* * *
Despite Unity’s fight with Janos, Milly Howard-Brown confirmed that their relationship continued, though not, it was said, without a good deal of ill humour on her part.
In October, after an exchange of angry letters and telegrams, Janos arrived in Munich, accompanied by Baby Erdödy and Kisebb. It appears his conciliatory initiative worked, as they were soon plunged into the familiar social round of the Luitpold, the Regina Bar, the Osteria, Walterspiel, Platzl’s and Janos’ favourite restaurant, the Franziskaner (still unchanged today).
Baroness Redwitz gave a cocktail party that was attended by Iris Mountbatten while Kisebb entertained them with his hilarious drunken behaviour. The following day he and Janos returned to Bernstein while Unity drove by herself to Stuttgart, where another of Janos’ chums lived, a gifted amateur pianist called Hubertus Giesen, or Hubsie. He was a close and personal friend of Janos’, and his particularly lewd sense of humour was said to have appealed to Unity.
There were unconfirmed though highly likely stories of Unity having enjoyed sex with Hubsie; in the full knowledge that Janos knew where she was and what she was doing. Her enjoyment would have been enhanced by his resulting jealousy. Her pleasure may also have been supplemented by Hubsie’s skill as a pianist, for in the lulls between their carnal activities, he was apparently in the habit of drinking cocktails and playing the piano. Unity was particularly impressed by his interpretation of Wagner, and it would have taken very little pressure on his part for her to be persuaded to sing along to those movements whose librettos she had learnt by heart. Never having sung before, or not with any serious intent, Unity would have surprised them both with her considerable natural talent, and what she had initially entered into for fun soon became an extremely satisfying devotion. Hubsie even gave her some records, probably by Bruno Walter, the legendary German-born American conductor, so that she could practice when she got home. ‘Perhaps you can sing for your Führer. I’m sure he would be enchanted.’
And sing for him she must have done, at some point; presumably when they were alone, because there was no record of her singing for him in public. But Hitler certainly developed a genuine appreciation of her talent and was indeed enchanted. He even insisted that she accepted his offer of singing lessons with Juan Raventos, the Spanish tenor who was adamant that Unity had the most beautiful voice and was quite capable of singing the part of Elsa in Lohengrin, ‘till her heart’s content.’
Now Adolf Hitler not only had his own personal Valkyrie, but a Valkyrie who could sing Wagner and also fulfil his sexual fantasies. All Unity had to do now was to fulfil his necromantic ambitions.
* * *
Meanwhile, both Bavaria and Austria remained as popular as ever for the English whose social equivalents continued to offer them the type of feudal hospitality that it had become increasingly difficult to find in Britain.
Of particular notoriety in the right social and political circles were the fun-loving Wrede twins, Princesses Carmen and Edda. The Wrede family’s ancestral home, Schloss Fantaisie, was particularly popular amongst the English, not only because it was as fantastic as its name suggested, but also because it was situated only 5 kilometres from Bayreuth.
Unity’s special relationship with Hitler continued to grant her a privileged position amongst many of the German and Austrian aristocracy. Princess Carmen remained particularly impressed:
Unity’s Heil Hitler was very graceful, she had aplomb and self-confidence, she knew her own worth. She was to be met in Berlin at the Adlon or the Kaiserhof, or in Munich at the Vierjahreszeiten [Four Seasons], or at any official reception. Once we had supper in the cellar of the Vierjahreszeiten and Hitler was giving a big speech in the Hofbräu, which was being relayed on the radio. We heard how the Führer had finished and the meeting was breaking up and he was leaving for Berlin. Unity said, ‘Quick, come and stand in the street opposite, we can line up as he passes’. The huge Mercedes came, with Hitler standing up in it, and Unity shrieked, ‘Mein Führer’! He stopped for her, he took her two hands in his, and said, ‘Unity what are you doing here?’ She answered, ‘Tonight I’m going to Berlin’. He said, ‘Melden Sie sich gleich, let me know as soon as you’re there’. And she took the night train. It was 1937.
In Berlin, my sister and I lived in the Rauchstrasse, and Unity was there often … Unity went with each big Nazi, c’était frère et cochon. Her snobbery was to know everyone.
This seemed rather hypocritical as, according to Gaby’s French ‘social-secretary’, Marie-France Railey, Carmen’s facility for snobbism and enjoyment of a healthy sexual appetite certainly appeared to lack little in comparison with Unity’s, while her bitchiness was not dissimilar to Nancy Mitford’s. Unity, Diana, Sigi von Laffert, Hella Khevenhüller, were too fine, really too aristocratic for him (Hitler). Eva Braun was his social level.
The princess, who had become aware that Unity ‘liked her lovers in jackboots’, would also gain intimate knowledge of the previously Jewish-owned Munich apartment that Hitler would eventually arrange for Unity’s use. Apparently it consisted of ‘a drawing room, a bedroom and a little spare room’:
Her furniture was Deutsche Werkstätte style … behind her bed two big flags with swastikas crossed over, and their ends folded down on the pillows like drapes … on her bed-side table stood Hitler’s photo, with the lips and eyes painted in. ‘I did that’, she [Unity] said, ‘because it looks so nice’. In the sitting room she had a writing table, and in one of its drawers a revolver, a little silvered revolver, and she took it out and waved it around, saying, ‘When I’m obliged to quit Germany I will kill myself’.
Although it was undoubtedly the necromantic Janos who had originally introduced Unity to the mystical attractions of death as an altered state rather than a source of tragedy, it was Hitler himself who would eventually convince Unity of the part her death must play in their relationship; as it was only in death that she could fulfil her true role as his Valkyrie.
7
RIDE OF THE VALKYRIE
* * *
1938–39
* * *
While I thought that I was learning how to live,
I have in fact been learning how to die
Leonardo da Vinci
With war looming on the horizon and increasing evidence of appalling human rights abuses emerging from Germany, pro-Nazi, pro-fascist and anti-Semitic organisations continued to flourish in Britain. They included the British Union of Fascists, the Nordic League (formerly the White Knights of Britain), the Anglo-German Fellowship, the Link, English Array, the Imperial Fascist League, the National Socialist League, the British Council Against European Commitments, the British People’s Party, the Right Club and the National Association, amongst others.
The likes of Lord Redesdale, Lord Brocket, the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Westminster, Sir Arnold Wilson MP, Ernest Tennant (of the AGF), Arthur Bryant, Henry Drummond Wolff and Lord Aberconway still wended their way to Munich and Berlin, like so many commercial travellers, selling appeasement.
But, according to Martin Pugh, the attractions of appeasement were not always entirely moral or political: ‘Lord Brocket reminded Chamberlain that “middle and upper class people here see no hope for the future owing to the appalling taxation which a long war makes necessary”.’
Rothermere continued to contradict himself: he maintained his personal enthusiasm for Hitler and yet claimed that he could no longer support the BUF due to their unacceptable anti-Semitism. This situation was doubtless affected by the withdrawal of advertising by Jewish companies following pro-BUF and Nazi articles in his newspapers.
Meanwhile, Oswald Mosley was reinvigorating his party’s membership by pushing hard for appeasement. While suggesting a whole package of concessions to Germany, he seduced many English by reminding them of the losses they had endured in the Great War and the moral responsibility of sending the following generation to die in yet another war ‘to come to the aid of small nations’.
&n
bsp; But Mosley still insisted on keeping his party’s anti-Semitism alive. At an indoor rally at Earls Court on 16 July 1939, attended by 20,000 people, he suggested that the Jews would be responsible for the impending conflict: ‘We fight for Britain, yes, but a million Britons shall never die in your Jews’ quarrel.’
By September 1939 the British government had admitted that some 70,000 Jewish refugees had arrived in the United Kingdom; Mosley tried to capitalise on this situation but it was too late. For the majority of English people, what was going on in Germany was unacceptable.
* * *
Five months before Britain declared war on Germany, Unity wrote to Diana:
I had lunch with the Führer on Sunday and Monday, and he asked me to send you viele Grüsse [many greetings]. Both days he was in his very sweetest mood, particularly on Monday, he held my hand most of the time and looked sweet and said ‘Child!’ in his sympathetic way because he was so sorry about England and Germany being such enemies. However he said nothing but wonderful things about England and he completely gave me faith again that it will all come right in the end.
Unfortunately, Hitler’s march into Prague on 15 March was in fact an invasion of Czechoslovakia rather than the re-occupation of those areas of the country (the Sudetenland) he considered to be rightfully the property of Germany, and thus violated the Munich Agreement (drawn up in 1938 and signed in 1939), in effect bringing all efforts of appeasement to an end.
Considering how close Britain was to war with Germany and how much time Unity spent in the company of Hitler and the various heads of the Nazi Party, the subsequent lack of attention paid to her by the British authorities was puzzling. This was probably due to the fact that Britain did not really have a properly organised intelligence service, even at this late hour. For foreign intelligence they relied largely on their somewhat naïve diplomatic service under Foreign Office control.
According to Foreign Office documents, after Hitler’s invasion of Austria, Donald Gainer was replaced as consul at the Munich consulate by J.E.M. Carvell, who on 27 March 1939 sent a despatch to Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, first secretary in the Berlin Embassy, who forwarded it to the Foreign Office:
Unity Mitford called on me today with the object of informing me that she would be resident in Munich until the autumn of the year. As I thought it likely that she would have visited Herr Hitler while she was in Munich, I engaged her in conversation and learnt that she had taken luncheon with him on the day of his arrival in Munich and also on the following day. Miss Mitford told me that Herr Hitler had said that he was confident that friendship between Germany and Great Britain was still possible … (She) then volunteered the statement that Herr Hitler considered Italo-German friendship as unnatural and that he did not expect the Berlin-Rome Axis to last.
Carvell remained mystified why Unity appeared so sanguine about the forthcoming war, believing that she must have been aware of how inevitable conflict now was. Of course, there was no way that he could have known that for Unity, having decided on a course of action for herself, a war was really of little importance.
Unity was also still enjoying her Eucharistic activities with her enthusiastic group of young Storms, who were an additional incentive for remaining both mortal and in Germany, for she had yet to be entirely convinced their services would be replaced in Valhalla. Though, ever since her Venetian adventure, Janos and his skilful use of the silk noose had become, at least as far as Unity was concerned, an addictive alternative.
So, soon after her meeting with Consul Carvell, she set off for Austria once again, this time via Budapest, where she paused briefly for a frantic interlude in the company of her lover’s entourage.
Apparently, she first ‘stopped at Devecser in the hopes of leaving Boy (her dog) in the care of Countess Tommy Esterhazy’1. But the countess was unable or unwilling to keep the animal and admitted to being far more interested in Unity’s love life than her dog. ‘The “on dit” was still, did she or did she not sleep with Hitler? The fact of gossiping about it gave her a cachet.’
David Pryce-Jones recounted the social extravagance of the society comprising Budapest’s ‘best and brightest’ among which Unity moved in a manner reminiscent of those halcyon days when Europe still belonged to the aristocracy. Unity was immediately:
Whirled into the social round with Marie-Eugenie and Imre Zichy, with Anty and Erzsi Szapary, Baroness ‘Gaby’ Bentinck, ‘Millie’ Howard-Brown, Count Strachwitz, Count Csekonics, Baby Erdödy in a new flat, Jimmy and Lady Patricia Russell together, lunch with the Malagollas at the Italian Legation, meals at the smartest restaurants like Krist and Ludlab, late-night drinks at the Ritz with the Duke and Duchess of Mecklenburg, a call on Countess Wenckheim, a garden party with Countess Nora Hadik and her sister, a Luise Rainer film, Dramatic School, in a cinema in Vaci utca, the whole spiced with the hairdresser, Countess Julia Apponyi’s shop, new blouses, even a fur coat made to measure, and of course Boy to be exercised on St Margaret’s Island on the Danube.
After indulging herself in the city’s privileged extravagance, Unity retired to the Almasy castle where she was welcomed by Janos and Marie. She spent blissful days locked away from the spring storms before the library fire or with Janos in the intimacy of his study. ‘On 20 April they walked down to the village for her to send a telegram to Hitler. It was his 50th birthday.’2
According to Gaby Bentinck, Janos had mixed emotions concerning Unity’s departure. While he greatly enjoyed her company, both physically and emotionally, her addiction to ‘gaspers’, was extremely stressful, as Janos was fully aware of the lethal danger involved in such sexual practices; though he had to admit that he found the empowerment it conferred on him exceptionally arousing.
On the way back to Munich, Unity spent a night in Vienna at the Wintzinger Hotel. Then, after a brief stay, she set off to meet with Hitler in Berlin. Two weeks later, she was in a state of considerable excitement as for the first and, as it proved, only time she was invited by her beloved Führer to visit the Berghof, his mountain retreat.
It was everything that Unity could have hoped for. The afternoon was spent walking and taking tea in the Tea House. But while there was rather a lot of coming and going of visitors and messengers, she soon realised Eva Braun was nowhere to be seen and thus it was even possible for them to spend some time alone together.
Unity subsequently revealed to Gaby Bentinck that she was also astonished to discover that her Führer was not only fully aware of the fact that she had visited Venice with Janos Almasy but also that she had taken him as her lover. Even more surprising was his opinion of Janos as an intelligent man and a good Nazi but most of all his knowledge of Almasy’s necromancy. Indeed, Unity’s fear that Hitler may have been jealous had soon been dispelled by his desire, not for details of their sexual adventures, but for confirmation of Janos’ encouragement of Unity to take her own life.
He had been particularly delighted by Janos’ insistence that unless she did so, Unity could not hope to fulfil her true destiny as Hitler’s Valkyrie. For it was only there, on the other side, that her fantasy could become reality; once again illustrating the fact that Hitler and Unity shared a propensity for fantasy that was way beyond most mortals’ wildest imagination.
Not only was her Führer allowing her to worship him; now he was offering her the honour of dying for him. For Unity it was to be both the supreme sacrifice and the ultimate experience. For Hitler it was the quintessential fulfilment of his necromantic powers and a reminder that he gained his obscene gratification not from killing, but from having others kill on his behalf; particularly themselves.
* * *
On her return to Munich, Unity discovered that Hitler had instructed his office, under the direction of Rudolf Hess, to find an apartment for her. Many Jewish-owned properties had been requisitioned in the aftermath of Kristallnacht and to her delight she was invited to choose one for herself. On 5 June she made her decision, and shared her excitement in a letter to Diana. ‘At las
t, we found the perfect flat in Schwabing, in a modern block … it belongs to a young Jewish couple who are going abroad.’
It was said that while Unity was making plans for redecoration and furnishing, the terrified Jewish owners had still been present prior to their forcible dispossession. Witnessing their fear and despair would presumably have entertained Unity and increased the flat’s attraction for her no end.
Her new address was to be Agnesstrasse 26, Flat 4, with the telephone number 372-338. The flat, together with its decoration and furnishing, were all to be paid for by the Führer. As he had only ever provided his mistresses with such a facility, it was officially accepted that Unity had fulfilled that role.
The general consensus of opinion is that Hitler was for some reason deceiving Unity by lulling her into a false sense of security, as by 23 May he had already alerted the Wehrmacht to his plans for an invasion of Poland in September. ‘I doubt the possibility of a peaceful settlement with England,’ he told the chiefs of the armed services. ‘We must prepare ourselves for the conflict.’
One of the contributory reasons for Hitler’s insistence on relocating Unity at this time concerned his rift with Putzi Hanfstaengl, with whose sister, Erna, Unity had been staying while her new flat was being refurbished. Due to the fact that she was running short of money, Erna had persuaded Unity to deliver a letter to Hitler in which she asked for the return of money that her brother had lent to the party. Predictably, Hitler reacted to the letter with one of his incandescent ‘piggy-fits’ and insisted Unity left Erna’s immediately and moved into her new apartment.
Hitler's Valkyrie Page 28