* * *
In Germany, anti-Semitism was enhanced by the ‘stab-in-the-back’ myth, the notion that the country ‘had not been defeated on the field of battle but had been betrayed by the civilian leadership (dominated by Jews and socialists)’. Even aristocrats such as the Hessens ‘came to believe that they, as a family, had fought valiantly for Germany but had nonetheless been victimised and suffered an unjust loss of status’.12
It was not only the aristocracy who felt betrayed. In 1914, while still an Austrian national, Adolf Hitler had enrolled in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment to serve as a courier between the regimental staff and the front line. He soon gained the reputation for being a committed loner, who stood out amongst his fellow soldiers to the point where he was nicknamed ‘The White Crow’. But they still listened, spellbound, to his social and political oratorical outbursts and remained deeply impressed by his apparent fearless bravery. Serving with distinction, Hitler won the Iron Cross; both Second and, finally, First Class, the latter normally only being awarded to officers. He considered the war ‘the greatest and most unforgettable time of my earthly existence’, convinced that his miraculous survival and apparent invulnerability had been ordained by a divine power in anticipation of his designated role as a supreme leader.
When the war ended and was followed by military and civil revolution, the fall of the Imperial House of Hohenzollern and the formation of the Weimar Republic, Hitler was distraught. Sweat streaming from his scarlet face, he screamed and shouted:
And so it had all been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations; in vain the hunger and thirst of months which were often endless; in vain the hours in which, with mortal fear clutching our hearts, we nevertheless did our duty; and in vain the death of the millions who died.
Meanwhile, the military doctor, Dr Forster, who had been treating him for the effects of a gas attack, wrote in his report that Hitler was ‘a psychopath with hysterical symptoms’. These would not have been considered sufficiently unusual failings amongst surviving soldiers to have attracted undue attention.
Despite the fact that most people, both on the English and the German side, wanted nothing more than an end to the slaughter, Hitler was not alone in believing the Communists, Unions, workers and soldiers councils and the Jews were responsible for ‘stabbing Germany in the back’, or what became known as Dolchstoßlegende. The belief in the Jews’ involvement had no doubt been enhanced one year earlier by the Russian Revolution and by the assumed Jewish responsibility in the form of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.
In his book Weimar Culture, Walter Laqueur stated, ‘Without the Jews there would have been no “Weimar culture”. To this extent the claims of the anti-Semites, who detested that culture, were justified, for Jews were indeed in the forefront of every new, daring revolutionary movement.
‘The period of the Weimar Republic was a uniquely creative period and it produced in many respects the first truly modern culture.’13
Few places and periods could match Berlin’s equivalent of the Jazz Age. Its outposts in Dessau and Munich (home to Thomas Mann), or even Freiburg, Heidelberg and Marburg, had their sparkling brilliance and longer-term cultural and intellectual effects, but it was Berlin where the flame burnt brightest. This culturally explosive city was certainly lawless and amoral and while the armed conflict between left and right continued, and you could pay to watch people have sex with animals or murder your wife’s lover, for many Berlin was irresistible.
If Unity and Diana had been ten years older, they would never have found the time to bother with fascism, the Third Reich or Hitler. They would have been far too busy immersing themselves in everything that was Berlin during the Weimar period.
The English loved it. Particularly the likes of Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender, though they obviously appreciated the city as much for its sexual mores as its creative and financial attractions. Homosexuality was still illegal in Britain, although it might have been overlooked if you were at one of the more expensive public schools, or if you were a lesbian. It was also illegal in Berlin but as at Eton, no one took any notice. Meanwhile the value of the pound increased spectacularly as the value of the mark fell. For five pounds you could buy the city and all the boys, and girls, in it. Unfortunately, the Mitfords didn’t get there till after Hitler had come to power, by which time it was all over and the Weimar Republic had come to an end.
* * *
In 1920 the public first became aware of the existence of the aristocratic Oswald ‘Tom’ Mosley, who was to prove a profound political and sexual influence on Unity Mitford. At this point in time the society columns were more concerned with his marriage to Cynthia ‘Cimmie’ Curzon, second daughter of Lord Curzon of Kedleston and his first wife, the American heiress Victoria Leiter. ‘Mosley clearly fell in love with the personable and intelligent young woman, [though] her father’s position, and her own personal wealth (through trusts settled on her by her millionaire American grandfather), undoubtedly affected his decision to marry her.’14
At the time this source of wealth was not unusual. It was estimated that by 1914, 12 per cent of the baronetcy and 17 per cent of the peerage had some American connection, and that American money had enriched the British aristocracy by some £40 million.
Realising that for Tom, Cimmie’s attraction was mainly financial, the remarkably hypocritical Lord Curzon needed some convincing to agree to the match. Nevertheless, the wedding was the social event of the year, attended by many branches of European royalty, including King George V and Queen Mary.
But while old Curzon may have been an annoyingly superior financial opportunist and womaniser, his suspicions proved remarkably accurate. Even prior to marrying Cimmie, Mosley had developed a reputation as a philanderer, and ‘his marriage vows did not change what was a virtual obsession’.15 During his marriage to Cimmie, Mosley had an extended affair with her younger sister, Lady Elizabeth Metcalfe, as well as their stepmother, Lady Grace Curzon, née Hinds, while it would not be too long before he was also having an affair with the ‘delicious’ young Diana Mitford while ‘initiating’ her younger sister.
The unwritten rules of the privileged society were that liaisons outside marriage were inevitable and accepted. While they may prove regrettable, such things were socially permissible provided they were conducted with discretion. Divorce, of course, was unthinkable and amounted to social suicide. None of this appeared to be of any consequence to Mosley who, rather like another chum of the Curzons, the immensely rich American bisexual political socialite, ‘Chips’ Channon, appeared to be self-obsessed to the point where he was quite incapable of even considering that the generally accepted moral and legal rules might also apply to him.
Chips was a source of considerable entertainment for those who found his boundless pretension (and subsequent incendiary diaries) amusing. As an opening gambit, when he first arrived in London from Chicago in 1918, he declared, ‘I am in love with London already and feel that it is pregnant with my destiny.’
* * *
Like their British counterparts, the German nobility had suffered dreadfully during the First World War. One Junker family lost twenty-four fathers, sons and brothers, while the German aristocracy as a whole lost 22 per cent of their adult males. This was a devastating toll, especially for such a male-dominated caste.
Still suffering from the shock of waking up to find themselves living in a republican democracy, most of the Kaiserreich felt that both the world they had known – and indeed their very existence – was threatened. Regardless of the fact that many German ‘commoners’ remained deferential to the nobility, especially the princes, to all intents and purposes they were redundant. This made them susceptible to extravagant promises and in due course Hitler would, initially at least, experience little difficulty in convincing them that National Socialism offered them a real chance not only of survival, but also of regaining their power and glory. ‘How otherwise would a mere corporal hope to recreate the Ge
rman Empire?’ he asked them.
On a more positive level, with the transition from monarchy to republic came a freedom from responsibility and the opportunity to indulge in the new opportunities for pleasure and excitement. Like many English of the same ilk, they developed a passion for adventurous pursuits such as flying, automobile and motorcycle racing, skiing, skating, riding, and rowing. They became addicted to speed and cars, boats, planes and even ashtrays were ‘streamlined’. They developed [like Mosley] a belief in the concept of a new man or a man of action. An athletic, ‘new breed’ of independent young women such as the aviator Elly Beinhorn-Rosemeyer and auto adventurer Clärenore Stinnes also sprouted wings and celebrated their newfound freedom.
Oswald Mosley, fired by the same dynamic, named his ‘new’ political movement the New Party. Described as ‘youthful, vigorous and aristocratic’16, he attracted a number of ‘well-bred’ supporters, including Winston Churchill’s son, Randolph, and Harold Nicolson, diplomat, author, profound anti-Semite, arch snob and husband of Vita Sackville-West. Churchill would, in turn, propose Mosley for membership of the Other Club – a dining club for men prominent in political life.
But the first country to create and bring to power a political party that would appeal to the ‘new man’ image, while placating Germany and Britain’s privileged classes, was, in fact, Italy.
On 23 March 1919 Benito Mussolini founded the first fascist party, Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, promising to protect both the aristocracy and the working man’s rights. The establishment of the new one-party state would be aided by armed squads of Blackshirts who aggressively convinced all opposition of the error of their ways. Much of the funding for Mussolini’s political ambitions in fact came from the British government who had paid him large sums of money for his journalistic services as a propagandist during the war.
Within two years Fasci Italiani di Combattimento had expanded dramatically and become the National Fascist Party, resulting in ‘Il Duce’ being elected into the chamber of deputies. Following a somewhat theatrical March on Rome, Mussolini was handed the reigns of power by King Victor Emmanuel III, who had been persuaded that ‘it was necessary to create a new aristocratic class based on Fascist values’. Many English, such as Mosley and the Mitfords, were deeply impressed.
* * *
While both the British and German ruling classes were trying, respectively, to retain and re-establish their power, the Germans had one huge advantage in possessing, via the Freikorps, an active warrior class. It gave their burgeoning fascist movement an aggressive power base that the English aristocracy would, fortunately, have found impossibly difficult to emulate but which to the Mitfords would prove infinitely more attractive.
According to Klaus Theweleit, author of Male Fantasies, for many Germans the period between 1914 and 1945 was a continuous, almost uninterrupted war; in no small part because they made it so. ‘They think the war is over. Shit! As long as we have lost, the war is not over.’17
* * *
In 1920, the birth of their sixth daughter put an end to the Redesdale’s sixteen-year breeding program and their attempt to create ‘a spare’. Had David known that he was looking at the future Duchess of Devonshire he may have been somewhat more welcoming than Mabel, the parlour maid, remembered: ‘One look at His Lordship’s face told me everything. It was another girl. His Lordship’s face was like thunder. I don’t think anyone looked at Miss Debo for three months.’
After such an unwelcoming reception it seems likely that the following description was perhaps somewhat exaggerated: ‘Unencumbered by spite or malice, Deborah possessed a cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits that never deserted her.’18 However, it does seem that the future duchess certainly made a very good job of overcoming the difficulties of being unwanted and overshadowed.
Lord Redesdale was obviously having some difficulties accepting the fact that his wife had presented him with only one son and six daughters, two of whom were, as far as he was concerned, still at the ‘screaming brat’ stage. So, in 1921, in order to escape her husband’s ill-humour, Sydney made the sensible decision of taking the children with nanny, cook, a lady’s maid, a chambermaid, a car and driver to Dieppe for the summer, renting Aunt Natty’s house for the duration.
Then, a financially fortuitous event took place, which while personally upsetting for Sydney, served to put her star back into the ascendancy. In 1921, while on holiday in Algeciras, Spanish Morocco, her father died. Following probate, his estate was discovered to be worth just under £60,000, which was a great deal of money for the time – it was almost twice the amount that Bertie Redesdale had left. Sydney inherited just under a quarter of it. Her father also left her a significant shareholding in The Lady magazine.
* * *
By now, a few of the more intelligent landowners, not that there were many, either in Germany or England, were beginning to realise that if they were going to stand any hope of retaining what was left of their estates, they had to press their sons to learn something of the mysteries of farming by attending agricultural college. There they could discover the then more profitable alternatives to stocking their land with game.
Despite the fact that the Cirencester ‘Royal’ Agricultural College was founded in 1845, and Munich’s Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule in 1872, they did not become popular until they became socially acceptable to young members of the English and German nobility, or ex-nobility. In Germany, agriculture then became one of the most popular subjects of study for young aristocrats, particularly those who were to become Nazis.
Meanwhile, these same young Germans fortunate enough to have English or American friends – and often lovers – with ample dollars or sterling, which they were willing to use to pay for their hospitality, could and did enjoy fabulous financial advantages. It enabled both parties to indulge in the full extravagant decadence of the Weimar ‘culture’.
Despite the inclement financial conditions in Germany, many grand country houses managed to survive the Weimar period in considerable if somewhat anachronistic style.
The presence of their English or American chums often provided the upper-class Germans with an excuse for organising extravagant social events complete with the donning of Hussar dress uniforms swathed in gold braid and death’s head insignia; all memories of the horrors of military confrontation presumably overlooked.
In England, the new plutocrats had also been assisting the aristocracy’s financial – if not their material – survival by continuing to buy their estates, a pattern that had commenced even before the war amongst nouveau-riche figures such as Lord Leverhulme the soap king, Lord Cowdray the banker and Sir James Buchanan the distiller. This new source of investment was of particular advantage in the case of David Redesdale’s sale of Batsford House, about which few details were given by any of the Mitfords as they were doubtless deeply embarrassed by the fact that their fortunes were so enhanced by one Gilbert Alan Hamilton Wills, subsequently to become Lord Dulverton of Batsford, thus further disguising the fact that he was nothing more than common old Gilbert Wills, heir to the Wills tobacco fortune.
* * *
By 1922 Diana, then 12 years old, was apparently bored by her three younger sisters’ eternal squabbling and joking in their private languages, playing with their animals, or ‘re-enacting their fantasy of being kidnapped by white slavers’19 – a not entirely mythical, criminal band. They were notorious for their kidnapping of young girls, who they reputedly then sold into harems, as sexual slaves. Without a care in the world, the ‘younger’ Mitford girls were indeed said to have celebrated their attraction of the idea, especially Unity, now 8 years old, who apparently went out of her way to attract and appeal to any lurking white slavers. Jessica, 5, and Deborah, 2, were unlikely to have had any idea of what ‘white slaving’ entailed. Perhaps in the spirit of Noel Coward’s ‘Gentle Alice’, Unity may possibly have gathered sufficient ‘animal’ knowledge to by now have had some rough idea where babies came from, though it is unlikely
she would have been attracted by anything other than the thrill of the unknown. Only Nancy and Pam, aged 18 and 15 respectively, and possibly Diana, would have been likely to have experienced sufficient sexual awakening to have been attracted by the erotic nature of the adventure.
One thing was ‘for sure’. By now the age differences amongst the girls was sufficient to guarantee a state of almost constant conflict. In a less privileged family the girls would have had little choice but to look after each other both in work and in play. But in the Mitford family, where none of them were expected to lift a finger to help themselves, let alone anyone else, there would have been little in the way of sisterly love and affection, let alone loyalty.
‘Nancy was too sharp-tongued and sarcastic to be anyone’s Favourite Sister for long’, Decca noted. Diana was said to have resembled, “‘a Vogue cover artist’s conception of the goddess of the chase”20 but despite being bored and rebellious’ somehow managed to gain a reputation for being ‘unfailingly kind to them’.21 This seems highly unlikely, as she spent much of her time being bullied and teased by her sisters. It was the inevitable response to the adults’ constant and shameless reminders of how much prettier Diana was than her siblings.
* * *
The year 1922 was to see the first in a seemingly endless series of annual London ‘seasons’, during which, as they reached marital age, Sydney launched her various daughters into society by presenting them at Court. First they had to survive a whole string of social events, from February till August, without disgracing themselves or their family by falling foul of the strict code of etiquette. It resembled nothing more than a marriage ‘chase’ by National Hunt rules. Each debutante’s family was also expected to host their own, individual social function. So, during the season there would be a dinner or ball every night from Monday to Thursday. In those halcyon days when young men still addressed each other with the familiar prefix, ‘I say’, social status and financial security was often the result of ‘breeding’, and a ‘good marriage’ was every mother’s goal. Newspapers encouraged the whole ghastly business by devoting considerable amounts of space to these ‘society’ activities.
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