I do hope you weren’t bored & I didn’t talk about Esmond all the time like Woman does about Derek, but you know it seems such an AGE since he went, however he’s coming back today for certain.
I think I only really realized, from seeing you, what things had been like at home; it is so extraorder how people can make themselves so miserable when there’s nothing to be miserable about, & of course I’m dreadfully sorry they were so unhappy. It seems such a tease that one can’t be what one likes without causing all that misery. The more I think of it the less I can understand it.
Best love from Squalor
It’s early Spring in January, because I’m in pig.
Darling:
I would have written ages ago, but we are having a heat wave of terrific proportions and it is really boiling and I spend the days in a pair of bathing pants and a shirt. I am reading Mein Kampf.1 Everything looks unbelievably beautiful.
4th August. I have got a lot to erzähl [tell] about the Oxford Group. Annemarie2 said could she come here, so I said yes (I was alone) and she came needless to say with Mr [Reginald] Holme & Miles Phillimore.3 They arrived for lunch and made an onslaught which lasted till 10.45, trying to persuade me to go back to Oxford with them for the weekend. It was a very special weekend with very important people, and Frank [Buchman] had said would I come etc. I did not want to go in the least but as I was alone here I had no reason. When they saw I was set against it they tried a sort of mixture of flattery (‘you could change the world’) and blackmail and threats (‘you are afraid of being converted. You are not a revolutionary if you don’t give us a fair trial’). ‘Why not?’ is the answer I think!!
Anyway it ended with a Quiet Time. I did not write anything on the bit of paper they gave me although I thought of lots of jokes. They all read out their guidance and it consisted mostly of God saying he wanted me to go to Oxford. In the end they went off in despair. I suppose Frank had told them to bring me back. But during the day I got a terrific nausea for the whole silly affair, and when they said Frank had changed the world and prevented industrial disputes etc I asked how long he had been at it; they replied since 1921, so I said that was as long as the Führer, leaving them to make the comparison. I said in order to change anything properly in the modern world you had to have a political organization and several thousand people willing to give their lives and some machine guns. I said why the hell didn’t Frank stick to America and try and change that, because the industrial disputes there were the horror of the whole world.
They were very hurt and made all kinds of lame answers. 6 August. So then I said you will never get me for your sort of ‘revolution’ because I am a realist and we must have a framework first in England. Miles Phillimore, ‘We are realists too, and after all when I had been in New Zealand a year, the Prime Minister said “the Oxford group is the only policy for the world”.’ And what difference has it made him saying that?
But the thing that makes me angriest is when they harp on the fact that Frank said publicly ‘thank God for Adolf Hitler’. They tell one that as if it were gleichzeitig [at the same time] very brave and a terrific compliment for the Führer.
I am sorry for all this boring outburst but I longed for you to be there at the time. Although I am really fond of Annemarie I shall not lift a finger for her to see the Führer while she is with that ghastly Frank.
It is so lovely and calm here with Kit. We don’t even ride, but just lie in the sun and listen to the wireless, and fish, and row in a tiny little boat he has brought. I am so happy. At the end of next week Vivien4 & Nicky5 come, and then it will be less peaceful. The boys are coming too and I am perfectly dying for them.
This letter has gone on so long it must be a birthday letter now darling, so many happy returns, and I enclose the usual dull-but-useful.
I wish you were here. Kit wants you to come & bring the Princesses Wrede6 with you!!
All love, Nardy
P.S. Miles & co kept being guided to use my telephone for trunk calls! They all ring up nearly every day but I say I am away. They are nothing daunted by my firmness. Of course they are mad to get to see the Führer. But then who isn’t?
Darling Nard
Thank you so much for your letter. It arrived just after I had posted my letter to you, with the photo
I quite forgot to thank you for the lovely photos of the boys, I was so pleased with them & I shall stick them in my family book when I go to England.
Erna is most terribly aufgeregt [excited] about ‘Entartete Kunst’,1 she says that the artists in it are the only good ones in Germany today and the whole world envies Germany for them. She has stopped working in her shop because her brother is afraid the SS will come & smash the windows if she is caught selling reproductions of modern pictures (that sounds unlikely doesn’t it) and she sits at home in Solln all by herself getting aufgeregter & aufgeregter. I spent a whole afternoon & evening with her & she didn’t speak of anything else at all, just a torrent of Aufregung [excitement]. She goes to the exhibition every day, & she says that all the really artistic people in Munich are freu-ing [enjoying] themselves like anything because they say, never before have we had a chance of seeing all these wonderful pictures collected together in one Ausstellung [exhibition], & they go every day, & noch dazu [what’s more] the entrance is free. She says all the Americans come to her & say ‘If only we could have this wonderful collection in America, wouldn’t they let us take it over?’ I asked Erna to let me go to it with her but she refused but at last I persuaded her & we went, I feel I learnt quite a lot by it. She has small pictures by two of the artists, which they gave her themselves, hanging in her house, in fact she has three pictures by Nolde. [incomplete]
Darling Boud
I have been wanting to write to you for ages but I didn’t know your address, now Muv has sent me the Dieppe one & says it will find you. I hope it will. Do write to your Boud soon.
I did envy Blor & Tiny going to see my Boud, I do hope I will soon. I hear you had a tooth out without anaesthetic, poor Boud how awful. How is the baby, I hear you can feel it kicking already. It is so exciting, I do envy you. I think I really must have a darling little Bastard, it would be so sweet & I should love it. Do you hope for a boy or a girl? What will you call it?
Clementine [Mitford] & I went with the Führer to Bayreuth for the festival, we were there ten days, it was lovely. Kukuli von Arent1 was in Bayreuth, & she hadn’t heard about you, she was perfectly amazed when I told her & kept on saying ‘Aber die Decca war doch so nett! Sie war doch so lustig und reizend!2 Do you remember when the two SS men here called you ‘die lustige Kommunistin’? Clementine went to England from Bayreuth, & I returned here. I have seen the Führer a lot lately which has been heaven, only now he has gone back to his mountain for a bit.
I do hope you are having lovely weather for your motor tour. We have been having a heat wave here for a week, but today alas it’s raining. The other day when it was boiling hot I found a secluded spot in the Englischer Garten3 where I took off all my clothes & sunbathed, luckily no-one came along. While I was lying in the sun I suddenly wondered whether Muv knew I was sun-bathing naked, like when she knew that you were bathing naked, & I laughed till I ached, if anyone had come along they would have thought me mad as well as indecent.
Well Boud pray write to your Boud as soon as you get this, she does so long to hear from her Boud.
Best love from Yr Boud
Darling:
I have got a lot to erzähl [tell] about a wonderfully typical day I spent at Schwanenwerder yesterday. After discovering that the people I have come to see are all away, I rang up Magda on the chance and she asked me to come at once. Kukuli was there, radiant after spending a week with her loved one, her idyll was spoilt later in the day by Benno von Arent who bullied her to go back to her Kinder [children]. The Doktor was there and the food, conversation and whole set-up was so exactly like last year that I kept thinking it was last year. Magda wanted to play Animal Vegetable or Miner
al, and when we chose something for her to guess she always complained either that it was, ‘Wirklich zu dumm, viel zu leicht’1 etc. Or if she couldn’t guess it, it was ‘a frightfully unfair one’. When it was one of our turns she kept saying, ‘Aber Sie müssen nur logisch denken, ich hätte das in zwei minuten gefunden’.2
It was pure heaven. Then we played Analogies which I taught them. Magda got the hang of it in a moment, and we had a heavenly time doing Helldorf, Frau Funk, Frau Hoffmann and so on. Then the Doktor joined us and we, or rather he, did the Führer for Kukuli. Here is what he said (we all helped and this was the result)
Animal: Pure-bred Arab stallion
Colour: Feuerrot 3
Drink: Ein schwerer Wein 4
Flower: Madonna lily *
Style: Michaelangelo – Renaissance *
Landschaft: 5 Top of the Alps
Weather: A hot storm *
Frau: Eine grosse schöne blonde Frau 6
Needless to say although Harald7 who came halfway through kept saying, ‘Aber Kinder, ganz klar, es gibt nur einer’,8 Kukuli failed to guess, and when she was told said, ‘Ich habe die ganze Zeit an den Führer gedacht, aber er trinkt doch nur Wasser!’9 Whereupon both Goebbels rounded on her so cruelly that she nearly cried. I must say it was rather dotty because we had told 23 times it had nothing to do with what the person liked, or wore etc. Well I was pleased when the Doktor said, ‘Eine grosse schöne blonde Frau’.
The lovely part of the day was a wonderful film called Entscheidende Tage [Decisive Days] and it is only real-life films, of the war, the Versailles Treaty, the revolution here, the coming of the Führer, 1923 Parteitag, meetings, Schlageter10 being shot, Jews, Nazis, the 1929 Parteitag, Machtübernahme [taking power], Aufbau [rebuilding], 1936 Parteitag. It was pure heaven, except that the Doktor schimpfed [railed] all the way through at the man who had spent eight months making it. I must say he was perfectly right because it was an awful muddle and terribly hard to know what was going on. The Doktor said he himself didn’t know half the time although he lived it all. So it has to be entirely altered, but darling the material is simply thrilling.
There was a lovely moment when the Doktor said, ‘Ich stelle mich meine Mutter vor; sie hätte fast nichts davon verstanden; es muss absolut klar sein für die einfachsten und dummsten Leute.’11
There is the most heavenly picture of the Führer at the 1929 Parteitag, laughing and throwing flowers at the SA as they march vorbei [past]. Oh how I wished we had been there, it makes me cry with rage to think we were alive and yet missing everything.
Do you really think the Führer might come here? I thirst for only a glimpse of him. I know he’s at Nürnberg today because the Doktor is meeting him there. If you see Wiedemann12 give him my fondest love and tell him I am here, could you darling.
MASSES of love, do write again, Nardy
Darling Nard,
I had lunch with the Führer in the Ost the day before the Duce1 came, & said goodbye to him as I shan’t see him again. The little Doktor was there. We had rather a stormy scene as all of them, except the Führer, set on me because I said I didn’t like Musso, & bullied me till I was almost in tears, it was dreadful. I thought I wouldn’t be able to prevent myself crying. However the Führer took my part (without of course saying anything against Musso) & he was perfectly sweet. Of course the one that led the attack was Dr Brandt.2
Two days before Musso’s visit Wardie3 & Randolph [Churchill] arrived here. I met them at the plane & spent the whole three days with them, it was great fun. Randolph never stopped complaining because I didn’t get him an interview with the Führer & grumbling about the lack of ‘facilities’ whatever that may be, but he was very nice. Altogether, the three days were great fun & I adored it in spite of the misery of Musso coming.
May I come to Wootton for a few days when I get to England?
Best love, & to the boys, Heil Hitler, Bobo
P.S. Have you read Gone with the Wind?4 It is the most fascinating book ever written. I read it in under a week although it’s got 1036 pages & you know what a slow reader I am, so that just shows. One can’t put it down.
Unity on the cover of a news magazine, November 1937. Hardly a week went by during the 1930s without one of the sisters making headlines.
Darling Cord
Thank you so much for the delicious cheque for £5, I was pleased to get it, & it arrived on my birthday, too.
We went to Biddesden the other day for the wknd, it was a scream, Bryan made everyone slave away from morning till on the farm, & he kept saying to his wife ‘would you like to come for a bicycle ride?’ although it was only a week before the baby was born!1 We have got a house looking over the river, which is heaven, I think I shall be staying here for the baby.
Thank you again for the lovely birthday gift.
Love from Decca
Dearest Crackinjay
Oh goodness the Bridgetness1 of it! She is being so awful that I would really like to be very rude to her if it wasn’t for Maggot. This afternoon she said ‘Of course I think it is so awful for gals not to play games like tennis & golf because not only are they left out of everything but they are a fearful bore to have in the house & it is very selfish of them because they ruin everybody else’s good time’. Don’t you think it is the damn rudest thing you have ever heard when I was sitting there & she knows I can’t (& won’t) do anything like that. I was simply furious.
She says that ‘gals’ never get asked anywhere unless they are good at games. I hate the idea of being asked somewhere to ‘make up a four at tennis’. I’d much rather not go away to stay anywhere if I thought I was being asked to make even numbers for tennis of all blasted games. Why they can’t sit & talk like normal humans I can’t imagine. They are always driving you to ‘do something’. Goodness it does make me angry. I hate Bridget more than I ever have before. She is perfectly bloody.
Tom is back from Germany & has been down to Wycombe.
Well dear, do write.
The Forfar ball is on Friday. I hope it will be nice.
Much love from Henderson
Darling Honks
Thank you so much for the really wonderful gift, they are things I have always longed for but I have never afforded them as Blor always makes me buy woollen combies. They are such heaven, thank you a million times.
I had measles all through merry Xmas. It was so awful I nearly died of the horror of it.
This letter has been disinfected by Blor putting it in the oven, at least it will have been by the time you get it. The one I wrote to Bridget I specially didn’t have done.
You are kind to have sent the gorgeous gift, goodness you are.
Tuddemy says they are pretties, like the adverts.
Much love from Debo
I am still in bed for seven days as the doctor says I shall get bronchitis if I get up which makes Muv furious. I have also had some glorious medicine.
Dear Miss Measles
Oh those little armless hands* I simply adore them. Rodd thinks they are awfully sinister & they terrify him but I wear them the whole time.1 It was kind of you.
Poor Miss how awful about yr blindness, of course one can’t help wondering what sort it is when remembering yr awful reputation.2
Yes it is very nice here – Rodd spends his time making hats for Helen,3 & SHE WEARS them. So we are happy.
Love from Get on & get out of here.4
* The little armless hand
It lies upon the land
It cannot hold
It cannot mould
Nor rub an aching gland
It lies alone & makes no moan5
Dearest young Hen,
How I do love your delicious gift of face cream, it really is just what I wanted dear thank you so much.
I was amazed at your letter in the Fem’s writing, it seemed so extraorder to see Honnish terms in a non-Hon’s handwriting.
How simply wretched for you having measles, poor old Hohon.
The baby1 i
s terribly strong already & you could have seen it and me any time if you hadn’t been a young germ carrier.
We had the most heavenly Xmas you can image. Yr Hen had in her stocking: E. Arden bath salts & hand lotion, L. Philippe lipstick, Atkinson scent, Turkish delight, two boxes of chocolates, a book and 1s worth of cream which she drank down at one gulp. The poor Babe hung its sock but didn’t get a damn thing! Luckily it didn’t seem to notice.
Dear you can’t imagine how sweet it is, I long for you to come & see it. She hasn’t got any of the disadvantages of so many babes such as excessive redness & baldness & smelling of sick.
Yr Hen is loving her delicious time in bed, tho of course it isn’t nearly such heaven now as over the Xmas hol when Esmond was here all the time;2 but Id is coming today & I hope lots of people will be scramming down here.
Well dear
Not much news
So cheer ha.
Love from Beery
Darling Nard
I had great fun my last week in Vienna, Heine Bleckmann took me out a lot, & I also met some other friends who I went out with; so I saw quite a lot of the life in Vienna.
Of course hopes are high here about the Reichstagsrede;1 and the evening on which it came out that Schuschnigg2 was with the Führer, Vienna was in an uproar. No-one could think of anything else, & the first thing everyone – taxi-men, shop assistants or friends – said to one was ‘Haben Sie gehört? Der Schuschnigg ist beim Führer!’3 I do hope the result won’t be a disappointment. Poor Austria is such a tragic country, & the people here really such heroes, I had never realized how really heroic the Kampf [struggle] here is until my time in Vienna. I have never met such fanatics in Germany as I have here. Several times young men have come up to me & said, ‘May I kiss the hand the Führer has touched?’ – not at all in a gallant or complimentary way, but merely because they do really so worship him, rather like a Christian might kiss a bit of wood which Christ had touched. And they all talk of ‘draussen im Reich’4 with bated breath, as if they were talking of Heaven.
The Mitfords Page 11