knowledge and going off to Berlin to hear Hitler speak.’ Virginia Woolf’s diary, published in Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter, Diana Souhami.

  58 Lord Curzon wrote in a letter to his wife, Gracie: ‘The estate is in the hands of trustees who will give him £8–10,000 a year straightaway and he will ultimately have a clear £20,000 per annum.’ The Viceroy’s Daughters, Anne de Courcy.

  59 Letter printed in Diana Mosley, Anne de Courcy.

  29

  MUNICH: AN IDYLLIC LIFE

  When Diana arrived in Munich, she was introduced to Unity’s enviable lifestyle. There was nothing demanding about her daily routine of art classes, language lessons with Fraulein Baum, piano lessons, trips to tea shops for cake and coffee, evenings at the opera and bicycling to the nearby Englische Garten for picnics. Germany was good for Unity, Diana concluded, and her mind drifted back to the afternoon when she, then only two years younger than Unity’s current age, had asked her father for permission to visit Germany. Diana must have bitterly reflected on his refusal. Had she been allowed to indulge in the same lifestyle, she might have shunned an early marriage, thus avoiding the complicated mess that followed. However, it was not Diana’s nature to dwell on the past and she made up her mind to enjoy the present.

  One element threatened to dampen their jovial visit. Putzi Hanfstaengl was less than enthusiastic about Diana and Unity looking him up. He claimed he had no tickets to the Parteitag and, despite his promise from the year before – Unity was determined to hold him to it – he blatantly refused to introduce them to Hitler. ‘Goering and Goebbels expressed mock horror at the idea of my trying to present such painted hussies to Hitler,’ Hanfstaengl later wrote in his memoir, The Missing Years.

  It was a feeble excuse, but there was an ounce of truth in his statement. Although both Diana and Unity, with their blonde hair and blue eyes, were the epitome of Hitler’s fantasies of an Aryan race, their heavily made-up faces contradicted his preference for a well-scrubbed, shiny complexion sported by the German women. Those conforming to Hitler’s ideal took offence at what they judged as an outward display of shameless vanity, and they verbally attacked Diana and Unity: ‘Aren’t you ashamed to stand in front of the Führer’s house with painted faces?’60

  Undeterred by having no tickets for the Parteitag and no lodgings, Diana and Unity ventured to Nuremberg. As they discovered on their arrival, about 700,000 people had flocked to the small town. It was what Unity dreaded the most, and even her normally buoyant optimism could not distract from the fact that every hotel in Nuremberg was fully booked. After an unsuccessful search for a room – any room, as they were not fussy – Diana implored Unity to admit defeat and return to Munich. ‘Aren’t you glad we came? Isn’t it lovely? Do be glad we came!’ Unity tried to jolly Diana along.

  Unity further surprised Diana when she admitted her willingness to sit outside all night on the off-chance she would see Hitler and hear him speak. She tried to convince Diana to do the same: ‘It doesn’t matter about not having a room, does it? It’s really all the better, because we can get such marvellous places for seeing the Führer go by tomorrow if we stay in them all night.’ The thought of sitting outside on the street all night did not evoke a similar reaction in Diana. She had just about given up on their quest when Unity spied an elderly gentleman in a beer garden wearing a gold badge. Schooled on all things to do with Nazism, Unity knew straight away this badge meant the man was one of the first 100,000 members. Unity questioned him and he answered with pride: ‘Yes, I am a very old member. I am number one hundred in the party.’

  ‘Number a hundred!’ she announced with more than a glimmer of delight in her voice. ‘Then you must know the Führer.’

  ‘Yes, I knew him in those days,’ he confidently replied. Eyeing their bedraggled appearance and listening to Unity’s tale of woe, the man felt sorry for the two stranded English women. He gallantly found tickets and located a room in a small inn. For Unity it played to her sense of destiny and Diana, who believed in a certain sense of predestination, felt inclined to agree.

  Yet another surprise was in store when Diana and Unity presented their tickets. They were informed that the tickets they had obtained, through one of the earliest and most trusted members of the Nazi Party, afforded them the privilege of sitting in the exclusive section of the stands normally reserved for officials. Seated in the same stand was a young woman by whom Unity was intrigued. Having investigated every area of Hitler’s life, and remembering her two chance encounters, she first noticed the woman in Hitler’s court photographer Heinrich Hoffmann’s shop, working as an assistant. And the second time she saw her, the same woman was seated in the back of a gleaming white Mercedes. Drawing on her findings, Unity suspected she was the mistress of someone important. Now, seeing her for the third time at the Parteitag, Unity realised that the young woman was Hitler’s mistress, Eva Braun.

  At a given signal, in absolute silence, different groups of red flags filed into the centre of the arena, spreading out amongst the ‘brownshirts’. Every move had a political significance. The brownshirts were the heart of Germany, out of which the Treaty of Versailles had torn her blood, and the endless stream of blood-red flags carried by the Gauleiters were the veins and arteries of National Socialism pumping their lifeblood into Germany’s heart again.

  Dizzy with the unexpectedness of finding herself in such an exclusive stand, Unity gathered her composure once Hitler took to the stage. He appeared as a mystic, descending to the lowest common denominator in the common man for whom he had a withering contempt, and yet he had hypnotic power over the masses he so despised. Hitler, in a trancelike state, came across as though from another world, he was of a higher being and the crowd were under his spell. The speeches transfixed Diana, and although she knew no German she could rely on Unity as her translator. Through this channel, Diana learned the gist of the topics discussed: the unemployment statistics had dwindled, new houses were built, plans for new roads were in progress and industry and agriculture were flourishing. It was everything Mosley hoped to achieve and, as with their luck in finding tickets, the coincidence of the topics discussed proved to Diana that fascism was a creed worth following.

  When she went home to England, Diana decided to return to Munich where living was cheap and to take a small flat and learn German at the Berlitz School. If she could understand Hitler’s speeches, she could relay the formula to Mosley. In the past Mosley had doubted Hitler’s showmanship, but he was shrewd enough to realise the Führer’s international appeal. He readily agreed and a plan was put in place. Diana set forth to Munich confident that she was fulfilling a higher purpose; all to assist her beloved
in his quest for political power.

  In Munich, Diana lived with a maid and a cook in a comfortable flat located on the Ludwigstrasse. She extended an invitation for Unity to escape her austere dwellings at Baroness Laroche’s boarding house to occupy the spare bedroom. Together the sisters adopted a carefree lifestyle of sightseeing, taking German lessons (‘You will feel such a fool if we meet him and then you can’t understand everything he says,’ Unity told her) and sitting for hours in Hitler’s favourite restaurant, the Osteria Bavaria.

  It was a common sight to see the ‘two great blondes’ pining for a glimpse of Hitler. Tom Mitford teased Unity by pretending to have met Hitler at the Bayreuth Festival, which she soon found out was untrue and became furious with him. Making a mockery of Hitler was strictly off limits.

  Without revealing their tactics, Diana and Unity were confident and charming enough to secure press passes to the ceremony at the Theatinerkirche to commemorate the sixteen Nazis who died in the 1923 putsch. Despite their best efforts to get inside the arena, the passes only afforded them to stand outside the venue and, swamped by the crowd of journalists and photographers, they saw very little of the scene inside. Unity was jealous when she discovered that Diana’s maid was the one who had the best view of Hitler and she vented her frustration by bombarding her with a series of trivial questions. ‘What did you think of him?’ she pressed, hoping for a detailed description.