Diana Mitford

Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford, The Hon. Lady Mosley
Born	17 June 1910(1910-06-17) Belgravia, Westminster, England
Died	11 August 2003(2003-08-11) (aged 93) Paris, France
Cause of death	Stroke
Resting place	Swinbrook, Oxfordshire
Nationality	British
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Occupation	Author, reviewer
Known for	Mitford sister who married Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, association with Adolf Hitler and literary critic and author.
Title	The Hon Lady Mosley
Spouse	Bryan Guinness (1929–1932) Sir Oswald Mosley (1936–1980)
Children	Jonathan Guinness, Desmond Guinness, Alexander Mosley, Max Mosley
Parents	David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale Sydney Mitford
Relatives	Sisters: Nancy (deceased) Pamela (deceased) Unity (deceased) Jessica (deceased) Deborah Brother: Tom (deceased)

Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley (née Freeman-Mitford; 17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003), was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the home of Joseph Goebbels, with Adolf Hitler as guest of honour. Subsequently her involvement with right-wing political causes resulted in three years' internment during the Second World War. She later moved to Paris and enjoyed some success as a writer. In the 1950s she contributed diaries to Tatler and edited the magazine, The European.^[1] In 1977 she published her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts^[2] and two more biographies in the 1980s.^[3] She was also a regular book reviewer for Books & Bookmen and later at The Evening Standard in the 1990s.^[4] She caused controversy when she appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1989.^[5] Family friend, James Lees-Milne wrote of her beauty; "She was the nearest thing to Botticelli's Venus that I have ever seen".^[6][7] She remained a staunch fascist and anti-semite throughout her life.^[8]

Early life

Diana Mitford was the daughter of David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (1878–1958, son of Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale), and his wife, Sydney (1880–1963), daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles, MP. Mitford was born in Belgravia and raised in the country estate of Batsford Park, then from the age of 10 at the family home, Asthall Manor, in Oxfordshire and later at Swinbrook House, a home her father had built in the village of Swinbrook. She was educated at home by a series of governesses except for a six month period in 1926 when she was sent to a day school in Paris. In childhood, her younger sisters Jessica Mitford ("Decca") and Deborah Cavendish, 11th Duchess of Devonshire ("Debo") were particularly devoted to her. Her eldest sister Nancy was jealous of Diana's beauty and popularity with the friends she would bring home to Asthall or Swinbrook.^{[citation needed]}

At the age of 18, she became secretly engaged to Bryan Walter Guinness shortly after her presentation at Court. Guinness, an Irish aristocrat, writer and brewing heir, would inherit the barony of Moyne. Her parents were initially opposed to the engagement but in time were persuaded. Sydney was particularly uneasy at the thought of two such young people having possession of such a large fortune, but she was eventually convinced Bryan was a suitable husband. They married on 30 January 1929, her sisters Jessica and Deborah were too ill to attend the ceremony.

The couple had an income of £20,000 a year, an estate in Biddesden, Hampshire, and houses in London and Dublin. They were well known for hosting aristocratic society events involving the Bright Young People. The writer Evelyn Waugh exclaimed that her beauty "ran through the room like a peal of bells,"^{[citation needed]} and he dedicated the novel Vile Bodies, a satire of the Roaring Twenties, to the couple.^[9] Her portrait was painted by Augustus John, Pavel Tchelitchew and Henry Lamb.^[10] The couple had two sons, Jonathan (b. 1930), and Desmond (b. 1931).

In February 1932 Diana met Sir Oswald Mosley at a garden party at the home of noted society hostess Emerald Cunard. He went on to become leader of the British Union of Fascists, and Diana became his mistress; he was at the time married to Lady Cynthia Curzon, a daughter of Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India and his first wife, American mercantile heiress Mary Victoria Leiter. Diana left her husband but Sir Oswald would not leave his wife. Quite suddenly, Cynthia died in 1933 of peritonitis. While Mosley was devastated by the death of his wife, he soon started an affair with her younger sister Lady Alexandra Metcalfe. Due to Diana's parents' disapproval over her decision to leave Guinness for Mosley, she was briefly estranged from most of her family. Her affair and eventual marriage to Mosley also strained relationships with her sisters. Initially, Decca and Debo were banned to see Diana as she was "living in sin" with Mosley in London. Debo eventually got to know Mosley and ended up liking him very much. Decca despised Mosley's beliefs and became permanently estranged from Diana after the late 1930s. Pam and her husband Derek Jackson got along well with Mosley. Nancy never liked Mosley and, like Decca, despised his political beliefs, but was able to learn to tolerate him for the sake of her relationship with Diana. Nancy wrote the novel Wigs on the Green that satirised Mosley and his beliefs. After it was published in 1935 relations between the sisters became strained to non-existent and it was not until the mid 1940s that they were able to get back to being close again. Unity, like Diana, shared Mosley's fascist views and consequently got along extremely well with her brother-in-law.^{[citation needed]} Diana and Mosley married in secret in Germany on 6 October 1936, in the Berlin home of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Adolf Hitler was one of the guests. By Diana Mitford, he had two sons: Oswald Alexander Mosley (born 26 November 1938), married on 10 May 1975 to Charlotte Diana Marten (born 1952) and father of Louis Mosley (born 1983); and Max Rufus Mosley (born 13 April 1940), who was president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for 16 years.^{[citation needed]}

The couple rented Wooton Lodge, a country house in Staffordshire which Diana had intended to buy. She furnished much of her new home with much of the Swinbrook furniture that her father was selling.^[11] The Mosleys lived at Wooton Lodge along with their children from 1936 to 1939.

Third Reich

Unity (left) and Diana Mitford at the 1937 Nuremberg rally.

In 1934, Mitford went to Germany with her then 19-year-old sister Unity. While there they attended the first Nuremberg rally after the Nazi seizure of power. A friend of Hitler's, Unity introduced Diana to him in March 1935. They returned again for the second rally later that year and were entertained as his guests at the 1935 rally. In 1936, he provided a Mercedes-Benz to chauffeur Diana to the Berlin Olympic games. Diana also became well-acquainted with Winifred Wagner and Magda Goebbels.

On 6 October 1936, in the Berlin drawing room of Joseph Goebbels, she became Sir Oswald Mosley's second wife. Other than the witnesses, the only guests were Goebbels and Hitler. Hitler presented the couple with a silver framed picture of himself. The marriage was kept secret until the birth of their first child, Alexander, in 1938. In August 1939, Hitler told Diana over lunch that war was inevitable.

The Mosleys were interned throughout much of World War II, under Defence Regulation 18B along with other British fascists including Norah Elam.^[12] MI5 documents released in 2002 described Lady Mosley and her political leanings. "Diana Mosley, wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, is reported on the 'best authority', that of her family and intimate circle, to be a public danger at the present time. Is said to be far cleverer and more dangerous than her husband and will stick at nothing to achieve her ambitions. She is wildly ambitious."^{[citation needed]} On 29 June 1940, eleven weeks after the birth of her fourth son Max, Diana was arrested (hastily stuffing Hitler's photograph under Max's cot mattress when the police came to arrest her) and taken to a cell in F Block in London's Holloway Prison for women. She and her husband were held without charge or trial, at His Majesty's pleasure largely due to the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison. The pair were initially held separately but, after personal intervention by Churchill, in December 1941 Mosley and two other 18B husbands (one of them Mosley's friend Captain H.W. Luttman-Johnson) were permitted to join their wives at Holloway. The couples lived in an old cottage on the prison grounds, had a little garden but were not allowed to mix with any other prisoners. After over three years' imprisonment, they were both released in November 1943 on the grounds of Mosley's ill health, amidst a public outcry. They were placed under house arrest until the end of the war and were denied passports until 1947.

Lady Mosley's prison time failed to disturb her approach to life; she remarked in her later years that she never grew fraises des bois that tasted as good as those she had cultivated in the prison garden. Though prison was not something she would have chosen, she said, "It was still lovely to wake up in the morning and feel that one was lovely," when she compared her lot to the other women incarcerated at Holloway (Oswald Mosley later mentioned this to Diana's sister Nancy, who in turn included the line in her novel Love in a Cold Climate).^{[citation needed]} According to her obituary in the Daily Telegraph, a diamond swastika was among her jewels.^[13] In prison, she used the time to embark on a period of self-education. She read numerous books including works by Goethe, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Voltaire and others.

Diana and her sister Jessica, a communist, had become permanently estranged over their political differences, although Jessica did not sever all communication with Unity, a committed Nazi. Jessica also continued to maintain a relationship with her mother, Lady Redesdale, an unabashed admirer of Hitler.

Post-war

After the war ended the couple kept homes in Ireland, with apartments in London and Paris. Their recently renovated Clonfert home, a former Bishop's palace, was burnt down in an accidental fire. Following this they bought the house of Ileclash near Fermoy in County Cork. They later settled permanently in France, where they lived in an exquisite house at Orsay near Paris. It is a former French folly named Temple de la Gloire. They were neighbours of Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and soon became close friends with them. The Duchess of Windsor, upon seeing the Temple de la Gloire for the first time, was said to have remarked, "Oh, it's charming, charming but where do you live?"^{[citation needed]} Once again they were well known for entertaining, but were barred from all functions at the British Embassy. During their time in France the Mosleys quietly went through another marriage ceremony; Hitler had safeguarded their original marriage license, and it was never found after the war. During this period, Mosley was unfaithful to Diana but she found for the most part that she was able to learn to keep herself from getting too upset regarding his adulterous habits.^{[citation needed]} The only time she and sister Jessica communicated with each other following their estrangement was when they were both taking care of their sister Nancy. Nancy was at Versailles, and was battling Hodgkin's disease. Soon after Nancy's death in 1973, all communication between the sisters ceased. Nancy was also a lifelong supporter of the British Union of Fascists, and its postwar successor the Union Movement, to which she made financial contributions until the 1994 death of its organiser Jeffrey Hamm.

At times she was ambiguous when discussing her loyalties to Britain and her strong belief in fascism. In her 1977 autobiography A Life of Contrasts she wrote "I didn't love Hitler any more than I did Winston [Churchill]. I can't regret it, it was so interesting." At other times, however, her anti-semitism became more explicit: the journalist Paul Callan remembered mentioning that he was Jewish while interviewing her husband in Diana's presence. According to Callan, "I mentioned, just in the course of conversation, that I was Jewish – at which Lady Mosley went ashen, snapped a crimson nail and left the room. No explanation was given but she would later write to a friend: "A nice, polite reporter came to interview Tom [as Mosley was known] but he turned out to be Jewish and was sitting there at our table. They are a very clever race and come in all shapes and sizes." ^[7]

In 1989, she was invited to appear on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs with Sue Lawley. She caused controversy for describing Hitler as "fascinating", and when asked: "What about the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis?", she replied: "Oh no, I don't think it was that many."^[14] Her choices were: Symphony No. 41 (Mozart), Casta Diva from Norma (Bellini), Ode to Joy (Beethoven), Die Walküre (Wagner), Liebestod (Wagner), L'amour est un oiseau rebelle from Carmen (Bizet), A Whiter Shade Of Pale (Procol Harum) and Polonaise, Op. 44 (Chopin).^[15]

In 1998, due to her advancing age, she moved out of the Temple de la Gloire and into a Paris apartment. Temple de la Gloire was subsequently sold for £1 million in 2000. Throughout much of her life, particularly after her years in prison, she was afflicted by regular bouts of migraines. In 1981, she underwent a successful surgery to remove a brain tumour. She convalesced at Chatsworth House, the residence of her sister Deborah. In the early 1990s, she was successfully treated for skin cancer. In later life she also suffered from deafness.^{[citation needed]}

Writing

A Life of Contrasts: The Autobiography of Diana Mitford Mosley by Diana Mitford Mosley

Mosley was shunned in the British media for a period after the war and the couple established their own publishing company, Euphorion Books, named after a character in Faust. This allowed Mosley to publish and Diana was free to commission a cultural list.^{[clarification needed]} After his release from jail, Mosley had declared the death of fascism. Diana initially translated Goethe's Faust. Other notable books that she translated for Euphorion included La Princesse de Clèves (1950), Niki Lauda's memoirs (1985), and Hans-Ulrich Rudel's memoirs, Stuka Pilot. She also edited several of her husband's books.

While in France, Diana edited the right-wing cultural magazine The European for six years, to which she also contributed. She provided articles, book reviews and regular diary entries. Many of her contributions were republished in 2008 in The Pursuit of Laughter. In 1965, she was commissioned to write the regular column Letters from Paris for the Tatler. She was an avid reader and critic of contemporary literature, reviewing for publications such as the London Evening Standard, The Spectator, The Daily Mail, The Times, The Sunday Times and Books & Bookmen. She specialised in reviewing autobiographical and biographical accounts as well as the occasional novel. Characteristically she would provide commentary of her own experiences with and knowledge of the subject of the book she was reviewing. She was the lead literary reviewer for the London Evening Standard during A.N. Wilson's tenure as literary editor. In 1996, and on personal grounds, the new editor Max Hastings insisted that she no longer be contracted by the newspaper. Since Hastings' retirement in 2001, the newspaper published several more book reviews by her until her death in 2003.

She wrote the foreword and introduction of Nancy Mitford: A Memoir by Harold Acton. Mitford also produced her own two books of memoirs; A Life of Contrasts (1977, Hamish Hamilton), and Loved Ones (1985). The latter is a collection of pen portraits of close relatives and friends such as the writer Evelyn Waugh amongst others. In 1980 she released The Duchess of Windsor; a biography. New editions of A Life of Contrasts and the The Duchess of Windsor were released in 2002 and 2003, respectively.

In 2007, letters between the Mitford sisters, including ones to and from Diana, were published in the compilation The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters, edited by Charlotte Mosley. The book received critical acclaim, in a review published in The Sunday Times, journalist India Knight noted that Diana was "briefly sinister but also clever, kind, and fatally loyal to her Blackshirt husband, Oswald Mosley. " ^[16] A following collection consisting of her letters, articles, diaries and reviews was released as The Pursuit of Laughter in December 2008. The collection garnered generally positive reviews.^[17]

Death

Diana's grave third on the right, next to those of sisters, Unity Mitford and Nancy Mitford.

She died in Paris in August 2003, aged 93, reportedly due to complications related to a stroke she had suffered a week earlier, but reports later surfaced that she had been one of the many elderly fatalities of the heat wave of 2003 in mostly non-air-conditioned Paris.^[18] Her remains are interred in the Swinbrook Churchyard in Oxfordshire^[19] with those of her sisters. Her death leaves one surviving sister: Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. She was survived by her four sons, among whom are the Irish preservationist Desmond Guinness; the writer Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne; and Max Mosley, former president of the FIA, the governing body of world motorsport. Her stepson Nicholas Mosley is a novelist who also wrote a critical memoir of his father for which Diana never forgave him despite their previously close relationship. One of her great-granddaughters, Jasmine Guinness, a great-niece, Stella Tennant, and a grandson, Tom Guinness, are models.^[20]

She continued to admire Hitler and the tenets of Nazism throughout her life; "I'm sure he was to blame for the extermination of the Jews," she told British journalist Andrew Roberts, "he was to blame for everything, and I say that as someone who approved of him." ^[8] Following her death Roberts severely criticised Lady Mosley in The Daily Telegraph (16 August 2003), declaring she was an "unrepentant Nazi and effortlessly charming." Roberts was in turn attacked three days later, in the same newspaper, by her son and granddaughter. ^[8] She was portrayed by actress Emma Davies in the 1997 Channel Four TV mini series, Mosley.

The Mitford siblings

Nancy Mitford (28 November 1904 - 30 June 1973)
Pamela Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
Diana Mitford (17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
Unity Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
Jessica Mitford (11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
Deborah Mitford (born 31 March 1920)

Bibliography

• A Life of Contrasts (1977)
• Loved Ones (1985)
• The Duchess of Windsor (1980)
• The Pursuit of Laughter (2008)
• Provided introduction and foreword to; Nancy Mitford: A Memoir by Harold Acton (1975)
• Collection of letters between the six Mitford sisters; The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters (2007)

Gallery

• 

  Rear view of Asthall Manor.

• 

  Second husband, Oswald Mosley.

See also

• Mitford family
• Oswald Mosley
• Nancy Mitford
• Pamela Mitford
• Thomas Mitford
• Unity Mitford
• Jessica Mitford
• Gudrun Burwitz
• Florentine Rost van Tonningen

Sources

• Mosley, Diana, A Life of Contrasts, (1st edition, Hamish Hamilton, 1977) reissued in paperback, London, 2003, ISBN 1-903933-20-X
• de Courcy, Anne, Diana Mosley : Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel, Morrow Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-06-056532-2
• de Courcy, Anne, Diana Mosley née Mitford, Rocher (Le), (French edition)
• Guinness, Jonathan, with Catherine Guinness, The House of Mitford, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1984, ISBN 0-09-155560-4
• Mosley, Diana, Loved Ones, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1985, ISBN 0-283-99155-0
• Dalley, Jan, Diana Mosley - A Life, Faber & Faber, London,1999, ISBN 0-571-14448-9
• Mosley, Charlotte, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters, Fourth Estate Ltd, London, 2007, ISBN 1-84115-790-2

References

1. ^ Mitford, Diana (2008). The Pursuit of Laughter. Gibson Square books. 
2. ^ "Diana Mosley" By Jan Dalley New York Times. Retrieved on 6 September 2010
3. ^ Diana Mitford The Independent. 13 August 2003
4. ^ Friends and Enemies The Spectator. 20 December 2008
5. ^ Desert Island delights BBC. 29 January 2002
6. ^ Lady Diana Mosley, Fascist Who Dazzled, Is Dead at 93 The New York Times. 14 August 2003
7. ^ ^{a b} Daily Express article
8. ^ ^{a b c} Cook, Megan and Gressor, Kerry (2005) All for love Murdoch Books Pty Limited p184 ISBN 978-1740455961
9. ^ "Obituary: The Hon Lady Mosley". London: The Times. August 13, 2003. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article866159.ece. Retrieved 2010-05-01. 
10. ^ "Obituary: Lady Diana Mosley". BBC. August 13, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3148299.stm. 
11. ^ Hand in hand with Hitler The Age. 4 January 2004
12. ^ McPherson, Angela; McPherson, Susan (2011). Mosley's Old Suffragette - A Biography of Norah Elam. ISBN 978-1-4466-9967-6. http://www.oldsuffragette.co.uk. 
13. ^ FPP
14. ^ Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2011
15. ^ Desert Island Discs website
16. ^ Knight, India (September 2, 2007). "REVIEW: The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters". London: The Sunday Times. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article2348736.ece. Retrieved 2010-05-01. 
17. ^ "REVIEW: The Pursuit of Laughter by Diana Mosley". London: The Times. December 12, 2008. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article5330218.ece. Retrieved 2010-05-01. 
18. ^ "Mitford sister who befriended Hitler dies, aged 93" The Age 14 August 2003
19. ^ "Oswald Mosley's widow dies" BBC. 13 August 2003
20. ^ Lovell, Mary S., The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, 2002, ISBN 0-393-01043-0

External links

• Diana Mosley: The MI5 View - new files released from the National Archives shed new light on M15 surveillance of Mosley.
• The Official Nancy Mitford Website

Persondata
Name	Mitford, Diana
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1910-06-17
Place of birth	Belgravia, Westminster, England
Date of death	2003-08-11
Place of death	Paris, France