Meanwhile, Unity had also discovered William Blake, the graphic and poetic genius who consorted with angels on Peckham Rye. His engravings had given her the opportunity to freely indulge in the enjoyment of erotic imagery in the name of art, culture and even religion.
Considering her taste in art and some of her literary influences, it appears highly likely that Unity’s poetry also contained a degree of explicit, sexual content. This is something that neither her parents nor her sisters would have been terribly keen to reveal, either subsequently or at the time.
The poet John Milton was also said to be, like Unity, of ‘sensitive demeanour’, though perhaps for somewhat different reasons that doubtless influenced his gaining the title of ‘The Lady of Christ’s College’.
Milton was also a powerful influence over Blake, who illustrated much of his writing. Unity was obsessed by his work, particularly Paradise Lost and its references to such elevated subjects as love, war and heroism and the battle between fallen angels and those still in heaven. It deals with the downfall of Adam and Eve, Satan and Jesus Christ, with much fire and anger, which in turn appealed to both Blake and Unity. The sin and heroism represented by copulating angels would have certainly appealed to her more than the purity and virtue promoted by the Christian Church. However, she was unlikely to have supported Oliver Cromwell, under whom Milton served as an administrator. English people of her elevated social position and doubtless royalist sympathies just didn’t, though Hitler did. He would even advise Mosley to call his followers ‘Ironsides’ rather than blackshirts.
Unity’s family appeared to oscillate between being somewhat embarrassed by her intellectual precocity and proud that she was indeed very different from the rest of her sisters. Sydney must certainly have been aware that her daughter’s poetic tastes were very advanced for such a young girl and admitted, ‘Keats, Shelley, Byron and Blake were her poets, especially Blake.’
Unity was an avid reader of equally impressive prose, including fiction by Huxley, Poe, the Brontë sisters and Waugh, the first and last of whom were of course Mitford literary collaborators. She was also known to have been extremely excited by Huxley’s surreal, socially advanced novel Chrome Yellow, which was set among people from her stratum of society. Described by F. Scott Fitzgerald as ‘too ironic to be called satire and too scornful to be called irony’, it could be considered the English equivalent of The Great Gatsby.
The Mitford family would later maintain that Unity’s taste in literature and art supported their claim that she was a ‘quintessential romantic’ or, when excusing her relationship with Adolf Hitler, ‘a naive and easily led romantic’.31 Up until now their various biographers also seem to have been quite prepared to accept this defence, despite the fact that her artistic choice was so emblematic of her role as a dangerously intelligent fantasist; as of course was Hitler, and it was this shared trait in their character that would inexorably draw them together.
Hitler was also impressed by the fact that the work of Milton and Blake contains many parallels with the Norse legends and occult elements that influenced the Nazi movement and Hitler’s beloved Wagner.
Since William Blake did not agree with many of the Christian teachings, despite being reverential towards the Bible, he also invented a personal mythology or profound fantasy. In a mixture of Biblical and Greek mythology he used characters such as Urizen, Los and Orc as archetypes of human nature. He believed that Christianity advocated the repression of natural desires and inhibited earthly joy. Such things were regarded as evil. According to Blake, some of what we consider evil was in fact good. In one of his Prophetic Books, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c. 1790), he entertains the notion that existence requires an equal amount of good and evil. He defined good as ‘the passion that obeys reason’ and evil as ‘the active springing from energy’.
Fascism would have appalled Blake for the same reason that he opposed orthodox Christianity. But that did not stop his words to the song Jerusalem becoming the battle hymn for the English patriots and fascists. He also appeared to believe that Jesus Christ had at one time visited Britain. This is reflected in the Jerusalem lyrics, ‘And did those feet in ancient land, walk upon England’s pastures green.’
His disagreement with the Christian Church was based on the fact that he believed it encouraged ‘inactivity or stagnation, thus allowing life to become stale, static and eventually poisonous … “Reason” will tell a person to stop before one finds out what one’s limits are. In order to enjoy life to the fullest people should find out exactly what is more than enough.’ It was a belief that was distinguished through his iconic quote, ‘the path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom’.
In the family’s post-war efforts to cover up Unity’s sexual relationship with Adolf Hitler and his disciples, they inferred that her lack of physical attraction would have made such a thing quite out of the question.
‘Unity was always rather big, which increased her shyness.’32 Sydney also said she was ‘very tall and very straight and she had two thick plaits of golden hair and a severe and serious expression’. Nancy, spiteful as ever, christened her ‘Hideous’, and Decca, somewhat more subtly, remembered her as ‘a shaggy Viking or Little John’.
They also liked to give the impression that Unity was clumsy and physically inept. But she was an award-winning ice skater, an activity that requires considerable agility and physical co-ordination. It also tends to severely punish those lacking balance. But it was her height that everyone made most of.
In fact, Unity was very similar in height to Diana, as can be seen from photographs of them together. Unity also proved extremely attractive to Hitler and his SS officers, who greatly appreciated her Wagnerian ‘Rhine Maiden’ looks and athletic abilities.
According to John Betjeman, Unity possessed a highly developed sense of humour, ‘that was often overlooked’. Though it may be difficult to accept, it was also a quality that she shared with Hitler. One sometimes gets the impression that biographers’ acceptance of the family’s insistence that Unity lacked wit, intelligence and physical attraction is all part of their fear of being seen to be in any way condoning not just a fascist but a Nazi, especially a Mitford Nazi.
* * *
Far from being received as a redundant, defeated veteran at the end of the First World War, Hitler was rewarded with a post that could have been tailor-made for the assurance of his political future. He was recruited by the right-wing Political Department of the Reichswehr, a defence unit permitted under the terms of the Versailles Treaty to infiltrate and report on subversive political groups. In preparation for his duties, he was enrolled at Munich University to attend lectures on right-wing political history, economics and political theory.
The misleading inclusion of the word ‘workers’ in the name of any organisation was sufficient to ensure investigation and cause for Hitler to be instructed to attend a meeting of the fledgling Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers’ Party or DAP), shortly to become the NSDAP, commonly known in English as the Nazi Party. It was in fact anti-communist, anti-Semitic and extremely right wing.
The DAP had originally been formed by the far-right politician Anton Drexler, and sponsored by the Thule Society. Claimed to have been formed as a ‘Study Group for Germanic Antiquity’ by Walter Nauhaus and his friend Karl Maria Willigut, the society had its roots in Ariosophy, the Germanic occult revival inspired by German paganism, romantic mysticism and extreme racism.
At one of the first meetings of the DAP that Hitler attended, he verbally assaulted a critic of one of the speakers with such authoritative ferocity that the man was forced to leave while the organisers, recognising the value of Hitler’s ‘mouth’, offered him immediate membership. Appreciating the potential that such a small organisation could offer him, he accepted. Then, armed with his brilliantly effective theatrical oratory and a seemingly natural gift for political strategy and promotion, Hitler gradually assumed control; displaying no hesitation in encouraging the physical pro
tection and assistance of the Reichswehr and Freikorps in brutally crushing all his opponents.
With a lust for power that left little time or motivation for the development of policies, he relied on developing the common fear of Jews and Communists to such a level of hysteria that thousands were soon fighting to pay to hear him speak. It still took him five years to gain what he felt was sufficient strength to challenge the state itself.
The ‘March on the Feldherrnhalle’ (otherwise known as the ‘Beerhall Putsch’) was in fact an attempted coup d’état led by Hitler in his role as leader of the Nazi Party, supported by General Erich Ludendorff, the First World War hero. It commenced on the evening of 8 November 1923 and collapsed in a hail of bullets fired by troops and police loyal to the Bavarian state on the following afternoon. That day marked the end of the first stage of Hitler’s attempt to establish a new order in Germany: the ‘Third Reich’.
In later years he stated that it had been a success, precisely because it had not succeeded. In 1933, Hitler claimed that if they had succeeded in taking over Germany at that time, it would have been a disaster as they would have been faced with a major problem in attempting to run a country with a 5-year-old Nazi Party totally lacking any experience in such things.
It would be ten more years before Hitler was invited to head a government, ultimately without a shot being fired. Adequate time, especially after the publication of Mein Kampf, for there to cease to be any confusion concerning his political and social intentions, particularly towards the Jews and the gypsies. But even as early as 1924 the Communists would be attracting 4 million voters; a great deal more than the Nazi Party.
* * *
It is very difficult to say exactly when ‘The Mitford Girls’ became an entity, but the decision to develop such a concept appears to have been taken in 1925, when their celebrity status had become sufficiently assured to consider it worth saving their letters.
The family had already been living at Asthall Manor for six years. Followers would be persuaded to consider them the classic years of the Mitford childhood; though for Nancy, now 21, Pam, 18, and even Tom, 16, it could hardly be considered childhood. It would also still be another five years before Nancy would write her first ‘novel’; the first of several such books that so successfully established the family in the eyes of the public.
The books could not in fact be truthfully described as all her own work. Certainly her first novel, Highland Fling, was completed with considerable assistance from Evelyn Waugh, who also came up with the titles, and who knows what else, for two more of her books, The Pursuit of Love and Voltaire in Love.
Meanwhile, the Mitford myths continued to be developed; including the literary importance of the linen cupboard. ‘It was at Swinbrook that the linen cupboard became a favourite resort because of its hot pipes’33 and it was there that Nancy developed her literary skills, writing poems and stories for her siblings’ entertainment. Or that is what was claimed, although she actually spent very little time at Swinbrook and even less in the linen cupboard. Nancy also had more interest in taunting her siblings than in entertaining them, and took particular delight in ridiculing the staff.
A typical story involved her impersonation of ‘the governess in residence Miss Broadmoor’s elocution, a tortured diction that passed for refined (“refained”) speech: “Ay huff a löft, and öft/as ay lay on may eiderdown so soft/(tossing from sade to sade with may nasty cöff)/ay ayther think of the loft/, or of the w-h-h-h-heat in the tröff of the löf’,” though some might say this was a bit rich coming from someone who pronounced “lost” and “gone” as “lorst” and “gorn”.’
Physically attractive, with a sharp turn of phrase, good literary tastes, and an interest in modern art and fashion, Nancy should have been snapped up, yet she remained unmarried despite her parents’ investment in a lavish season and presentation at Court. Pam would also be subjected to a social season and presentation but her love for the country ill-suited her to London life, let alone marriage.
Having spent some time in London and discovered that he was as attractive to girls as he was to boys, Tom had by now developed an even more unfortunate level of arrogance. This had become obvious even to his friends, though the more generous amongst them excused it as ‘only the arrogance of youth’.
The planned ‘presentation’ of the ‘stunningly beautiful’34 Diana seemed quite irrelevant, as it had already become obvious that there would be no shortage of suitors, with or without a ‘season’ or a presentation at court.
Regardless of their age the girls were all still living at home, while Unity, Jessica and Deborah were the only ones young enough to have accurately qualified as children, though they all qualified to adopt the prefix of ‘Honourable’. There was also little doubt that they had been brought up to believe in their social superiority, but despite the fact that Jessica later confirmed the girls’ shortening of the word to ‘hon’ as in Hons and Rebels, their mother and Deborah would subsequently continue to insist that the word ‘hon’ was a secret family codeword for ‘hen’.
Evelyn Waugh remained unconvinced: ‘It was a great day for “Hons” when you and your merry sisters acquired that prefix of nobility. Hitherto it had been the most shadowy of titles, never spoken, and rarely written. You brought it to light, emphasised and aspirated and made a glory of it.’
Somewhat mysteriously, the Mitford girls, despite having all the necessary qualifications, seemed determined to distance themselves from being branded Bright Young Things (or BYTs). Mary Lovell detailed what was required to qualify as such a thing:
[The] post-war generation of young people … erupted into Society determined to change the world [at least socially], for the better now that the war to end all wars was over. Their background was upper class, of course, but talented gatecrashers, working-class émigrés like Noël Coward and Cecil Beaton were not unwelcome. Girls shingled their hair, wore slave bangles and cloche hats, and dressed in shapeless, waistless dresses designed to ‘move’ across an uncorseted body and display the lower legs, clad in silk stockings and high-heeled shoes. They smoked cigarettes in long holders and drank cocktails with names like ‘Horse’s Neck’. Their elders, the Edwardian generation who had fought a world war, and whose mores were still Victorian, were satisfyingly shocked.
The Mitfords were said to have regarded them as too frivolous, but it is more likely that they wanted to retain their exclusivity as the Mitford girls, rather than being lumped together with so many others under such a common generic term.
* * *
Two miles up the hill from Swinbrook village, the next Mitford home, the large, Teutonic grey, three-story, eighteen-bedroom structure of Swinbrook House would become known by locals as ‘The Mitford Barracks’. It is claimed that David designed the house. Not an easy thing to do for a man with no architectural training and limited literacy, even if it was described rather inaccurately as ‘An unremarkable, rather insipid square building in Cotswold stone, such as councillors might have erected between the wars as a cottage hospital, or dons as a modest extension to an Oxford college.’35
The house in fact bares an uncanny resemblance in style to the pre-war völkisch architecture, albeit English-influenced, to which Adolf Hitler was so partial! Rather mysteriously there is no remaining evidence of who actually built the house, let alone who really designed it; though Cubitt’s, the royal builder with a base in Oxford, seems the most likely.
By 1926 David’s dream house was in the final stages of building, and Asthall was to be sold. But as the new house was still not habitable, in the autumn Sydney took all the girls to Paris for three months accompanied by their nanny and Miss Bedell, the current governess, while David finalised the sale of Asthall Manor and organised the move to Swinbrook House.
Of his six daughters, four had still to ‘come out’ and all but one was likely to require further social investment to achieve successful marital status. Therefore it seemed sensible and perhaps even, in the end, economical
to acquire a house large enough for substantial receptions located in an appropriately fashionable area that could enable the family to elevate its social standing. So, David purchased a large townhouse in Knightsbridge overlooking Hyde Park, at 26 Rutland Gate, a leafy London cul-de-sac, with a mews garage and flat to the rear. The Victorian house was distinguished by two tall white pillars guarding its entrance. David was also especially proud of the passenger lift that he had installed.
The rate of exchange made France very good value for the English, as it had been in Bertie’s childhood. So Sydney arranged a long-term stay at a hotel in the centre of Paris, while the socially precocious Diana attended a small day school called Cours Fénelon in the Rue de la Pompe. ‘Why doesn’t one always live in hotels?’ Nancy wrote from Paris. ‘There are dozens of sweet little boys here (hall boys) perfect pets, I shall give them my chocs.’36
For the Christmas holidays of 1926/27 the family returned to the new house at Rutland Gate, which both Nancy and Diana also found perfectly charming.
Unfortunately the reaction to Swinbrook House, which had been David’s dream for many years, was not as positive. ‘We all thought the house monstrous,’ said Diana. But their lack of enthusiasm did not prevent the house from receiving an enormous amount of literary attention. Particularly the legendary linen cupboard.
The building of Swinbrook House had undoubtedly been an extravagance, but the Mitfords appeared to continue to live well with plenty of staff, while David never failed to buy a new car every year.
Hitler's Valkyrie Page 9
