Hitler's Valkyrie

by David R L Litchfield

  In the same summer of 1932, Mosley attended yet another ball at Biddesden, this time held by Diana to celebrate the end of Unity and Rudbin’s debutante season. There Unity met Mosley for the first time, and, according to Lovell, ‘she too, fell under his “mesmeric” influence … he became her ideal of a political leader – indeed she referred to him thereafter as “The Leader”’. Kathleen Atkins claimed that Unity, who was desperate to lose her virginity, willingly fell under his influence on the billiard table in the early hours of the morning. Knowing Mosley’s predilection for sisters, it seems highly likely. There were even indications that Diana may have encouraged his ‘covering’ of her sister. Certainly, from that night on, the relationship between the two sisters became much closer; as did Unity’s relationship with Mosley. Her experience would no doubt have added momentum to Unity’s increasing emersion in fascism and her pledge to devote herself ‘body and soul’ to the Führer.

  * * *

  Leaving their babies at home with their nannies, Diana and Bryan decided to spend the summer touring southern Europe. The Mosleys had apparently made similar plans. Within a matter of weeks the four of them were all together on the Venice Lido. It was hardly surprising that the shimmering summer days and velvety nights of their stay in Venice would inflame Mosley and Diana’s ardour. Perhaps flaunting the intimacy of their relationship enhanced the thrill of their passion for each other. They certainly lost all sense of discretion and seemed quite determined to contradict Diana’s intention to avoid wounding either Bryan or Cimmie, to whom it was soon painfully and embarrassingly obvious that Diana and ‘Tom’ Mosley were having an extremely physical affair. Cimmie apparently spent a great deal of time crying, while Bryan seemed quite unable to accept the truth of the situation.

  On 1 October 1932, having finally returned from his lengthy European sojourn, Mosley, looking ‘tanned and healthy’ and more than usually pleased with himself, ‘formally launched the British Union of Fascists with a flag-unfurling ceremony in its offices … in Great George Street. This was followed a fortnight later by the first public meeting, in Trafalgar Square.’27 There was something rather sad about the long-suffering, devoted Cimmie being there by his side, as supportive as ever. Particularly if, as Martin Pugh has claimed, she actually had an aversion to fascism.

  Meanwhile, Diana, having ignored her family and friends’ pleas to reconsider her relationship with Mosley, broke the news to the devastated Bryan that she was leaving him. Lords Redesdale and Moyne (Bryan’s father) went together to see Mosley, but as Mary Lovell rather unsympathetically put it, ‘Mosley refused to be lectured or intimidated into giving Diana up.’

  In a last ditch attempt at reconciliation, Bryan agreed to go away to Switzerland for three weeks, to give her some time for reflection. But when he returned home to Cheyne Walk in mid-January 1933 Diana moved out. The marriage was over.

  Diana had taken a lease, presumably paid for with her husband’s money, on what she referred to as ‘a small house of her own’ at 2 Eaton Square. By her standards it may have indeed been small, but it was big enough to house her, her two children, a cook, a nanny, a parlour maid and a lady’s maid. It was also situated just minutes away from what the press would refer to as ‘Mosley’s love-nest’.

  * * *

  In February 1933 Unity pressurised her parents into funding her enrolment at the Art School of the London County Council in Vincent Square, where she had little difficulty convincing the school that she had sufficient talent to justify her studies. Unfortunately, her promise was never fulfilled as she only stayed until Easter, before leaving to pursue her career as a fascist; a sacrifice she would share with Adolf Hitler. However, during her brief time at Vincent Square, Unity enjoyed art school, particularly the sexual freedom it offered her.

  While she was there, Unity persuaded Diana to lend her the Eatonry (Diana’s house in Eaton Square) for ‘an orgy’. It was hardly the activity of a shy young romantic virgin but her family and friends managed to give the story of Unity’s introduction to group sex a veneer of innocence, by encouraging her friend Rosemary Peto’s report that ‘everyone had been sick and there had been lots of “necking”’. In order to protect her own reputation, Rosemary also swore blind that she had not actually been there and only ‘heard about it afterwards’.

  Apart from orgies and the white slave trade, another subject ‘beloved’ by the Mitfords was incest. Whether Tom ‘did it’ and with which, if not all, of the sisters he may have ‘done it’ with was a favourite topic of conversation amongst their chums.

  Around this time Unity had also been introduced to Gerald Cuthbert, ‘a conspicuously good-looking man’, who was also ‘intelligent, musical’ and, ‘until her departure for the grand passions of Nazi Germany’,28 her lover. In a rather dramatic understatement, David Pryce-Jones suggested Unity had a ‘foible’ for Cuthbert, while both he and Gerald’s sister, Vida, remained insistent that Gerald had never returned Unity’s affection; though it must have been obvious to Vida that it was not his ‘affection’ that interested Unity and that their relationship could not, with any degree of accuracy, be described as a ‘foible’. However, Vida did admit that Unity and Gerald enjoyed attending boxing and wrestling matches and that Unity was very partial to fine young men, especially when they were in some way involved with physical violence. Certainly, neither she nor Pryce-Jones were prepared to admit that it was more than likely Gerald Cuthbert who introduced Unity to sadomasochism.

  Rosemary Peto said that she used to meet Unity quite often ‘at [General] Sir Ian and Lady Hamilton’s’. Sir Ian had unfortunately been involved in the costly Gallipoli campaign, the equally ill-fated Afghan War of 1878–80 and the disastrous Battle of Majuba Hill in 1881. But he had frightfully good manners and was terribly grand. The Hamiltons also ‘had a house in Hyde Park Gardens and gave enormous luncheon parties for twenty or thirty people’29. It was at one such luncheon that Unity and Rosemary fell out, in a big way. Rosemary later recalled:

  Bobo was wearing a swastika in her buttonhole. The Nazis had just done something particularly horrible, and I said, ‘It’s shocking that you are wearing that.’ She answered, ‘If you had any sense you’d be wearing it too.’ She later boasted that it was such fun to have supper with Streicher, as he’d have the Jews in after the meal, they’d be brought up from the cellar and be made to eat grass to entertain the guests.

  It was highly unlikely that Unity ever witnessed such a thing, but equally it was obvious that she would have liked to.

  Far from considering Unity’s swastika – or presumably her attitude towards Jews – abhorrent, the Hamiltons were to become great admirers of Adolf Hitler and were all for making a deal with the Führer, who subsequently received them personally, to show his appreciation that an English general of the First World War championed him as a lover of peace.

  * * *

  While the Nazi Party was gaining strength, so were the Communists. General Kurt von Schleicher had already replaced von Papen as Chancellor in November 1932 but to little effect. As the result of von Papen’s suggestion and increasing pressure from businessmen, industrialists, particularly the Thyssens, and international (American) bankers, Hindenburg was persuaded to appoint Hitler as a replacement for Schleicher as chancellor. In order to limit his power, it was also suggested that Hitler lead a coalition government, contained within a framework of conservative cabinet ministers, with von Papen as vice-chancellor and controlling mediator. After numerous meetings and countless concessions and covert deals, Hitler was sworn in as chancellor on 30 January 1933. The wooden horse had finally entered the city of Troy and the lunatic had at last taken over the asylum.

  On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag went up in flames. A young Dutchman, Marinus van der Lubbe, was charged with arson and, after unsuccessfully trying to have him executed on the spot, Göring blamed the Communists. Hitler said, ‘This is a God-given signal … there is nothing that shall stop us now crushing this murder pest with an iro
n fist.’ The next day he persuaded Hindenburg to sign a decree, ‘for the protection of the people and the state’. This decree, known as The Enabling Act, suspended all legal defence of personal liberty, freedom of speech, press and the right of assembly. Hitler had, in one move, assumed the full dictatorial powers for which he believed the gods had chosen him. Aged 44, he had only been actively involved in politics for fourteen years.

  Almost immediately violence increased; groups of storm troopers roamed the streets, armed with revolvers and pieces of lead pipe, looking for Communists to kill and Jews to beat, or for other Jews they could force to do the beating for them. A bonfire was lit outside Berlin University onto which books considered to be ‘un-German’ were thrown. Plans were drawn up for the sterilisation of ‘imperfect Germans’, while Jews and socialists were rounded up and herded into concentration camps.

  The Enabling Act was the most significant law to be introduced during the Third Reich. The number of people arrested in Prussia alone within the first two weeks of its inception was estimated to have been more than 10,000. Goebbels declared, ‘Now it is a joy to live!’

  While the Nazis managed to finally overcome all political opposition, during the final elections they only achieved a majority of votes in Bavaria and Württemberg. Overall, despite massive promotion and violent coercion, they still barely managed to win 43.9 per cent of the vote. It was only with the support of the Social Democrats and the Centre party that they gained the majority of seats needed to take power; though by this time the Nazis would have taken control by force rather than accept political defeat. From now on Germany was to be a one-party state.

  By April, taxi drivers in Berlin were complaining that the Jewish boycotts introduced by the Nazis had hit them hard, as Jews were good customers; the use of taxis being considered an unnecessary extravagance by most gentiles. But other than that, the order to boycott Jews and Jewish businesses had little effect. Most Germans ignored the directive, and so more extreme measures had to be introduced. Meanwhile, Christopher Isherwood and his friends left Berlin for Amsterdam, while Brian Howard, who was convinced of the horror that would result from Hitler and the Nazis’ rise to power, remained in Germany. ‘In 1931 I begain reviewing for the New Statesman and went to Bavaria. There I became influenced by the (Thomas) Mann family’s (and Andre Gide) loathing of Hitler and I devoted myself to writing anti-Hitler articles in the English press.’

  In Brian Howard’s interview with Hitler’s press chief, Dr Hanfstaengl, published in April 1933 in the New Statesman, Hanfstaengl told him, ‘Everything will be alright when we have turned the Jews out of Europe and the niggers out of France.’

  * * *

  Hitler had a grudging admiration for Britain and due to his Austro-Hungarian birthright was particularly envious of her empire. But he was also all too aware that it was a country built on battle honours that enjoyed a degree of kinship with the Austrian and German aristocracy but needed little encouragement to get into a fight, particularly when her empire was threatened. He knew that the British ruling classes were sympathetic towards his aggressive determination to annihilate the Communists and were also unlikely to waste a great deal of effort opposing his treatment of the Jews. His policy was to lull them into a false sense of security, for as long as he could. To this end, ‘Hitler sent his chief party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg to London in May 1933, to clear up ‘certain misconceptions that existed abroad in regard to recent events in Germany’.30

  The Imperial Fascist League (IFL) was the organisation of British fascists most closely linked to the German Nazis in the early 1930s, largely due to their anti-Semitic policies, which were more extreme than Mosley had yet to adopt despite the fact that he undoubtedly shared the prejudices of his class and his era towards Jews.

  The similarity of the BUF’s policy to that of Mussolini’s party was probably not unconnected to its continued acceptance of funding from the Italian organisation. Their only unique ‘quality’ was Mosley’s encouragement of an extensive female participation, something both the Italian and German fascists, who professed to enjoy a reputation for extreme patriarchal attitudes, had effectively suppressed.

  This BUF policy appeared to reflect its leader’s sexual preference for aristocratic women. They included Lady Esther Makgill, ex-suffragette Mary Richardson, Viscountess Downe, Lady Clare Annesley, Lady Howard of Effingham and Lady Pearson. Lady Maud, Mosley’s mother, also became a member.

  The Prince of Wales, whose indulgence in women, or to be more accurate one particular woman, would seriously damage his monarchic future, shared many of the attitudes commonly held by the privileged classes at that time. These included a deep-seated fear of communism, a love of France but an antipathy towards the French and an enthusiasm for Anglo-German friendship. He was reported to have said of the Nazi dictatorship to the former Austrian ambassador Count Mensdorff, ‘Of course it is the only thing to do. We will have to come to it as we are in great danger from the Communists too’, and to Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, ‘Dictators are very popular these days and we might want one in England before long.’ He was believed to have considered Mosley a suitable candidate for such a role. Fortunately for England, before long the prince would have more pressing matters to deal with.

  Around the end of January 1934, Lady Furness, the close and personal friend of the Prince of Wales, ‘made her ruinous mistake’31 by choosing to return to America to visit her sister. According to Charles Jennings, Wallis Simpson said to her:

  ‘Oh, Thelma, the little man is going to be so lonely’. Thelma’s answer was, ‘You look after him for me while I’m away. See that he does not get into any mischief’ … Convention usually has it that the unsuspecting Thelma boarded her ship … and returned to England to find, to her horror, that Wallis had turned predator and thieved the Prince.

  * * *

  The Nazis, who by now were all too aware that Berlin had become their international shop window, cracked down heavily on the city’s more salacious nightlife. However, they soon liberalised many of the restrictions when they realised the detrimental effect they were having on their foreign exchange and shifted media attention away from Berlin by choosing Nuremberg, the unofficial Bavarian capital of the Holy Roman Empire, as the spiritual home of Hitler’s master race and celebratory centre of the Third Reich. Hitler chose to develop Nuremberg as the host city for his spectacular annual rallies and he planned stadiums, a Congress Hall and a vast, open-air assembly area on open ground around the Luitpoldhain and the Zeppelinwiese. The first Nazi Party Rally took place in Nuremberg in 1927; the next was held in 1929; and it then occurred annually from 1933 till 1938.

  There, in the Teutonic spirit of the Middle Ages, the Nazis created awe-inspiring military equivalents of Busby Berkeley’s musicals. These highly theatrical events were enthusiastically reported in the British press by Mr Ward Price of the Daily Mail who, according to David Pryce-Jones, became ‘as favoured by the Führer as was formerly Sefton Delmer of the [Daily] Express; first man inside the Reichstag after the burning’.

  Hitler understood the power of excess, the religious excess reflected as much in the pyramids as in Chartres Cathedral. Christian peasant worshippers did not need such a building in which to pray. It was designed to awe them into subservience and obedience in the same way that Wagner’s music was created with sufficient excessive power to ‘force’ people to believe in the creator’s genius.

  Hitler was also aware that the monumental excess reflected in Wagner’s music and his theatrical party rallies were needed to transcend the Nazi movement from a political party into a religious movement and thence to mass hysteria and an orgy of violence.

  Less enthusiastically reported by Sefton Delmer was the opening of the Dachau concentration camp on the outskirts of Munich, and the subsequent, genocidal policy which would result in the death of not only 6 million Jews but also 2.5 million non-Jewish Poles, 1.5 million Romany, 13.7 million Russian civilians, 275,000 mentally and physically disabled, 50
,000 homosexuals and 2,600 Catholic priests.

  * * *

  In April 1933, Mosley paid his second visit to Mussolini and on his return wrote in the Blackshirt that ‘fascism was the greatest creed that Western civilisation has ever given to the world … destined to become the universal movement of the Twentieth Century’. It was not an unusual opinion. Winston Churchill had already said to Il Duce, ‘If I had been an Italian I am sure I would have been wholeheartedly with you from start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and perversions of Leninism.’

  By now everyone seemed to be in full knowledge of Mosley’s affair with Diana, including his wife Cimmie who was not taking it at all well. Diana’s lack of emotional commitment, meanwhile, was somewhat at odds with those who had insisted that her relationship with Mosley was based on some celestial level of love. ‘The fact that Mosley was so busy in a variety of ways,’ Diana wrote, ‘was one of his great attractions for me. I wanted more freedom than Bryan was prepared to give me.’ She would probably have preferred to remain in the position of being one of Mosley’s mistresses, but it was not to be.