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Unity Mitford: An Enquiry into Her Life and the Frivolity of Evil

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The Mitford bio Hons & Rebels was thusly titled for a reason. Many of the sisters WERE rebels. Unity rebeled against the conventions of her time. She took her pet rat to the debutantes ball, played 5 radios tuned to different stations simultaneously (turned up full blast), & generally did as she pleased. Had she not fallen in with Hitler, it's doubtful that anyone other than rabid anglophiles would know or care about her. BUT, had she not fallen in with Hitler it's also possible that she would be a feminist icon of sorts. This book captures Unity in all her paradoxical complexity. Hitler hated lipstick, yet Unity refused not to wear it in his presence. He hated women drivers, yet was delighted to see Unity zooming about Munich in her sports car. She was a unique woman who refused to bow down before anyone, up to & including her "idol", Hitler. Read this bio & you'll find a woman that, like most fascinating figures, was wildly out of step with the times in which she lived; & as a result will continue to be misunderstood by most. Nonetheless, it's a great read, however you feel about Unity and/or her politics.

Anyone who's read anything about the Mitfords knows that Unity was NOT the youngest. The youngest (and only-surviving) Mitford sister (as of 2004) is Deborah, the Duchess of Devonshire. The birth order of the Mitford siblings was Nancy, Pam, Tom, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah.

Now -- about the Pryce-Jones book. I can understand why all the sisters, except Jessica, didn't want it published. Nancy was the only committed anti-Fascist among them and so dreaded family contention, that her book about Unity, Wigs on the Green, was never re-released for publication. Deborah also valued family harmony. The rest of them were, as Jessica (the Communist) says, basically sympathetic to the Fascists and were also anti-semites, in the old tradition of British aristocracy. Even Tom, who supposedly had Jewish clients as a lawyer, was, as his sister Diana pointed out, a paid-up member of the British Union of Fascists. Yecchh.

Nevertheless the book is a fascinating psychological study and worth reading for anyone who's interested in family, or social, pathology. What makes charming, funny, smart, gifted people willingly adopt such a hateful social philosophy?

The book may not provide the definitive answer to this question but it is somewhat enlightening about the pre-war social conditions in England and Germany and the mind-set of Nazi fellow-travelers. Unity may be an extreme case but her story is illuminating.

I read this book several years ago, when I became fascinated by the Mitfords. One sister, Nancy, wrote a couple of the most delightful comic novels ever, (Love in a Cold Climate, especially) largely revolving around the love life of the English aristocracy. Another sister married into the higher reaches of English aristocracy. One sister, Jessica, got involved in the Spanish Civil war, then moved to the US, became a communist party member, and wrote a best selling expose' of the funeral industry that even my conservative-republican father loved. Another sister, Diana, married the head of the British Fascist party a few years before the beginning of the Second World War.

The youngest sister, Unity, (Yes, I finally got to her!) hung out with Diana, teased Jessica, and ended up, as a teenager, loitering around Berlin in Hitler's known hangouts. She managed to get herself picked up by Hitler himself, who at that time, loved the idea of attaching an English Rose to his group. She went with the "inner circle" to various speeches; she was close friends with numerous vicious anti-semites, whom she seemed to find agreeable and sensible; and she publically argued for a German-English 'alliance' even as Germany invaded its neighbor states.

Apparently, the view we often get of England completely united against facism is not entirely accurate. There were a significant number of English people who thought Hitler was a good thing, and Jews were a big problem, and would have been happy to side with Germany. Unity's brother-in-law, Mosely, would appear to be the man Hitler would have chosen to run England for him if things had turned out differently. Unity's sister Jessica fear that Mosely's crowd was going to take over, and that is why she moved to the US. (Although I suppose we had the same sort of people in the US too ...)

Unity hung out in the thick of this group, and with the Nazi's themselves, and apparently had a marvelous time. She was treated like a Princess by the people who ran Germany (her life in England had been more troubled... She was something of a misfit.) She invited here parents to visit (more English aristocrasy) and they enjoyed meeting Hitler very much; thought he was a fine fellow.

Unity was not disillusioned with her choice until England actally declared war on Germany after the invasion of France. She was living in Berlin then, close to Hitler and his crowd, and she shot herself in the head when the announcement came. She survived, and Hitler himself arranged to have her sent back home to England through neutral Switzerland, where she lived out the rest of her life physically and mentally disabled.

I suppose I haven't really talked about the book. I can't swear as to whether or not it was well-written because I was so fascinated by the subject matter I didn't care. Very readable, though, as I recall. And it seemed to have a reasonable, relatively objective (or at least not vindictive) perspective on the politics and personalities involved.

Unity was the second youngest of six progeny of Lord and Lady Redesdale, at a time when the iniquitous class system was beginning to decay. Unity Valkyrie (Bobo) Mitford, her four sisters and brother Tom, were reared in the exclusively separatist atmosphere of governesses for the girls, and Eton for Tom - a class apart from the common herd. The girls were strictly supervised and chaperoned, their companions other members of the aristocracy. Lord Redesdale had links with Germany through his father's friendship with Siegfried, the son Richard Wagner, the composer and virulent anti-semite. Nancy became a noted novelist and ardent anti-fascist, while Diana and Unity embraced both Sir Oswald Mosley, his BUF, and Adolf Hitler and National Socialism.

Unity seems to have always been something of a self destructive rebel, apparently enjoying her role as a victim or martyr. She lacked a sense of humor yet enjoyed upsetting and embarrassing others. Both Diana and Unity were considered beauties, with their blonde hair and classical features. Diana married Bryan Guiness but later began an affair with the married Sir Oswald Mosley, whose wife later died. Diana divorced Bryan on the gounds of his adultery, to which he acceded, since it was the absurd custom of the time for the innocent party to take the blame. Mosley and Diana were eventually married on October 6, 1936 in the Goebbel's ministerial house opposite the German Chancellery.

Unity was expelled from St Margarets school because she 'had a fine disregard for the rules of the school'. She joined Mosley's BUF and proudly wore her black shirt and fascist brooch wherever she went, going so far as to give the fascist salute while the national anthem was being played in a cinema. Although considered a nordic style beauty with her height, blue eyes and flaxen hair, she was supposed to have had bad teeth and big hands with 'fingers like sausages', and was reputed to be quite expressionless. Some time in 1934 she 'crossed the divide, to live more in Germany than in England' - with 'full parental approval'. While in Munich she learned Hitler had lunch at the Osteria Bavaria, and would sit there 'day after obsessive day' waiting and hoping to be noticed by her adored fuhrer. Evedntually her persitence paid off and a meeting was arranged. Thus began an extraordinary chain of events culminating in Unity's attempted suicide and her beloved fuhrer's successful suicide. Unity became ss stridently fanatical as Hitler and the vicious Julius Streicher in her hatred for the Jews, and only the prospect of war between Germany and England dampened her enthusiasm for continuing her existence.The Learning Process

I haven't yet finished this book. The topic is fascinating and somewhat chilling, however, the writing gets in the way.

The author presents a wealth of interesting material, but the organization is confused. Much of it reads like a society column squib. Often it is not clear who is being quoted and names are thrown around with abandon.

However, it was very enlightening to read about the level of Nazi sympathy that existed in 1930s England, among the upper classes.

The Mitford sisters, with the exception of Jessica, were vehemently opposed to Pryce-Jones's book, and lobbied hard to stop or contain it. Pryce-Jones interviewed many first person sources and had a wealth of detail and observation about Unity. However, the book is very poorly written. In my opinion (and Jessica Treuhaft's, too!) the best biographies are those in which all of the subjects views and actions are laid out, warts and all, and the reader is allowed to make his/her own judgement. Pryce-Jones editorializes constantly.

I am certainly not disagreeing with the fact that there was much that was despicable about Unity's political views, associations, and actions. But Pryce-Jones fails to find any humanity in the woman. He makes it hard to understand why anybody still loved her. And they did.