Unity Mitford

Infobox Person
name = Unity Mitford


image_size =
caption =
birth_date = 8 August, 1914
birth_place = London, United Kingdom
death_date = 28 May, 1948 (aged 34)
death_place = Oban, United Kingdom
death_cause = Meningitis
parents = David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and Sydney Mitford

Unity Valkyrie Mitford (8 August, 1914 – 28 May, 1948), was one of the noted Mitford sisters. She was a prominent supporter of fascism and friend of Adolf Hitler.

Biography

Childhood

Mitford was born in London, England to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and claimed to have been 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, Jane Dalley, believes that, "Unity found life in her big family very difficult because she came after these cleverer, prettier, more accomplished sisters." While another biographer, David Pryce-Jones, added:

Mitford appears to have turned to right-wing politics as a way to distinguish herself within the family. As Dalley states:

Her younger sister, Jessica, with whom she shared a room, was a dedicated communist, so the two drew a chalk line down the middle of the room. One side was decorated with hammer and sickles and pictures of Lenin, and the other decorated with swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler. Dalley explains, "I mean they were kids virtually, you don’t know how much it was just a game, a game that became deadly serious in later life."

Coming out

Mitford had her debut in 1932 and that same year her elder sister Diana abandoned 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. The rebellious Unity disobeyed and that summer met with Mosley at a party thrown by Diana where she was promised a party badge.

Oswald’s son, Nicholas, has stated that:Nicholas goes on to say that although his father admired Unity’s commitment he said that, "She wasn’t doing him any good, because she was making an exhibition of herself." Unity and Diana travelled to Germany as part of the British delegation to the 1933 Nuremberg Rally where they saw 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:Pryce Jones concludes; "Diana’s relationship with Mosley is a very big fact of Mitford life, and what should Unity do about it? So it looks to me as if one thing she could do about it is go one better."

Arrival in Germany

Unity returned to Germany in the summer of 1934, enrolling in a language school in Munich close to the Nazi Party headquarters, and set out to meet with her idol. As Dalley confirms "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.

In a letter to her father Unity wrote:Hitler in turn had also become obsessed with the beautiful young blonde British student and her curious connections to the Germanic culture including her middle name, Valkyrie, and her grandfather, Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, who was a friend of one of Hitler’s idols, Richard Wagner, and translated the works of another, Houston Stewart Chamberlain. As Dalley explains, "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 had became very 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: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 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.

Inside the inner circle

From this point on Mitford was inducted into Hitler’s inner circle. In 1938 when Hitler announced the Anschluss she appeared on the balcony in Vienna with him and she was later arrested in Prague for distributing Nazi propaganda. Pryce Jones reports that, "She saw him, it seemed, more than a 100 times, no other English person could have anything like that access to Hitler," and the suspicions of the British SIS were aroused. MI5 head Guy Liddel wrote in his diary:While a 1936 report went even further by proclaiming her "more Nazi than the Nazis" before going on to prove that she had not changed that much with a report that she gave the Hitler salute to the British Consul General in Munich who immediately requested that her passport be impounded. Worst of all when, in 1938, Hitler found an apartment in Munich for her by planning to dispossess a Jewish couple, Mitford is reported to have callously visited the apartment to discuss her decoration plans while the soon to be dispossessed couple still sat in the kitchen crying over their imminent fate.Many prominent Nazis were also suspicious of the English girl in their midst and her relationship to their Fuhrer. In his memoirs, "Inside the Third Reich", Albert Speer said of Hitler's select group:

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.

Her dreams of an alliance began to crumble however and at the 1939 Bayreuth Festival Hitler warned Unity and Diana that war with England was now inevitable and that they should return home. Diana returned to England where she was arrested and imprisoned while Unity chose to remain in Germany. After Britain's declaration of war on Germany on September 3, 1939, Unity was distraught. Diana told an interviewer in 1999:

Unity went to the English Garden in Munich, where she took a pearl-handled pistol, allegedly given to her by Hitler for protection, and shot herself in the head.

Later years

Surviving the suicide attempt she was hospitalised in Munich, where she was visited by Hitler who paid her bill and arranged for her return home. In December she was moved to a hospital in Bern in the neutral country of Switzerland where her mother and youngest sister, Deborah, went to collect her. In a 2002 letter to "The Guardian" Deborah relates the experience:

cquote|We were not prepared for what we found - the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost two stone, 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.cite web | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/dec/08/letters.theobserver | title=My sister and Hitler: Unity Mitford's war | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last=Mitford | first=Deborah | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=8/12/2002 | format= | work= | publisher=The Observer ]

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, but thanks 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."

However, up to September 11, 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 indiscretion and in October reported it to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison who heard that she "drives about the countryside […] and picks up airmen, etc, and […] interrogates them." Andrews, a former bank clerk who was married with a child, 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.cite web | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1445195/Unity-Mitford-romance-ended-with-RAF-pilot%27s-exile-to-Scotland.html | title=Unity Mitford romance ended with RAF pilot's exile to Scotland | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last=Day | first=Peter | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=26/10/2003 | format= | work= | publisher=The Daily Telegraph ]

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."cite web | url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=501638&in_page_id=1770 | title=The truth about Hitler's British love child | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last=Rennel | first=Tony | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=13/12/2007 | format= | work= | publisher=The Daily Mail ] She was buried at Swinbrook Churchyard.

Controversies

Faked shooting

On December 1, 2002 following the release of declassified documents (including the diary of wartime MI5 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.cite web | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/dec/01/martinbright.theobserver | title=The truth about the Minister, Unity Mitford and the hole in her head | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last=Bright | first=Martin | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=1/12/2007 | format= | work= | publisher=The Observer ]

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 January 3, 1940 said that, "there were no outward signs of her injury." Liddell’s diary entry for January 2 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 January 8 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, Lord 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, was more scathing in her rebuttal 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 admits "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."cite web | url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200712130027 | title=Unity Mitford and 'Hitler's baby' | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last=Bright | first=Martin | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=5/13/2002 | format= | work= | publisher=The New Statesman ]

Hitler's baby

On December 17, 2007 Bright published an article in "The New Statesman" stating that following his previous article he had received a phone call from a member of the public with an extraordinary new angle on the story. He claims to have been initially sceptical when the caller, Val Hann, claimed that during the war her aunt, Betty Norton, had run a private maternity hospital called Hill View Cottage 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 love child which had subsequently been given up for adoption.

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. Furthermore he met with elderly village resident Audrey Smith, whose sister had worked at Hill View, who confirmed seeing "Unity wrapped in a blanket and looking very ill" but insists 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" including a visit to an Oxfordshire registry office where an abnormally large number of birth registrations at Hill View at that time apparently confirmed its use as a Maternity hospital but none were for Mitford, although as the records officer admits many births were never registered at this time. The publication of the article and the broadcast of the film the following week stimulated a media frenzy of speculation that Hitler's offspring could be living in the United Kingdom.cite web | url=http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article578199.ece | title=Is Hitler's child living in the UK? | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author=Online Reporter | last= | first= | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=13/12/2007 | format= | work= | publisher=The Sun ] cite web | url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3042944.ece | title=Did Unity Mitford have Adolf Hitler’s love child? | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last= | first= | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=13/12/2007 | format= | work= | publisher=The Times ] cite web | url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3056288.ece | title=Is your neighbour Hitler’s son? | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last= | first= | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=13/12/2007 | format= | work= | publisher=The Sunday Times ] cite web | url=http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/12/14/a-real-little-hitler-89520-20248636/ | title=A real little Hitler | accessdate=May 18 | accessdaymonth= | accessmonthday= | accessyear=2008 | author= | last=Routledge | first=Paul | authorlink= | coauthors= | date=14/12/2007 | format= | work= | publisher=The Mirror ]

In popular culture

*The Indelicates released a song titled "Unity Mitford" about her romantic feelings for Hitler.

Biographies

*cite book
last = Sigmund | first = Anna Maria
title=Die Frauen der Nazis
publisher=Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich
year=2005
id=ISBN 3-453-60016-9
pages =p. 489

References

Persondata
NAME = Mitford, Unity
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Mitford, Unity Valkyrie
SHORT DESCRIPTION = supporter of fascism, friend of Adolf Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH = 1914-08-08
PLACE OF BIRTH = London, England
DATE OF DEATH = 1948-05-28
PLACE OF DEATH = Inch Kenneth, Scotland