The outrageous Mitfords of World War II
You might think that your family fights over politics are bad, but you've probably got nothing on the infamous Diana and Unity Mitford. These two daughters of a cash-strapped aristocratic clan held political and social opinions that split and scandalized their families. In the process, they became famous — and infamous.
Diana Mitford had a life of leisure ahead of her after marrying the heir to the enormous Guinness brewing fortune in 1929, but divorced him just four years later to pursue the still-married Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the fledgling British Union of Fascists. The relationship horriified her parents and his politics appalled her sisters Nancy and Jessica, but Diana herself embraced the fascist cause and supported Mosley's effort to remake himself in the image of Italy's Benito Mussolini or the ascendant Adolf Hitler of Germany.
Her younger sister Unity became a devoted fascist as well under Mosley's influence, and in 1933 traveled with Diana to attend that year's Nuremberg rally. Her devotion quickly escalated into an obsession with Hitler himself that led her to move to Munich and stake out his favorite restaurant every day for months in hopes of meeting him.
The tactic worked, and to the bafflement of Hitler's associates and Gestapo agents that shadowed him everywhere, the two struck up a warm friendship — and according to rumor, something more. Eva Braun, Unity casually mentioned in her diary, seemed jealous.
Unity became a fixture in Hitler's closest social circle, enjoying favors and gifts from Hitler and arranging an introduction for her sister. When Diana and Oswald Mosley finally married in 1936, the wedding took place in the home of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Hitler himself attended.
But Unity and Diana's happiness was, like Hitler's so-called thousand year Reich, just a temporary state. The British government unilaterally banned the British Union of Fascists after declaring war on Germany, and Diana and Mosley spent much of the war interned as national security risks.
The declaration of war between the U.K. and Germany devastated Unity, who foolishly hoped to prevent conflict between the two nations. She attempted suicide in a public park in Munich in 1939, but survived after bystanders rushed her to a nearby hospital. Unity survived until 1948, when she finally succumbed to complications from her injuries.
Diana remained married to Mosley until his death in 1980 and forged her own career as a writer before passing at 93 in 2003. Their outrageous story, however, will probably stick around forever.
