Unity Mitford

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Unity Mitford, 1937

Unity Valkyrie Mitford (born August 8, 1914 in London , England , † May 28, 1948 in Oban , Scotland ) was a British nobleman, National Socialist and admirer of Adolf Hitler . She belonged to the inner circle of the NSDAP and had such frequent personal contact with Hitler that rumors of an engagement arose.

family

Mitford was one of six daughters of David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale , and his wife Sydney Bowles. She was also a cousin of Clementine Churchill , the wife of Winston Churchill . Since Lord Redesdale had an aversion to conventional British methods of upbringing, his children did not go to school but were homeschooled at Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire .

The Mitford children developed very differently. Unity and her sister Diana Mitford , who was four years older than her , became supporters of Nazi and fascist ideas. Diana later married the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley . Her younger sister Jessica , however turned to communism to, ripped from home in order on the part of the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War participate. The eldest sister, Nancy Mitford , became a well-known English writer and lover of Gaston Palewski , a very close adviser to Charles de Gaulle . The youngest sister, Deborah , became the Duchess of Devonshire through her marriage . The only brother, Thomas, remained unmarried and became a judge.

live in Germany

On October 20, 1934, Unity Mitford traveled to Munich to study languages . Above all, she wanted to get to know the Chancellor of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler, the "Führer" of National Socialist Germany, whom she admired. At the beginning of February 1935, she managed to meet with Hitler in the Osteria Bavaria , a Munich restaurant where Hitler frequented, and left a lasting impression: Mitford was only 20 years old at the time; About six feet tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes, she corresponded to the contemporary ideal of beauty. Mitford wrote to her sister Diana on February 10th about the meeting: “You can imagine how I feel. I'm so happy […]. I think I am the happiest girl in the world. "

In the inner circle

From then on Mitford lived in Munich and promoted the Nazi ideology. I.a. she explained in a film on the newsreel why she too, as a British woman, was convinced of the National Socialist idea. The superstitious Hitler was also enthusiastic about the young woman, to which her middle name Valkyrie also contributed. Mitford's grandfather, Algernon Freeman-Mitford, was a friend of Richard Wagner 's and wrote a preface to two German works by Houston Stewart Chamberlains . Mitford gave an anti-Semitic hate speech at an event of the Hitler Youth on the Hesselberg with Julius Streicher ; she repeated the key messages in an open letter to the striker . This led to public criticism in the UK.

Hitler gave Mitford a gold party badge and a box at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and had her chauffeured to the Bayreuth Festival . When the "Anschluss of Austria" was announced in 1938, she stood next to Hitler.

Hitler was impressed with Mitford's intimate knowledge of British politics. Albert Speer described Mitford as the only one who tried to openly discuss political questions about Hitler in the inner circle and who is said to have spoken out vehemently in favor of mediation with England, which the latter took cautiously to note. Mitford spent a summer at the Berghof with Hitler, among others . Various German agencies secretly investigated Mitford; they were suspected of espionage, but no evidence could be found. The British secret service SIS found in a 1936 report that Unity Mitford spent a lot of time with Hitler when he was in Munich. She is obviously "more Nazi than the Nazis". She greeted the British ambassador in Munich with the Hitler salute , which prompted her to hand in her passport.

On September 3, 1935, Mitford's parents, Lord and Lady Redesdale, visited their daughter in Munich. She introduced them to Hitler. They then took part in the 7th Reich Party Congress of the NSDAP (September 10-16) in Nuremberg , which had the motto “Reich Party Convention of Freedom”, which was related to the recovery of the Saarland and the introduction of conscription, in contrast to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty , which was widely felt in Germany at that time as a “dishonorable bondage”.

In July and August 1939 Mitford and her sister Diana, the wife of the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley , were in Bayreuth for the Richard Wagner Festival . When Hitler said that England was determined to go to war, which could hardly be prevented, Mitford said that she did not want to experience such a tragedy.

Suicide attempt

On the day Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 undertook Lady Mitford in Munich Königinstraße a suicide attempt by shot himself in the head with a small automatic pistol. She left an envelope addressed to Adolf Wagner , the Munich Gauleiter , containing her special NSDAP badge (since Mitford, being a foreigner, could not become a party member, Hitler had given her a special badge with her name engraved on the back) Contained a signed photo with a personal dedication by Hitler and a farewell letter to Hitler. The letter said that she could not stand the war between Germany and England and that she would therefore take her own life.

The suicide attempt failed; the bullet got stuck in the head. The doctors did not dare to operate because the outcome was uncertain and they also feared that if it failed, the British public could believe in Mitford's murder. Hitler personally visited Unity Mitford at the hospital, asked why it was not advisable to remove the bullet that was still in her head, and gave her the party badge back. She took it and swallowed it in front of his eyes. Hitler is said to have said to his personal photographer: " Hoffmann , I'm starting to be afraid."

In December 1939 she was transferred to a hospital in Bern .

Return to England and death

Partly recovered, Lady Mitford was brought to England from Switzerland in April 1940 by her mother and sister Deborah . She had lost a lot of weight and was very different as a person, comparable to the aftermath of a stroke .

She then lived with her mother on the small Scottish Hebridean island of Inch Kenneth , which was owned by her father. British doctors also rejected an operation as too risky. Over the years her condition stabilized; she is said to have even driven again. But their original vitality did not return; she was very forgetful. On May 28, 1948, Unity Mitford succumbed to the aftermath of the suicide attempt in Oban hospital . She died of meningitis , possibly as a result of the swelling of the mass of her brain around the trapped sphere.

Unity Mitford's grave in Swinbrook, Oxfordshire

Mitford was buried in Swinbrook, Oxfordshire, England.

Legends

There are a few legends about Unity Mitford:

  • The assertion made several times in literature that Mitford studied art in Munich is wrong.
  • Allegedly she recommended the swastika to the NSDAP as a symbol of the National Socialist movement. However, Hitler already wrote in Mein Kampf (1924/25) about his interpretation of this symbol (the swastika , which had been used by ethnic groups in Hinduism for thousands of years and in modern Germany since the 19th century); Mitford was only ten years old then.
  • In December 2007, British media reported on a possible illegitimate child whom Unity Mitford allegedly born and put up for adoption in England and whose father was allegedly Adolf Hitler. Mitford allegedly stayed for a while in a maternity hospital for illegitimate births. However, no written documents were available.

Literature (selection)

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Katja Iken: The riddle of the Unity Mitford. In: Spiegel Online . March 5, 2017, accessed April 7, 2019 .
  2. ^ Heike B. Görtemaker : Hitler's court. The inner circle in the Third Reich and after. Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-406-73527-1 , pp. 250–260.
  3. ↑ Unity Mitford in Anton Joachimsthaler: Hitler's List. A document of personal relationships. Herbig, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7766-2328-4 , p. 522.
  4. ↑ See Die Walküre , an opera by Richard Wagner.
  5. ↑ Hitler's British Girl. Part 4/5 on YouTube . In: Channel 4 Documentary. 2007. Video recording, accessed October 28, 2016.
  6. ↑ a b Hitler's British Girl. Part 1/5 on YouTube . In: Channel 4 Documentary. 2007. Video recording, accessed October 28, 2016.
  7. ↑ Alber Speer: Inside the Third Reich . The Classisc Account of Nazi Germany by Hitler's Armament Minister . Sphere Books , London 1971, OCLC 721376200 , pp. 77 (English, 821 pages, google.de [accessed on October 28, 2016] German: Memories . Frankfurt (M.) / Berlin / Vienna 1969. Translated by Richard Winston, Clara Winston, introduction by Eugene Davidson).
  8. ↑ Secrets of the Third Reich - Hitler and the Women. (No longer available online.) In: ZDF. August 1, 2012, archived from the original on September 17, 2017 ; accessed on October 28, 2016 (ZDF report, broadcast on November 29, 2011; film description).
  9. ↑ Volker Elis Pilgrim : You can call me Frau Hitler. Women as jewelry and camouflage of the Nazi regime. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-498-05286-1 , p. 117.
  10. ↑ Deborah Mitford: My sister and Hitler . Unity Mitford's was . In: guardian.co.uk. The Observer, December 8, 2002, accessed October 28, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Johannes Frank: Eva Braun. An unusual fate for women in a historically turbulent time . Schütz, Preußisch Oldendorf 1988, ISBN 3-87725-122-6 , p. 187 ( snippet view in Google Book search).
  12. ↑ Martin Bright: Unity Mitford and 'Hitler's baby . As war broke out, Hitler admirer Unity Mitford made a botched suicide attempt and was invalided home . In: newstatesman.com. December 13, 2007. Retrieved October 28, 2016 (American English).
  13. ↑ Hans Kratzer: Just a Hitler groupie or “the most dangerous woman in Munich”? In: Sueddeutsche.de , October 5, 2016, accessed October 28, 2016 ("A new biography reveals the true role of the young Briton Unity Valkyrie Mitford. Few women were as close to the Nazi dictator as she was.")
  14. ↑ Biography about Unity Mitford: A British groupie becomes Hitler's close friend. Michaela Karl in conversation with Gisa Funck. In: Deutschlandfunk . Book market series . October 27, 2016, accessed on November 11, 2016 (full text).
personal data
SURNAME Mitford, Unity
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mitford, Unity Valkyrie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British noblewoman, National Socialist and admirer of Adolf Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1948
Place of death Oban , Scotland