Yet for thinking people it was difficult to ignore what was happening in Germany. Czechoslovakia had been the last democracy in central Europe and now only force could prevent Hitler from establishing a German nation stretching from the Ural mountains to the French coast. In 1938, also, there was a marked change of attitude in Germany towards its Jewish citizens. For the previous five years German Jews had lived under the constant threat of physical abuse, but from 1938 their persecution became a relentless legal reality. On Kristallnacht, 276 synagogues were burned to the ground and over 7,500 Jewish businesses were burned, looted and vandalized. The government impounded the insurance money claimed by the dispossessed, stating that the Jews had brought the horror upon themselves. From that point no Jew was allowed to own a business or to run one. It became difficult to keep up with new legislation concerning what civil rights remained to them. They were not allowed to own or drive a car or motorcycle, and were barred from public transport. They were not allowed to attend theatres, cinemas or art galleries, and were banned from beaches, swimming-pools and gymnasia. They were banned from owning a radio. Their children were not allowed to attend schools where there were Aryan children. Sex or marriage between an Aryan and a Jew became a criminal offence carrying a prison sentence. And so it went on: the slide towards genocide. Reading the newspapers of that time now, it is hard to believe the scale of anti-Semitism being perpetrated in Germany with such little comment in the world press.2
Esmond was one of those who made it his business to know what was going on, and when he and Decca returned to England in August they flung themselves into activism. A rebel by nature, he now had a genuine cause, and for Esmond this meant physical action against Mosley’s Blackshirts and other British Fascist organizations. In his memoir Friends Apart,3 Philip Toynbee details the fist fights with knuckle-dusters and even razors used on both sides to inflict as much damage as possible, and vividly portrays the raw hatred of the opposing factions. For Decca, activism meant raising money for the Spanish fight against Fascism, helping to sabotage Mosley’s marches, or participating in Labour Party and trade-union marches for better conditions for the working classes.
In Hons and Rebels Decca recalled one such march: it was a May Day march to Hyde Park and the entire community of Rotherhithe turned out in a holiday atmosphere, waving a forest of banners that read, ‘United Front against Fascism’. They linked arms and sang songs, ‘Ohhhh! ’Tis my delight of a dirty night to bomb the bourgeoisie . . .’ and a bowdlerized version of ‘The Red Flag’, ‘The people’s flag is palest pink, it’s not as red as you might think . . .’ as they marched. They had been warned that the event would probably be disrupted by Mosley’s supporters, Decca said, ‘and sure enough there were groups of them lying in wait at several points along the way . . .’ There were several skirmishes, and at one point, ‘I caught sight of two familiar, tall blonde figures: Boud and Diana, waving Swastika flags. I shook my fist at them in the Red Front salute, and was barely dissuaded by Esmond and Philip who reminded me of my now pregnant condition, from joining in the fray.’4 Diana has no memory of this incident, and points out that Decca claimed she was pregnant when the reported May Day incident occurred: ‘she was still in Spain in May 1937,’ she states. ‘She wasn’t pregnant in 1938, and by May 1939 she was in the USA.’5 Furthermore Diana states that she ‘never possessed such a flag’ and never went to any marches, either Communist or Fascist, because Mosley did not wish her to. ‘I greatly doubt Bobo being there,’ she wrote, ‘but I am certain I was not.’6
But Unity was active for the Fascist cause and there is photographic evidence that she attended marches as a bystander. She was now so notorious that she hardly had to make a protest; her mere presence was enough to upset bystanders and an objective witness of one incident was shocked at the reaction she provoked. One day in April 1938 Joe Allen, who owned a bookshop and publishing company near by, was standing listening to Sir Stafford Cripps who was speaking at Hyde Park Corner when a fight broke out between some Communists and Fascists from the Imperial Fascist League (not part of Mosley’s organization). Unity was standing close to Allen and turned, as he did, to watch. Almost simultaneously someone spotted Unity’s swastika badge, reached out and tore it off her lapel. She retaliated, striking out and kicking her assailant. When the crowd around her recognized her some turned ugly, shouting, ‘Why don’t you go back to Germany?’ and made rude remarks about Hitler. Then there was a sort of crush towards her with shouts of ‘Let’s duck her.’
Allen assumed they meant to throw her in the nearby Serpentine. Together with another gentleman,7 and a police officer, he helped form a shield around Unity to protect her from the blows that were landed on their shoulders, and stones that were thrown. Even so, someone managed to kick Unity before her protectors got her to a nearby bus stop, where she boarded a bus and quickly got away. Joe Allen and the policeman had to restrain people from following her on to the bus to continue the affray. ‘I was very concerned for her safety,’ he said. ‘People were just beginning to think they didn’t like Herr Hitler very much.’8 The press got hold of the story and coverage of the incident was anti-Unity, with headlines such as ‘Hitler’s Nordic Beauty Beaten Up By London Mob’ and ‘At it Again, the Mad, Mad Mitfords’. Unity did not mind: she later said that she wasn’t at all frightened, just excited.9 She seems to have enjoyed all the publicity and was pleased at the postbag that resulted from the Hyde Park scuffle. After attending Debo’s coming-out ball, she returned to Munich, where a sympathetic Hitler, who had learned of the affair through the newspaper reports, replaced the lost badge with two new ones, each engraved with his signature on the back.
Within weeks she was in the newspapers again, photographs of her and Julius Streicher (whom Decca described as ‘a filthy butcher’) splashed under headlines such as ‘Unity Mitford – Detained in Czechoslovakia’ and ‘Stay at Home, There’s a Good Girl’.10 She had been arrested in Prague on 31 May, hardly surprising since Germany and Czechoslovakia were on the brink of war and Unity persisted in strolling around the city ‘flaunting’ her gold swastika badge. She was instantly recognizable with her tall, blonde good looks, and the confident air that made even her manner of walking an aggressive statement. Nor could she claim that she was unaware of the delicacy of the situation for in her letter to Diana she wrote of the Czechs’ scorched-earth policy in Sudetenland, of seeing railways, bridges and important buildings mined against the coming of the German army, of the 8 p.m. curfew, and of tanks and machine-guns on the roads leading to Prague.11 She was travelling with two Fascist companions and a Sudeten MP, Senator Wollner, and her car had been stopped several times at roadblocks. Although Wollner was a citizen of Czechoslovakia, Unity had been advised at the frontier, as ‘a known Nazi’, not to proceed. Her arrival, in the face of these warnings was, said a dispatch from the British consulate, ‘a clearly provocative act’.12 She was soon released, but her passport and other items were withheld for a further forty-eight hours. Diplomatic reaction from the British legation was that she had asked for trouble and got what she deserved.
It seems as though her actions were a natural progression from her lifelong urge to shock and gain attention. Where she had once been content to release Ratular into a flock of débutantes, her actions now seemed designed to court physical danger; perhaps she hoped that Hitler would notice and that such incidents would prove to him her absolute loyalty. There is no evidence to prove the growing rumour that she hoped to marry Hitler, but it cannot be discounted either, since her behaviour was obsessive. And Hitler did know of these incidents. The Czechs refused to return Unity’s camera but a few days later Hitler presented her with a new Leica, which, she wrote to Diana, ‘cost £50’ – ten weeks’ wages to a white-collar worker in England.
That the relationship between Hitler and Unity was considerably more than that of an adoring fan and a superstar is proven by small incidents rather than great sequences. She began referring to him as ‘Wolf’ and he called her ‘Kin
d’ – Child. They exchanged gifts. As well as the camera, he gave her a framed signed photograph of himself, and at Christmas he sent her a tree complete with decorations. Unity made up one of her collages for him, of Hannibal crossing the Alps, and she gave him the ‘chicken’s mess’ ring.13 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’ (Boudledidge for giggle). When one guest at a Hitler luncheon said that the Osteria 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’. When he had mastered himself sufficiently Hitler pointed at Unity and said to the astonished guest, ‘She likes to hear that.’14 The thought of Hitler giggling at all, let alone ‘quite uncontrollably’, is difficult to imagine, and suggests that Unity brought to his life an uncomplicated form of friendship in which laughter played a significant part. Judging from biographies of him – there have been about a hundred – it was the sort of relationship he had never known elsewhere.
In August Hitler invited Unity to accompany him on a trip to Breslau, a city situated in the tongue of German land lying between Czechoslovakia and Poland. Although she was feeling unwell with a head and chest cold, Unity could not refuse such a wonderful opportunity to be with him, especially at such an exciting time, though it is clear from her letters to Diana and Sydney that she was forcing herself by willpower to stay on her feet throughout a daunting programme. She sat ‘just behind’ Hitler as 150,000 men paraded past him in unbearable heat. Wollner sat behind her and she was pleased that he was ‘frightfully impressed’ that she had travelled in Hitler’s party. At one point Sudeten marchers broke ranks and surrounded Hitler, holding out their hands and crying, ‘Dear Führer, when are you coming to help us?’ Unity was very moved: ‘I never expect to see such scenes again,’ she wrote to Diana. In reply Diana agreed that it must have been an unforgettable experience: ‘Even in The Times one could see how wonderful it must have been. I was frightfully jealous,’ she wrote.15
Hitler’s contingent left Breslau and flew to Nuremberg in two planes, and continued on by car to Bayreuth. By now Unity was feeling so ill that she chose to fly in the second plane, fearing that she might infect Hitler. On arrival at Bayreuth she collapsed with pneumonia and was admitted to a private clinic. Hitler instructed that all medical bills were to be sent to him and before he left for Berlin he sent Unity flowers and ordered his personal physician to remain in Bayreuth to care for her. Sydney flew out immediately, and was horrified to find that instead of relying on the natural healing processes of ‘the good body’, Unity was submitting to ten or fifteen different injections each day from Theodor Morrell. She was very unhappy about this, but as Hitler – who trusted the doctor implicitly, even though it was later discovered that Morrell’s treatments caused him harm – had sent a telegram begging Unity to do everything the doctor ordered, she realized that any protests were pointless.16
Ten days later David flew out to take over as bedside-sitter while Sydney returned to England. On the day Unity was discharged David discovered that Hitler had already paid her bill and sent signed photographs of himself to her nurses.17 There were no circumstances under which David would have been prepared to allow another man to foot the expenses of his unmarried daughter. However, his immense old-fashioned charm ensured that no feelings were ruffled when he reimbursed Hitler, and during Unity’s convalescence the two men met several times. With the exception of Derek Jackson, whom he scarcely understood, David seldom liked the men his daughters liked, and referred to his sons-in-law as ‘the man Mosley, the boy Romilly and the bore Rodd’. Somewhat to his surprise, however, he found that he rather liked Hitler. ‘Farve really does adore him in the way we do,’ Unity wrote to Diana, grossly exaggerating this, ‘and treasures every word and expression.’18
Considering the state of European politics in August 1938, one might be forgiven for assuming that Sydney left because she was in danger of being trapped in a war zone. However, she flew home because Nancy had had a miscarriage; within three weeks she was back again for the Nuremberg Parteitag. The Redesdales stayed at the Grand Hotel where, a witness recalled, they seemed out of place. Lady Redesdale was always to be found sitting over her needlework in a corner of the lounge while Lord Redesdale helped her find her needles or wandered around ‘with a bewildered air as though he were at a rather awkward house party where (curiously enough) nobody could speak English’.19
In the interim Dr Morrell’s injections, or perhaps the Good Body, had done their work and Unity was well enough to attend the rally with her parents. Nancy’s friend Robert Byron joined them, using the ticket Unity had obtained for Tom, who at the last minute found he could not attend. Byron was vehemently anti-Fascist and attended out of curiosity to compare Germany with his experiences on a recent visit to Moscow. Unity’s party was seated in the front row, so close that Byron found he could meet the eyes of ‘Hitler and his henchmen’. Not surprisingly, Nuremberg was the focal point of the international press corps that year, and over tea one day Unity found herself sharing a table with freelance correspondent Virginia Cowles, who had earlier noticed the Nazi hierarchy ‘bowing and scraping’ to Unity, and kissing her hand. ‘She seemed rather embarrassed by their attention,’ she wrote. Hitler took his reserved table with Lord Stamp, Lord Brocket, Ward Price and Herr Henlein. He looked grim and his eyes swept the room but when his gaze lighted on Unity he suddenly smiled and saluted her. She saluted back, and shortly afterwards an orderly came over and invited her to Hitler’s suite in the Hotel Deutscher Hof after tea. When Cowles saw her a few hours later she asked Unity what Hitler had said and if she thought there would be a war. ‘I don’t think so,’ Unity replied ingenuously. ‘The Führer doesn’t want his new building bombed,’20
But Hitler’s closing speech on 12 September, in which he ‘promised’ the Sudeten Germans his help, made conflict in some form inevitable, and Byron left immediately to avoid being trapped.21 Three days later, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent war, sixty-nine-year-old Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made the first flight of his life, arriving in Germany for what would be a series of high-level talks at Hitler’s mountain home. In all, Chamberlain made three visits in two weeks. Meanwhile, the Redesdales departed to England, unable to persuade Unity to accompany them, though she promised to fly home for Christmas.22 In the meantime she went to Austria to Janos von Almassy’s home and the two went on to Venice. Members of the Mitford family, who have read her diaries at the time of this holiday, are ‘fairly sure she had a brief love affair’ with him.23
Diana’s statement about Decca in connection with the May Day parade was only partially correct. She was not aware of it but Decca was pregnant in 1938. The exact dates are not known but Decca wrote that she was ‘twenty-one . . . when I had my one and only abortion’, which, if strictly accurate, would place the event after her birthday on 11 September. To have been pregnant during the 1938 May Day march means she conceived soon after Julia’s birth so she must have had the abortion between the May Day march and Julia’s death on the twenty-eighth of that month, after which the Romillys ‘ran away’ to Corsica. And it raises questions. By her own admission both Esmond and Philip Toynbee knew of the pregnancy. Why did she need to terminate it? Perhaps the thought of two tiny babies within a year was too much for her to countenance, or for the Romillys to finance. Yet it must have happened then if Decca’s recollection in Hons and Rebels is accurate. If not, she must have run several incidents together: her acute memory of the huge May Day rally, and of seeing her sisters protesting on another day.
Most likely Decca had the termination some weeks after she and Esmond returned to London from Corsica. There are no further details and speculation is pointless, but it is known that she found it a traumatic
experience. Twenty years later she wrote about it during a campaign to legalize abortion in the USA. By then she was a leading civil-rights campaigner and had recently tried to help a young woman who needed a pregnancy terminated. She was appalled to find that in California in the 1950s there was still one rule for the poor, the back-street abortionist, and another for the rich, the private clinic that didn’t ask too many questions. Just one. ‘Tell your friend,’ the Californian doctor instructed Decca, ‘that if she’s had the merchandise for more than three months it can’t be returned.’
When she decided to have her abortion in 1938, Decca wrote, it was not only an illegal act but the subject was taboo. Clearly she was not aware of Diana’s terminated pregnancy some years earlier for she stated that she did not even consider consulting anybody in her family because they ‘wouldn’t have been likely to have useful ideas on the subject’ and furthermore she was ‘estranged’ from them. Instead she sought advice from a friend, a woman older than herself who was ‘a Bohemian’, and was given an address: ‘There’s no telephone,’ her friend said. ‘Just go there, and take five pounds in cash.’ This represented a week’s wages for Esmond, as Decca indirectly pointed out. She took a bus and a tube to where the abortionist lived ‘deep in the East End slums’, rang the bell and announced nervously, while holding out five one-pound notes, that she had an introduction from a friend:
The Sisters_The Saga of the Mitford Family Page 28
