The Mitford Girls

by Mary S. Lovell

  On the following day Rudi returned to Munich. She called first on Unity’s music teacher whose wife handed her the envelope Unity had left. She said she had heard that a young woman had shot herself in the Englischer Garten. The envelope was found to contain the keys to the Agnesstrasse apartment so the two women hurried off there together. They found the apartment sealed off by the authorities, so Rudi called on Gauleiter Wagner. He told her what had happened, that Unity was alive, but in a coma and not expected to regain consciousness. Rudi went immediately to the hospital and was told that the bullet had entered Unity’s right temple, and was embedded at the back of the skull from where it could not be removed. Later a doctor said that had he tried to follow the track the bullet had taken with a scalpel even with his years of experience he could not have done so without killing the patient. It was something of a miracle that Unity had survived.

  Rudi spent the next weeks visiting the hospital daily, having been given a petrol allowance for the purpose by Gauleiter Wagner. She also wrote or cabled Janos von Almassy daily to keep him advised of the situation. Hitler visited Unity on 10 September before she regained consciousness. A day or so later she came round, although she was deeply confused and paid no attention to her visitors, her carers, or the banks of flowers that had been sent in by Goebbels, Ribbentrop, several gauleiters and Hitler. Hitler sent roses. On 13 September, ten days after the shooting, Unity managed to say one or two words to Hitler on the telephone. He did not visit her again until 8 November; by then she could understand better, and even hold a short conversation. He asked her what she wanted to do. She said she would like to go back to England for a few weeks, then return to Munich.32

  According to Julius Schaub, Hitler’s adjutant, Hitler was ‘deeply shaken’ by Unity’s appearance and manner, as was everybody who saw her over the next few months. She seemed to have no memory of the suicide attempt (although she made a further attempt to kill herself by swallowing her swastika badge which had to be removed from her stomach with a probe), only a limited ability to speak, and she was partially paralysed. Her face was badly swollen due to the wound in her temple and there was little resemblance to the beautiful, alert and lively girl she had been. Instead, she had the empty fixed stare of someone who had suffered a stroke.33 Hitler asked Frau Schaub if she would watch over Unity by visiting each day, and went off to discuss her case with her doctors. Subsequently he set in motion an arrangement to get her to Switzerland as soon as it was feasible for her to travel. Once again he made himself personally responsible for her hospital bills. Her suicide attempt was declared a state secret, and after the first report of the anonymous woman, it was never mentioned by the German media. It is difficult to know whether Hitler did this out of consideration and affection for Unity, or whether he felt uncomfortable that yet another young woman with whom he was connected had attempted suicide. Two other women who were sexually linked, by rumour or fact, with Hitler, committed or attempted suicide with varying degrees of success: Geli, his half-niece, and Eva Braun, who made two attempts.34

  The Mitford family knew nothing of this, although Gauleiter Wagner told Rudi they had been notified, and that all frontier checkpoints had been advised that Lord and Lady Redesdale and Mrs Diana Mosley would be permitted to cross.35 In the early days of the war, however, there no way in which they could have been contacted, and the German press silence meant that the news was confined to those most closely involved with the incident. Tom and Diana were in no doubt that Unity would have shot herself, as she had so often said she would. Her hint about the Tyrol gave a spark of hope, but in their hearts they feared the worst.

  Sydney, David, Debo and Nancy were at Inch Kenneth when war was declared. Nancy immediately left for London and Sydney drove her to the Oban ferry. During the journey Nancy made a rude remark about Hitler, and Sydney told her to shut up or get out and walk. Realizing that her mother was worried and wretched about Unity, Nancy chose to shut up. There was no talking to Sydney about Hitler: her high regard for him had been borne of a genuine fear of Communism and nurtured over tea-cups in Munich when Unity had translated polite conversations between the two. During September they had no news of Unity, only rumours. On 15 September Nancy wrote to Mrs Hammersley: ‘Bobo, we hear on fairly good authority, is in a concentration camp for Czech women which much as I deplore it has a sort of poetic justice.’36 She also referred to an interview in the Daily Mirror in which David had ‘publicly recanted like Latimer’ and said he had been wrong about Hitler.

  It was not until 2 October that the Redesdales heard from Teddy von Almassy, brother of Janos. He was in Budapest, which was neutral so had postal communications with England and Germany, and he wrote to say that Unity had been ill but was in hospital and was now recovering. Sydney and Debo left David at Inch Kenneth and travelled down to live at the mews cottage in London. It was a curiously changed London with sandbags everywhere, windows criss-crossed with brown paper, barrage balloons, hardly any traffic and almost everyone, it seemed, in uniform. But even there, pulling strings, Sydney could not get any reliable news of Unity, so she busied herself by closing Rutland Gate ‘for the duration’ and putting the furniture into storage. Most of this was lost in a warehouse fire within a few weeks but as Sydney wrote to Decca, ‘Things don’t seem to matter much when one thinks of the terrible world conflagration. ’37 They had another brief communication, this time by cable from Teddy von Almassy, advising that Unity was making good progress, but no further explanation of what was wrong with her. ‘It is a terrible and continual worry,’ Sydney wrote to Decca. ‘One cannot bear to think what agonies of mind she must have been through as she never believed a war could happen between the two countries.’

  There was considerable animosity between Nancy and Sydney now. Following the declaration of war Nancy was furious at Sydney’s open support of Hitler. ‘She is impossible,’ Nancy wrote to Mrs Hammersley. ‘Hopes we shall lose the war and makes no bones about it. Debo is having a wild time with young cannon fodder at the Ritz etc. Apparently Muv said to her “Never discuss politics, not even for 5 minutes, with Nancy.” Rather as some devout RC might shield her little one from a fearful atheist!’38

  Nancy, working in an underground casualty depot in Praed Street, was already bored with the degree of sacrifice and discipline demanded for no apparent reason throughout the months of the Phoney War. She was telling everybody she had been given an indelible blue pencil with which to write names and other details on the foreheads of the dead and injured, and asking what she was supposed to do ‘if a coloured person was brought in’. Derek Jackson was away on a mission for the RAF, Tom, Prod and the Bailey and Farrer brothers were all in the Army, Debo was planning to work in a canteen. Ten days after they first met Randolph Churchill married Pamela Digby, to whom he had become engaged within twenty-four hours of setting eyes on her. ‘She’s rather a friend of Debo’s - pretty with red hair and lovely colouring,’ Sydney wrote to Decca.

  Both Sydney and Pam kept Decca updated with the latest news. Aunt Iris had become an all-night telephone operator and Uncle Jack had joined the auxiliary fire brigade. ‘Coal was rationed and though food was not rationed yet, it soon would be,’ Pam wrote. Everyone was busy making blackout curtains, the barrage balloons over London were very pretty and some London refugees had been billeted on them at Rignell House. ‘Fortunately they spent only a few nights before deciding it was too far from the pub and returned to the East End.’ Sydney wrote that London was ‘much less gloomy than it was in the first weeks and there is a lot of entertaining in restaurants, all of which, and all the nightclubs, are full’.39

  The Romillys were still enjoying America; making the most of what time they had left before the fighting began. Shortly after Pam and Derek’s visit they had moved to Washington, DC, where Esmond got a job selling silk stockings, door to door. It was a high-pressure sales job and Esmond learned the patter fast: ‘Mrs Robinson, have you ever felt a bit of real fresh silk?’ he would begin, producing a skein that
looked like tangled horse-hair. He wound it around the potential customer’s wrist and tugged hard. ‘That would certainly have a hard time breaking, wouldn’t it?’ Then he would invite the hapless victim to take a pin and make a hole in a piece of printed silk, ‘woven exclusively for the discriminating woman, almost impossible, isn’t it?’ But he withdrew the pin quickly for it had been known to happen. ‘Your big toe would have a hard time trying to go sightseeing through that, wouldn’t it?’ By a process of flattery and smooth-talking he invariably came away with an order, leaving a flustered housewife wondering how she had parted with eighteen dollars for enough stockings to last twelve months. In fact, he was so good at it that he exceeded his sales quota and proudly carried home to Decca the prizes that he was awarded as gifts for his ‘little woman’: a Snugfit Supersoft Shortie Housecoat and a Brushrite brush and comb set. He never achieved the fifty dollars a week that had been glowingly advertised when he applied for the job, but he earned enough to pay their expenses.40

  At weekends they relied on invitations to grand houses, where they were wined and dined, and in return entertained their fellow guests with stories of Decca’s upbringing and their elopement. On one occasion when she phoned to accept an invitation to a mansion in Virginia, Decca was asked, ‘You ride, of course?’ ‘Oh yes,’ Decca said blithely, unwilling to forfeit a weekend of lavish hospitality, and giving only momentary thought to those frequent falls in the paddock at Swinbrook. ‘Do bring your riding things,’ said her hostess. Decca’s riding things consisted of a pair of old trousers and a rough shirt. The other guests were clad immaculately in gleaming boots, well-cut breeches and hacking jackets. Nor was Decca able to handle the thoroughbred she had been allotted. It was a disaster.

  In early November the Redesdales heard through the American embassy that Unity was ‘in a surgical hospital in Munich’ and making a good recovery from an attempted suicide. At least now they knew the worst and when, a few weeks later, a reporter rang in the middle of the night to ask if it was true that Unity had died in hospital, Sydney was confident enough to hang up on him. Suddenly the newspapers were full of a story that ‘The Girl Who Loved Hitler’ had shot herself following a massive row with Hitler and had died in a Munich hospital. In other versions she had been shot on the orders of Himmler, and buried in an unmarked grave. Blor, who was in London for Christmas shopping (‘It didn’t take long,’ she said, ‘the shops were empty’),41 saw a news-vendor the next day holding a poster with headlines announcing Unity’s death. ‘She went up to the man and said, ‘THAT’S NOT TRUE!’ Sydney wrote. ‘He was astonished . . . Debo is terrifically gay and goes out to lunch and dinner every day. I suppose there is a great dearth of girls in London and the young men come up quite a lot . . . The cottage at Swinbrook is presently housing Diana’s nurse and baby and is to be let for a month at Christmas to friends of Debo; Andrew Cavendish and another boy. I do hope they won’t break it up completely.’42

  Debo and Andrew Cavendish had been secretly pledged to each other for some months having been in love since shortly after they met in the previous year. Debo thought it was pointless asking for permission to marry; they would only be told they were too young. Sensibly, they decided to wait for a more propitious moment.

  Hearing the latest reports, Decca wrote anxiously asking for news. The Romillys were now in Florida, and she had been mobbed by reporters offering her money in exchange for a story but she didn’t know what to make of the assertion that Unity was dead. Sydney cabled her enough information to set her mind at rest.

  David came down from Inch Kenneth to spend Christmas at the mews cottage and it was while he was there, on Christmas Eve, that he and Sydney received further news about Unity. It was the best Christmas present they could have received, for it was Janos calling and, after explaining that he was with Unity in Switzerland, he handed the phone to her. ‘When are you coming to get me?’ Unity asked plaintively.

  14

  IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES (1940-41)

  Although in the brief telephone conversation Unity sounded normal it was obvious from what Janos told them that she was far from well. The family learned that Hitler had arranged for Unity to be taken to Berne in a specially fitted out ambulance carriage attached to a train. As well as Janos, she was accompanied by a nursing nun, who had been with her since the shooting, and a doctor who was the ex-husband of a friend Unity had made when she first went out to Munich to learn German. The doctor had now returned to Germany but the nun and Janos would wait until the Mitfords arrived.

  Somehow, although it was Christmas, David acquired the necessary travel papers in three days, and on 27 December Sydney and Debo set off for Switzerland. David was to remain in England ‘to organize things from that end’ and to meet them with an ambulance when they returned on the cross-Channel ferry. Debo was nineteen and thinks that Sydney might have had some special permit from the Foreign Office to present at the inevitable checkpoints and borders. It was one of the most harrowing and strangest experiences of her life. It was midwinter, grey, freezing cold, and none of the trains ran to schedule, but at least there was no fighting yet. She and Sydney were both anxious to get to Berne and on 29 December they arrived at the clinic. Nothing had prepared Debo for the shock of what they found.

  Unity was still bedridden, propped in a sitting position with pillows since she suffered from severe vertigo and could not remain upright without help. She looked frail and very thin, having lost over thirty pounds, and her dark blue eyes seemed enormous in her yellowy white face with its sunken cheeks. ‘She was completely changed,’ Debo recalled. ‘Her hair was short and all matted. Because of the wound I expect they couldn’t do much about washing or combing it, and her teeth were yellow; they had not been brushed since the shooting. She couldn’t bear for her head to be touched. She had an odd vacant expression . . . the most pathetic sight. I was very shocked and I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for my mother seeing her like that . . . But it wasn’t just her appearance; she was a completely changed person, like somebody who has had a stroke . . . Her memory was very jagged and she could remember some things and not others. She recognized us though.’1

  Just to be reunited with Unity was an enormous joy to Sydney, and Unity was thrilled to see them and asked after the others. ‘We were all three so happy,’ Sydney said later.2 As they talked, Unity’s problems became more obvious. She frequently confused words, calling the sugar ‘chocolate’ or the salt ‘tea’ - typical symptoms of brain damage. Janos, who had already stayed longer than planned in Berne, was anxious to get back to his family, so exchanged pleasantries then left. The nun, who had nursed Unity for four months, remained with her patient until they left Berne on New Year’s Eve. She passed on the details of Unity’s clinical treatment, explained that the medical bills had been met by the Führer, and that he had arranged for Unity’s furniture to be packed and placed in storage at his expense. Altogether this was a remarkable sequence of events, and it is curious that none of Hitler’s many biographers has attempted to explain either the relationship or his many small kindnesses to Unity.

  The ambulance carriage was now hooked on to a train heading for Calais. Presumably Sydney enlisted the help of British diplomats in Switzerland for it seems unlikely that she could have dealt with the matter on her own. The journey to the French coast was a nightmare, according to Debo, and what should have taken two days took three or four. ‘It seemed to go on for ever,’ she said. ‘Every time the train jolted, stopped and started, it was torture for her. It was a long, dark and cold journey, and Unity was so ill. My mother worried it would be too much for her.’3 Worse was to come. The press were waiting for them at Calais. Unity’s activities had featured in the newspapers for a long time now, and the attention her return stimulated in journalists was a forerunner to the intense press interest associated with modern celebrities. It took them all by surprise. When they reached Calais they found they had missed the sailing and had to stay overnight in the hotel
near the terminus. Here, Sydney received a note from a Daily Express reporter offering three thousand pounds for an interview with Unity. As if she was declining an invitation to tea, Sydney replied courteously that Unity was too tired, having been very ill, although she was now much better for she had been well cared-for in Germany. This was seen by the reporter as an invitation to trade. He increased his offer to five thousand. Sydney declined again and asked the hotel staff to keep the press away.

  Next morning Unity was carried on to the ferry where they encountered problems with the Customs officer and a doctor. Rudi had packed all she could of Unity’s personal belongings from the Agnesstrasse apartment into fourteen containers.4 The Customs officer insisted on searching each one, and when he came across some tablets that Unity could not identify he seized them. The doctor said they were cocaine and brusquely accused Unity of being a cocaine addict. Sydney insisted he took them away and had them analysed. They turned out to be some old pills that had been prescribed for Rebell, the Great Dane. At last the boat reached Folkestone where David was waiting anxiously with the ambulance. As Unity’s stretcher was carried down the gangway in the failing light, he rushed up and kissed her.

  The press corps had been kept out of the port, a restricted area, but after the ambulance passed through the gates the Redesdale party was followed by about twenty cars containing reporters and cameramen. A few miles outside Folkestone the ambulance began to make ominous clanking sounds. A spring had broken and they decided to return to the hotel David had used while he waited for them. They arrived unexpectedly and there was nobody to carry Unity, so David supported her as she walked unsteadily inside while flashbulbs popped and reporters shouted questions. The foyer of the hotel was a blaze of light and crammed with journalists. Sydney tried to calm the frenzy by asking, in wonder, ‘Are you all quite mad? What is it all about?’5 That they were inside the hotel made her suspect that the broken spring had been sabotage. ‘At the time I was not sorry,’ she said later. It had been so difficult driving in the dark of the blackout with pinprick lights, and Unity was worn out. They all were. Before she was carried upstairs the press managed to get a few words from Unity. ‘Are you pleased to be home, Miss Mitford?’ someone called. ‘I’m very glad to be in England, even if I’m not on your side,’ a newspaper report claimed she replied. On the following day David hired another ambulance and the party drove to the cottage at High Wycombe without further interference.