Hitler's Valkyrie

by David R L Litchfield

  The British public also had more pressing matters on their mind, as it became increasingly obvious that the new King of England was obsessively in love with the American Wallis Simpson, particularly after he had opened parliament with a decidedly American accent. They were perhaps less concerned about the persecution of Jews and gypsies in Germany than with rumours that Wallis was about to divorce her second husband.

  * * *

  By 1936 it had also become increasingly obvious that the king was intending to become directly involved in negotiating with Hitler. This may have contributed to the determination of the prime minister to force the abdication of the new king in December 1936. It was an extraordinary episode, which has never been credibly explained.

  In a conversation with the pro-Nazi Duke of Saxe-Coburg, Edward described an Anglo-German alliance as an ‘urgent necessity’. When the Duke enquired about arranging for Baldwin and Hitler to talk it over, he heatedly responded: ‘Who is the King here? Baldwin or I? I myself will talk to Hitler, and I will do so here or in Germany. Tell him that please!’41

  Leading opponents of Edward’s abdication included Winston Churchill, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Rothermere, Lord Lloyd, Walter Monkton, Oswald Mosley, Lady Houston, Duff Cooper and Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal leader. They wanted to force Baldwin to resign and for the Prince of Wales to form a ‘King’s Party’. A number of junior ministers even thought a coup d’état was possible.

  Popular opinion was unmistakable as people took to the streets with banners that read ‘Hands Off Our King’ and ‘Abdication means Revolution’. The BUF even adopted the slogan ‘Stand By The King’. But the prince caved in to Baldwin’s demand, probably because he was made aware that while he might indeed be king, Wallis Simpson was never going to be accepted as his queen. As Beaverbrook said, ‘Our cock won’t fight.’

  6

  THE GREAT AFFAIR

  * * *

  1936–38

  * * *

  Not God but a swastika

  So black no sky could squeak through.

  Every woman adores a Fascist

  The boot in the face, the brute

  Brute heart of a brute like you.

  Sylvia Plath

  There were certainly many in Germany, and not a few in Britain and America, who considered Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936 as a thinly disguised political conspiracy to remove a Nazi-friendly king.

  After the Windsors visit to Germany and well-publicised, ‘cordial’ meeting with Hitler in 1937, even The New York Times included the observation that the duke ‘demonstrated adequately that the abdication did rob Germany of a firm friend, if not indeed a devoted admirer, on the British throne’. A further demonstration of the Duke of Windsor’s enthusiasm for fascism took place after the war, when the Mosleys left England to live in France and became close, personal friends with the duke and duchess.

  There was also the question of Edward’s German roots. Jonathan Petropoulos claimed:

  The Duke spoke fluent German and continued to correspond with family members ‘auf deutsch’ throughout the 1930s. Privately, he considered German to be his Muttersprache (mother tongue) and, according to Diana Mosley, ‘remembered as a child [how] the older members of the royal family waited until the English courtiers were no longer in the room, and then comfortably lapsed into German’.

  Chips Channon believed that the German and Italian dictators should, if not encouraged, at least be left alone. Harold Nicolson recorded a conversation in September 1936, in which Chips told him, ‘We should let gallant little Germany glut her fill of the reds in the East and keep decadent France quiet while she does so.’ While his statement was breathtakingly hypocritical, one could certainly not question Chips’ qualifications for being able to recognise decadence when he saw it, nor the threat that communism presented to his own particular brand of indulgence.

  The events of 1936 forecast the shape of things for the next decade. In the spring, Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) fell to the Italians and Hitler marched his troops into the demilitarised Rhineland (an area in which no military activity was permitted) without any opposition from Britain or France. Some even publicly voiced the opinion that it might be possible to encourage Hitler to head towards Russia before further embarrassing onslaughts were made in the direction of Western Europe. Lloyd George went as far as warning that the overthrow of Nazism might result in the far greater threat to Britain; that of a communist Germany.

  According to the Daily Mail, ‘The sturdy young Nazis of Germany are Europe’s guardians against the Communist danger. Once Germany has acquired the additional territory she needs in western Russia, the problem of the Polish Corridor could be settled without difficulty.’

  Sydney, who had been frightfully proud of her family’s relationship with Churchill and dropped his name at every opportunity, reluctantly admitted that ‘cousin Winston’, who was obviously beginning to sense the opportunity for another scrap with the Germans, was ‘a dangerous man’. ‘Good thing he had so little following among the Conservatives,’ she added. Milly Howard-Brown said he was a warmonger, which meant the same thing. She also spent time in Munich, learning to speak German in optimistic anticipation of Hitler reaching her new husband’s estates in Hungary before the Communists. As it turned out, the rigors of indolence and the roulette tables of Monte Carlo would prove a far greater threat to their fortune.

  In July 1936, General Franco had launched his attack on the Spanish Popular Front government, with the considerable help of Mussolini and Hitler and their troops and planes. British and American ‘pinkos’, ‘lefties’, ‘commies’ and other anti-fascists joined the International Brigade and fought with the Republicans against Franco. Shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the newspapers reported that ‘Winston Churchill’s nephew and Jessica’s boyfriend, Esmond Romilly, had been “invalided out” of the Spanish war [where he had served with the International Brigade] and was back in England recovering in hospital’.1 Much to his embarrassment, he was recovering not from a bomb, bullet or bayonet wound, but from ‘a bad case of dysentery’.2

  Churchill, who at that time was writing regularly for the Evening Standard, continued to warn of the aggressive rise of Nazi power and the dangers of appeasement, yet his articles on Spain were strongly pro-Franco. This may have had something to do with the fact that the Duke of Alba, Franco’s envoy in England, was also an old family friend of Churchill’s and a constant visitor to his home, Chartwell.

  Back in Munich, Unity, having taken up residence in 1934 and first met her Führer in 1935, was still devoting her life to Hitler and writing to Diana complaining of others she considered quite unworthy of sharing his presence; including Lord and Lady Londonderry and their youngest daughter, who had apparently visited the Führer in the Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery). Hitler also admitted to having met Lord Beaverbrook, otherwise known as Max Aitken, which horrified Unity even more, though whether this was for social reasons, as she would doubtless have considered him both a ‘nouveau-rich colonial’ and ‘frightfully COM’, or because he appeared to be campaigning for both appeasement and confrontation at the same time, is not known. But then he was also considered by many, including Martin Pugh, to be ‘an unscrupulous opportunist’. There is certainly documentary evidence to suggest that in 1933 Lord Beaverbrook may have invested in the German military aircraft industry, specifically the Messerschmitt-Aitken-Gesellschaft, prior to accepting the post of Minister of Aircraft Production under Churchill. So, perhaps Unity recognised this rather unfortunate side to his character.

  What Hitler did say that filled Unity with both excitement and hope that some form of appeasement was possible was that ‘with the German army and the English navy we could rule the world’. Perhaps, as many suggested, Hitler did in fact use Unity as an information conduit through which he could float concepts which he knew she would leak to the ‘right people’ in London, though whether he ever seriously considered sharing global power with Britain is
questionable. As Unity would doubtless have agreed, deities are not prone to sharing their power.

  Another visitor to Hitler was Lloyd George, who, to many people’s shock and amazement, greatly admired the German chancellor. They got on extremely well, unlike Hitler and Mosley, and this led to theories that the Führer, having invaded Britain, may have intended to appoint Lloyd George, rather than Mosley, as a fascist overlord. Certainly, Lloyd George’s admiration for Hitler is a historical fact, and as late as 1936 he still regarded him as ‘the greatest leader in the world’. He even told him so during a visit to Germany.

  Amongst the Mitfords only Jessica was sympathetic to the communist cause and horrified by the fact that so much of the British press echoed ‘her parents’ opinions that “Hitler and his Nazi troops were a bulwark for the rest of Europe against the threat of Communism”’. Even Beverley Nichols, the author and playwright, seemed to have changed his tune, asserting, ‘There is so much in the new Germany that is beautiful, so much that is fine and great.’ Particularly the young SS officers who, presumably, like Unity and Diana, Beverley would have found particularly appealing.

  * * *

  In the spring of 1936, somewhat surprisingly, Sydney managed to persuade Unity to accompany her, Jessica and Deborah on a Mediterranean cruise. One has to assume Hitler must have been out of town or otherwise engaged in affairs of state during this period, otherwise Sydney would never have managed to drag Unity away from Munich.

  The Laetitia was a Lunn Hellenic Travellers cruise ship that included evening lectures as part of its program. When the socialist Duchess of Atholl gave a lecture critical of modern despots, Unity insisted on being allowed equal time the following day to preach her fascist gospel.

  But more surprising than Unity having presumably been encouraged to do such a thing was that her mother saw fit to alert The Daily Telegraph in a letter ‘taking the Duchess of Atholl to task … and telling her that “Nazism is from every point of view preferable to communism”’.3 This once again illustrated Lady Redesdale’s quite sophisticated use of the media to promote her offspring, though of course it is possible that it was as much her intention to promote fascism. Whatever her intention, her skill at gaining such press coverage remained at odds with the image that has been promoted of her as a delightfully eccentric, if capable, woman more interested in the advantages of wholemeal bread than actively promoting her daughters and the family’s commitment to fascism.

  Unity’s absence from Munich and her Führer, combined with her exposure to sea air, appeared to intensify rather than diminish what had by now developed into a full-scale religious conviction.

  Peter Lunn, grandson of the travel company founder Sir Henry Lunn, was employed on board the Laetitia and later wrote to David Pryce-Jones:

  It was Jessica whom I knew best, and what I learnt about Unity really came from her. She shared a cabin with her sister, who would lie on her bunk while she said her night prayers to Hitler, whose large signed photo would be propped up before her; at the end of her prayers, she would, still lying on her back, raise her arm in solemn Nazi salute. Unity was unabashed when I tackled her as to the truth of this story. I asked if she believed Hitler knew somehow she was praying to him and that he then interceded for her with God. Unity said she did not know how it worked; she simply knew that it worked.

  In Paris, prior to boarding the ship they had spent a week in the company of Dolly Wilde, daughter of Oscar Wilde’s brother and a noted lesbian. Attractive and witty, she was a prominent member of the city’s racy artistic milieu. Nancy had apparently provided the introduction but while it was later claimed by Jessica that she and Unity ‘deliberately irritated Sydney by pretending to be “in love” with Dolly, fighting to sit next to her in a taxi, stroking her fur collar and accepting gifts of frilly night-gowns from her’,4 Baroness Bentinck’s French companion, Marie-France Railey, seemed to think the girls’ sexual advances, particularly in the case of Unity, were somewhat more genuine than the subsequently claimed ‘pretence’.

  However, the Mitfords preferred to give the impression that their escapades were little more than schoolgirl pranks, full of sun-filled fun and jolly japes, while friends spoke of them ‘following Unity’s lead as they set out to shock while appearing models of innocence’.5

  * * *

  By now Unity’s relationship with Hitler was causing his inner circle to ingratiate themselves with her. Diana Quilter, whose marriage into the Tennant family had offered her similar social advantages among the English aristocracy, was someone else introduced to Unity by a local aristocrat, Countess Anna Montgelas. She reported that ‘Unity had been staying with [the Countess] at Oberau during the Winter Olympics in February 1936 … when Unity burst in to return a book, saying, “I’m in a hurry because I have the entire government waiting outside”. I didn’t believe her and went to the door to see her get into the back of the leading car with the Goebbels.’

  It was the type of remark that not only illustrated Unity’s privileged position within the Nazi hierarchy but also the type of profound social arrogance that was so much a part of both the English and German aristocracy; a quality that Hitler particularly admired.

  Unity’s friendship with Goebbels was particularly relevant; for while he appreciated the wisdom in total discretion concerning her transcendental relationship with the Führer, as the minister of propaganda he, more than anyone else, would have appreciated the potential value of her public relationship with Hitler and the party.

  Quilter continued:

  Every year I went back to Anna Montgelas, and she arranged for me once to share Bobo’s [Unity’s] flat. We had a thundering party, with bodyguards in uniform, they got drunk, their ties came adrift early. I think we started at the opera; in any case we ended in an all-night café with Bobo dancing on a trestle table in that camelhair coat with a belt at the back, which she wore …

  Her confusion concerning the order of the night’s events had apparently been the result of the evening ending for her when Unity started lighting candles in her bedroom and the obviously, sexually aroused Storms removed more than their ties. Lacking Diana’s sexual appreciation of voyeurism, Quilter remained locked in the kitchen until the early hours of the morning, her ears blocked to the sound of Unity’s erotic sacrament. She was apparently mortified when, the following day, Unity appeared totally unconcerned or embarrassed.

  But the more extreme details of Unity and Diana’s sex life came not from Quilter but from Unity’s friend Gaby Bentinck, whose equally exotic sexual reputation had predominantly been gained in Cairo, during the war, where she forged a close and personal relationship with King Farouk and enjoyed the attentions of a rather large number of British and allied officers. Some of her information on Unity and Diana was gained directly, some through her intimate liaison with the ‘raffish’ Janos Almasy, and the rest through the indiscreet wives of her husband’s ambassadorial colleagues.

  Robin Campbell was a Reuters correspondent in Berlin from February 1937 until early in 1939, and he became Unity’s close friend and occasional lover. He and his wife, Mary Ormsby-Gore, had a flat in Charlottenburg, in the Flensburgerstrasse. He rather inadequately and inaccurately described Unity as ‘a solitary figure in a mackintosh who everyone had tried to keep away from Hitler’. But on a more accurate level he did admit that Unity had once said to him that she had to sleep with the Führer’s aide-de-camp in order to gain an audience.

  It may have seemed a dramatically dangerous statement to make, especially to a journalist, but presumably she felt safe in the knowledge that no newspaper would be prepared to print such a story for fear that they would immediately be sued by Lady Redesdale. But her admission certainly answered the question that had puzzled so many people for so long, as to how she managed to gain so much information concerning her Führer’s schedule. Even though it would be forty years before her admission appeared in print, it didn’t take long for the revelation to become common knowledge amongst Munich’s English se
t.

  Despite her passion for the Führer and his Storms, Unity continued her complex, occult, sexual relationship with Janos Almasy, her necromantic high priest, paying regular visits to his and his wife Marie Esterhazy’s Austrian schloss. It was there that she would meet Milly Howard-Brown, through her second husband, a Hungarian formerly known as Count Joseph von Schossberger, a close friend of Janos’.

  The village of Berstein is situated in Burgenland, one of the most remote, agricultural corners of Austria; an area that remained unspoiled, if cruelly feudal, long after much of the rest of the country had modernised. Many members of the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy owned estates in the area, only appearing to hunt or enjoy brief periods of pastoral indulgence. The village consisted of some fifty or sixty peasant houses or smallholdings; single story buildings, painted in pale Habsburgian yellow, green and pinkish washes, with decorated plasterwork and casements. The few larger farmhouses featured doorways high enough to allow horse-drawn hay-carts into the enclosed farmyards. At the village centre was a pond, with ducks and geese and chestnut trees while nearby stood the imposing eighteenth-century baroque Hotel Post.

  Unity was enchanted and apparently considered it ‘the most beautiful and thrilling place I have ever seen’. While Janos and his guests sat up till dawn discussing the advantages of National Socialism, an endless supply of colourful servants tended to their every need with stoic resignation.

  But staying with Janos was not limited to the rural charms of Bernstein, which for his cosmopolitan guests could pale after a while. When they required more sophisticated entertainment they all traipsed off to stay at the Almasy apartment at 29 Horthy Miklos Körut (now Bela Bartok út) in Budapest, close to the famous Gellert Hotel by the side of the Danube.