Hitler's Valkyrie

by David R L Litchfield

  Sons, of course, who were packed off to boarding school as soon as possible, often from as early an age as 5 years old, had to rely on ‘Matron’ for surrogate maternal reassurance. The fact that Tom was an intelligent and good-looking boy who was adored by both his parents may have contributed to his not being ‘encouraged’ to attend Lockers Park preparatory school until he was 9 years old. ‘David’s admiration helped Tom to become unusually self-confident’, although there were also those who believed him to be more accurately described as ‘supremely arrogant’2.

  This arrogance was doubtless encouraged by the fact that even from an early age Tom was better read than his father. Not a supreme challenge it has to be said; and it was a fact that Lord Redesdale rather graciously accepted. This became obvious when he sold Batsford in 1919 and sought his 10-year-old son’s literary appreciation in advising him which of the inherited books they should leave and which should form the basis of their new library. ‘It was Nancy and Tom who became generally well read, followed by Diana and “in some areas” Unity.’3

  Sometimes it appeared that the children’s influence on David was greater than his on them, even to the point where some of his field sports developed a distinctly ‘nursery’ quality. The biographer Mary Lovell recorded one splendid example:

  One of David’s dogs was a bloodhound and the major participant in a favourite game they called ‘child hunt’ … The quarry, or the ‘hares’, as the participating children were called, were given a head start and would set off running across fields, laying as difficult a trail as possible by running in circles, through ‘fouled’ land such as fields containing sheep or cattle, and crossing and re-crossing streams. When they could run no more they would stop and sit down while they waited for the hound to find them. Invariably the hound would then jump all over them and lick their faces in recognition before ‘poor old Farve’ (puce in the face as a result of his exertions) caught up to reward the animal with pieces of raw meat.

  While they all enjoyed the sport, it doubtless acted as a substitute for the more conventional form of pursuit, for while fully immersing himself in the life of a country gentleman, David did not ride to hounds. Having previously broken his pelvis in a frightful fall, he never got on a horse again. Instead, he bred shire horses. While riding was said to have remained an integral part of his children’s lives, there remains remarkably little evidence of such; Pam proving the only exception.

  * * *

  Three or four times a year, when it is said they were old enough to appreciate it, the ‘whole family’ also used to visit Stratford-upon-Avon to see a Shakespeare play. It actually seems highly unlikely that David attended these performances, which were probably organised by a long-suffering governess. As the children giggled and joked their way through every performance it also seems unlikely that ‘they came to know Shakespeare’ on anything other than an anecdotal level. These occasional visits to Stratford, combined with free access to a library full of books chosen by a 10-year-old child, do little to validate the claim that ‘the Mitford household was a cultured one’4. It was also not a unanimously held opinion. The writer John Atkins said that Nancy’s childhood was ‘as intellectually restricted as that of a slum child’.

  What the Mitford girls were developing ‘in spades’ was a quite remarkable ability to entertain each other and those in their social circle by lambasting themselves and their social class in a manner and style that was unashamedly theatrical.

  One of the essential elements of their mutual entertainment was the development of a distinctive way of speaking that was, despite their protestations, affected. It was not just the extreme ‘Oxford accent’ that so many of their contemporaries had also adopted; it was their use of words, phrases and exaggerated emphasis that was so unique. Their habit of adding importance and style to the most trivial of objects or occasions also proved immensely popular with their friends and acolytes. A particular favourite concerned toast. ‘During the war Evelyn Waugh took Nancy to lunch at the Hyde Park Hotel; there was (Melba) toast on the table in little silver racks. “Oh!” she exclaimed in tones of rapture: “Toooooast!”’5 Waugh was so impressed that he subsequently included this anecdote in Brideshead Revisited.

  Equally, the Mitfords developed a habit of gift-wrapping any request for even the simplest (in fact, preferably the simplest) favour in ‘elaborate injunctions’. One was not to even think of carrying out the request if it gave one the least trouble. On completion there followed an equally ornate letter of appreciation.

  Debo wrote to Diana shortly after Christmas 1943:

  Darling-Honks, Oh Honks oh Honks the gifts, I am completely overcome by their glory I can’t think what to thank you for first. The underclothes Honks, the stockings, all the Honnish things for Em, well I must say I never saw such a parcel. The coupons Honks, you must have spent so many I can hardly bear to think of you going quite naked which is what you’ll surely have to do …

  Exaggerated nouns, verbs and adjectives as in ‘lashings of’, ‘simply swathed in’ and ‘quite too divine’ were also used a lot. By the 1920s ‘everyone’ was doing it. Noel Coward even used such words and phrases in his songs and they thus entered common usage, which was, of course, a total contradiction in terms and not what the purpose was at all.

  As well as their style and manner of speech, during their early years of nursery life, like many of their contemporaries, the Mitford girls and Tom not only adopted the popular habit of awarding nicknames but also developed their own languages. Of course, Jonathan Guinness explains it quite sublimely:

  Boudledidge was the odder of them, shared between Unity and Decca; it had to be uttered while making a miserable, frowning and rather costive-looking grimace with the mouth pulled sharply down to one side. Hopeless yearning was the keynote, together of course with deadly seriousness. The language itself was English with the vowels distorted, the consonants softened and extra syllables inserted, the word ‘boudledidge’ being itself derived on this system from ‘pallish’, the language of the pals or boudles. ‘Dear old pals, jolly old pals,’ the sisters would sing; or in Boudledidge ‘Deedre oudle boud-d-d-dles, juddledy oudle boud-d-d-dles’.

  The other language, Honnish, was the language of Decca and Debo. When overt snobbery became less socially acceptable, the girls denied that ‘Hon’ meant Honourable despite the fact that Nancy plainly confirms as much in The Pursuit of Love. Instead they claimed ‘Hon’ to have meant ‘hen’ and Honnish to be the official language of their Society of Hens. Based on Oxfordshire country dialect, it was more the colloquial nursery language of one-line whimsy than Boudledidge, and like much of the Mitford humour had a rather spiteful side to it. James Lee-Milne said of Nancy, ‘There is a vein of callousness in her which almost amounts to cruelty … All the Mitfords seemed to have it, even Tom!’

  Kathleen Atkins, a Burford doctor’s daughter and contemporary friend of Unity’s, confirmed that even at such a young age, the girls were already advanced in the art of snobbery. There being no fun in being a snob if you don’t have someone to patronise they chose to parody the household staff and local farm workers. Only Nancy would exploit the full creative and commercial potential in parodying her own ilk.

  At this time and amongst people such as the Mitfords, this type of behaviour would have been considered quite acceptable and charmingly camp rather than socially precocious, and certainly not worthy of criticism. As Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.’

  * * *

  The development of nursery language did not stop even after childhood, while nicknames lasted for life in many and various forms. In 1915 Lady Londonderry, née Lady Frances Anne Vane-Tempest, wife of Lord (Charley) Londonderry, started The Ark, a nursery-flavoured club for her chums, including army chiefs and government ministers who believed fascism was preferable to communism. Their nursery tradition was upheld in the encouragement of members to adopt the use of epithets. Hence, ‘John the
Buck, Arthur the Albatross, Winston the Warlock (a cousin of Charley Londonderry’s), Barrie the Bard, John Dory, Nancy the Gnat, Sam the Skate and Orpen the Ortolan were among those who turned up to drink champagne and eat canapés served by liveried footmen’6, while millions continued to be slaughtered in the trenches of north-eastern France!

  The Ark also illustrates the English addiction to clubs and social networking, often based on public schools. The use of relatives, no matter how distant, was another basis for such things. Lacking a school network (apart from Tom’s), the Mitford girls were particularly diligent in extending their family tree.

  The favourite relative (or the most socially valuable) was a great aunt called Lady Blanche Hozier, known as ‘Aunt Natty’. She was Clementine Redesdale’s sister and the mother of another Clementine, who was married to Winston Churchill.

  According to Kathleen Atkins, the Mitford girls were also encouraged by their mother to exaggerate the intimacy of their relationships with people who in reality probably qualified socially as little more than acquaintances.

  Jonathan Guinness, in his book, The House of Mitford, gave this habit yet more credence:

  They knew Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy and Hitler; were friends of Lytton Strachey, Evelyn Waugh and Maya Angelou; sat for Augustus John, Lucian Freud and Cecil Beaton; entertained the Queen, the Duchess of Windsor and Katherine Graham; were guests of Lord Berners, Goebbels and Givenchy. They lived their lives in very different spheres, from the London of the Bright Young Things.

  Sydney, with her media background, also became a skilled promoter of her daughters’ social importance, using the letters pages of The Times, Telegraph, Daily Express and Daily Mail for keeping her daughters’ names in print. This was usually achieved by leaking anonymous snippets of information to the social pages and then following up with indignant letters of denial on the letters page, in which she would outrageously flaunt her title, the names of illustrious friends, relatives and, of course, her daughters. By such means it was not long before her daughters had achieved what is known today as ‘celebrity status’.

  While still quite young, they also managed to create their own urban myths. The following example having been retold literally ‘thousands’ of times: ‘Apparently at a dinner party, [Pam] was placed next to Lord Louis Mountbatten, who said to her, “I know who you are, you’re one of the Mitford girls, aren’t you?” “Yes, that’s right,” Pam replied kindly. “And you are…?”’7

  * * *

  The Mitford girls would also manage to gain a considerable literary reputation as authors, though Nancy was the only one to write fiction and even that is a debatable description. She wrote her first novel, Highland Fling, in 1931 when she was 27 years old and penned seven further novels which were thinly disguised satirical caricatures of the Mitford family, or people remarkably like them. The books proved highly popular and added immeasurably to the public’s awareness of the Mitford girls, although they were not always received sympathetically by the other sisters, who were all, at one time or another, victims of Nancy’s ‘acerbic wit’.

  But Nancy was perhaps best known for what many believed to have been her creation of the ‘U’ and ‘Non-U’ linguistic terms used by the English upper class to distinguish them from mere mortals. In reality the term was coined by the Linguistics Professor, Alan S.C. Ross. Nancy ‘developed’ it as an essay for Stephen Spender’s Encounter magazine, ‘unleashing a national debate about English class-consciousness and snobbery’8. Reprinted as Noblesse Oblige: an Inquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy with contributions from Evelyn Waugh and John Betjeman, it helped promote Nancy as the guide for the socially ambitious and, by association, gave her considerable literary cachet.

  Meanwhile, Jessica wrote a number of investigative non-fiction works. But even she couldn’t resist returning to the Mitford family as the subject of her focus in the highly successful Hons and Rebels. Debo would subsequently write numerous guides to Chatsworth while the other sisters’ literary skills were limited to their letters, which would have been demanded of them as soon as they could manage joined-up writing. The fact that they considered 12,000 of their letters worthy of retention is in itself a barometer of the Mitford family’s estimate of their own importance, even beyond their lifetime. Some of the letters are undoubtedly fascinating as social evidence of a life of privilege but most revealed little more than the accuracy of Nancy’s novels, with flashes of the Mitfords’ often-attested ‘wit’ and ‘literary brilliance’.

  * * *

  The Mitfords were not a military family and, as such, like many others in their social class, having bravely served their king and country, those of them that had been lucky enough to survive the Great War returned to limit their killing to fish, foul and the occasional stag. Notwithstanding their constant claims to being the victims of genteel poverty, the Mitfords remained substantially privileged, despite the fact that the winds of change were blowing ever stronger.

  The working class were becoming increasingly grumpy and less prepared to ‘know their place’ and dedicate their lives to domestic and industrial servitude. The Russian Revolution and the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II and his family made the British aristocracy particularly nervous, though not sufficiently sympathetic to offer their royal cousins a safe haven. Some considered this a frightful waste; the Romanovs being so much more attractive and imperial than the Saxe-Coburg Gothas.

  What far more of the ‘upper crust’ were concerned about was Prime Minister Austen Chamberlain’s imposition in 1919 of 40 per cent death duties on estates worth £2 million or more, particularly in the knowledge that so much of the tax was going to pay for the war. However, with a bit of planning and forethought this did not have to present an insurmountable challenge, although many heirs preferred to just wallow in financial self-pity. It even became rather fashionable amongst those with more than adequate funds to wear clothes full of holes and hold up their trousers with old school ties. For those less fortunate members of the gentry who were forced to seek gainful employment there were still opportunities in the armed forces, Church or Foreign Service.

  In Germany, a gentleman, or Junker, served as an officer and then joined the reserve. There was no choice. To be an officer in the German military before 1914 was to be one of Germany’s rulers. There were only two classes: civilian and military. Journalist and author John Heygate reported that it was considered quite acceptable for officers to strike waiters in the same way they struck their men. They would take the last seat in the railway carriage while a civilian was expected to stand.

  But with the war lost and the old German army disbanded, redundant officers were presented with the problem of what to do with themselves, while retaining even a modicum of self-respect. Many joined the Freikorps or private armies whose existence as ‘eastern border patrols’ was permitted by the allies. Organised by returning officers, their role was in fact to fight the German revolutionary working class. Recruited from a kind of rural petty bourgeoisie with semi–feudal traditions, they would also form the basis of the SA (Sturmabteilung) and assist in bringing the Nazis to power; by brutalising the opposition.

  * * *

  The German aristocracy had been made insecure not only by the rising tide of ‘Reds and Bolshies’ but also, originally, as a result of the unification of Germany in 1871. The upshot had not only been the First World War but also the ‘neutering’ of so many European aristocrats, many of whom had English relatives or chums. After the British had ‘won the war’ things got even worse.

  In November 1918, when workers and soldiers had revolted and Emperor Wilhelm II, otherwise known as ‘Kaiser Bill’, had been forced to abdicate and subsequently flee, ‘all twenty of the German monarchies were abolished, bringing down the centuries-old kingdoms, grand duchies, duchies, and principalities like a great house of playing-cards’.9

  In June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was finally signed and in July Germany was declared a repu
blic; unofficially called the Weimar Republic, named after the city where the constitutional assembly took place.

  ‘Overnight the aristocracy appeared to have outlived the social, political and economic functions it once possessed.’ It had become an anachronism, and to add insult to injury:

  The German Republic had not only lost its Emperor, but also 13% of its territory and some 10% of its population, as well as all its colonies … Parliamentary democracy was considered un-German in right-wing circles … all over Germany, authority was disintegrating. Only the Bolsheviks [and the Freikorps] seemed to know where they were going.10

  * * *

  Released from the constricts of their courtly existence but exposed to a ‘steady stream of economic and political crises, many princes struggled to reconcile themselves’ with their loss of privilege and with the need for adaptation to the new order.

  It was hardly surprising that the English aristocracy, even after five years of such an appalling war, which had at least been run by ‘gentlemen’, should start to develop a sympathy with their German counterparts and some of their more unpleasant political and social practices.

  Anti-Semitism was ‘rife throughout British society and across the political spectrum. Its best-known advocates were the writer and MP, Hilaire Belloc, and his friends, Cecil Chesterton and G.K. Chesterton’11. This could have been the result of needing someone for the upper echelons of society to blame for their financial ills, or the involvement of Jews in the rise of the left; or both. By the standards of the day there is even some doubt that Belloc and Chesterton were, by comparison, unusually anti-Semitic.