The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters

The B[urden] of my S[ong] is I am awfully sorry you are ill. I always think to be ill abroad is most un-hochworthy. I hope there is an agreeable Gesellschaft [society] in the town to go and see you, anyway the Fem has gone now. I remember being ill in Napoli and a bearded Doctor laid his bearded face on my bosom which was his old world way of taking my temp. I thought luckily that it was only part of my delirium.

I am getting on well with my German. I know Herrschaft, Tisch and pfui; Pfennig, gemütlich and Rassenschande.2 Six words which would get one a long way if made good use of. Oh and mit mir [with me]. Did Muv enjoy her flight? She must be enchanted by the injections you describe. I fear modern science means 0 to her.

Well, head of bone, heart of stone – here is a little poem to show you what a lot of German I know.

Rassenschande is my joy

(Tisch Tisch and a merry go round)

Gemütlich is my hochgeboren [highborn] boy.

My hochgeboren love sits mit mir

(Tisch Tisch and a merry go round)

With all our Pfennigs we buy delicious beer.

And Rassenschande we do all day

(Tisch Tisch and a merry go round)

For my lover is a geboren Malay.

Pretty good, eh what?

P.S. I saw Bernstein3 who remembered sitting next to you at Emerald’s4 and saying, ‘I hate you, I don’t know why’ and you replied ‘But I know why’.

Darling Nard –

Your wonderful cheque arrived today from Pension Doering – you shouldn’t have sent me so much, it’s much too much, but you can imagine how thrilled I was to get it. You are so kind, thank you a million times.

This is the first letter I have been able to write but can’t sit up hence the scrawl. The doctors say I may not be able to go to the Parteitag, so you & I may be in the same boat – tho’ you get a lovely prize for it1 & I get nothing. I hope however that I may get well quicker than they think & be able to go. The old doctor2 the Führer sent me looks like the Aga Khan, he cured the Führer of indigestion. The Führer rang him up in the middle of the night & said he must leave for Bayreuth at once, so he arrived here at 3 A.M. & examined me at once & phoned the Führer. He had to leave several patients in Berlin including – who do you think? – your lover Joan Glover!3 The Führer rings up several times a day from the Berg & speaks to the doctor, & two days ago a phone was brought into my room & I spoke to him, wasn’t it heaven. He sent me a sweet telegram & masses of flowers for my birthday.

Oh dear I envy you all at Wootton, it is so dull here but thank goodness the Fem is here. She flew out, to Farve’s horror. Please give the boys my best love. I do hope I will see them soon.

Best love & Heil Hitler, Bobo

Darling:

How simply dreadful to have had pneumonia; we were so sorry about it. The Führer is the kindest man in the world isn’t he? I bet Joan is teased at his doctor being snatched away. He looks as if he might die any minute I must say. What is the matter with him? Do ask the Doc.

The boys have gone off to Biddesden, looking very well. Kit and I are here alone now. The day before the boys went we were all down by the lake, Kit was fishing, when all of a sudden Debo appeared! Kit had never seen her before. He stayed where he was and Debo and I walked back to the house, and hiding a few hundred yards away were two friends of Debo’s, Lord Andrew Cavendish1 and a troglodyte of sorts. They had been to some races. They stayed literally ten mins and then scrammed. They all looked as if they had seen a ghost, Debo said they were frightened they might be shot at. Apparently the day before they had come within a few yards of the house and then been too afraid to approach. It seems so odd to think they are grown up; they seemed incredibly babyish and so shy. (Not Debo of course.)

Kit has got such a lovely new rod for spinning minnows, he caught a huge trout last night with it. We are having such heavenly hols.

How too awful if you have to miss the Parteitag, but thank goodness it is the same year as me. I expect you will go but don’t overdo it darling. Come back soon.

You know the grey flannel dress and coat you gave me; well Nanny has let the dress out and it makes the most wonderfully concealing garment for best. I shall have to give it back when you have one. You can’t think how I bless you every time I wear it.

All love darling from Nard

Dear Miss

Poor Boud got beaten up in the Express, did you see (I know you read the papers from cover to cover all except the news, the book reviews or anything of interest). I must say I think it was silly not to write the letter herself but then Boud always is silly.1

Love from NR

The dr just been says that for two months I mayn’t go in any sort of vehicle, isn’t it deadly. I mayn’t even take a taxi & go out to lunch.2

Darling Diana

Wasn’t it funny – the very day your baby1 was born I was transcribing letters about Alice Stanley’s2 baby & she called it Alexander St George. I recommend St George to your attention, I think it’s so pretty.

I expect you will have a lovely Xmas in bed which I envy you in every way.

Much love from Nancy

I am going to Roy3 & Billa tomorrow, did you know they are having a baby also the David Cecils.4

Darling Nard

Thank you for your letter.

I had lunch with the Führer on Sunday & Monday, & he asked me to send you viele Grüsse. Both days he was in his very sweetest mood, particularly on Monday, he held my hand most of the time & looked sweet & said ‘Kind [child]!’ in his sympathetic way because he was so sorry about England & Germany being such enemies.1 However he said nothing but wonderful things about England & he completely gave me faith again that it will all come right in the end.

Yesterday I visited the new English Consul, he is awfully funny & rather nice.

There is still snow on the ground here, but it’s getting a bit warmer.

Do write soon.

Best love from Bobo

1

Well, I had lunch with Wolf2 today. We are invited to Bayreuth, I don’t know when it begins but will let you know later. He was in his least forthcoming mood, you know, all preoccupied.

He asked after you and Alexander and when I told him Alexander was bald, he said ‘Other people lose their hair through wisdom. He is wise from birth.’ So when I said ‘Let’s hope so’ he said ‘Let’s hope not. It’s better to have hair than wisdom. Weisheit hilft nichts.’3

Darling Nard

Your letter of the 30th just arrived. You can’t think how thrilling it is every time I hear the letterbox click, as I always expect every letter to be the last that will get through.

I listened in to the English news last night, it seems quite hopeless doesn’t it.1 I wonder if this letter will get through.

I think Chamberlain & co are criminals & should be hanged.

In case you didn’t hear the Führer’s speech, this is what he said about England. ‘Ich habe England immer wieder eine Freundschaft und, wenn notwendig, das engste Zusammengehen angeboten. Aber Liebe kann nicht nur von einer Seite angeboten werden, die muss von der anderen ihre Erwiderung finden.’2

I tried to ring you up last night but was a few hours too late – no more calls to England allowed.

Last night we had blackout for the first time, the streets were so pitchy black one had to feel one’s way. Today I covered all my windows with black paper.

I fear I shan’t see the Führer again. Nardy if anything should happen to me, & the English press try to make some untrue story out of it against W, you will see to it that the truth is known won’t you.

When the war is over, do try to get Boy3 back, I am so worried about him. Baby knows where he is.

Very best love, to you & the boys, from Bobo

I do hope you will feel better soon. It must be awful to be feeling ill just now.

1 Violet Williams-Freeman (1877–1964). A childhood friend of Lady Redesdale, ‘Mrs Ham’ was also a favourite with those she called the ‘Horror Sisters’. The butt of many of their teases, she could be querulous and demanding but her intelligence and sympathy ensured that she remained a cherished friend. After her husband Arthur Hammersley’s death in 1913, she became known as ‘the Widow’ or ‘Wid’, which suited her pessimistic outlook. She lived between Tite Street, Chelsea, and Wilmington, Totland Bay, on the Isle of Wight.

2 When Lord Redesdale learnt that Diana had taken Unity to the Parteitag, the annual Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, he wrote her a furious letter saying that he and Lady Redesdale were ‘absolutely horrified’ that they should accept hospitality from ‘people we regard as a murderous gang of pests’, and begged her to avoid embroiling Unity ‘with matters & people you know we cannot tolerate’. (Lord Redesdale to Diana, 7 September 1933)

3 The Poor Old Female, i.e. Lady Redesdale.

4 Tom Mitford.

5 Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstaengl (1887–1975). The Harvard-educated German-American who first encouraged Diana to visit Nazi Germany had been made Foreign Press Secretary in 1931. Alienated from Hitler in 1937, he left Germany for England and later lived in the United States. Married to Helene Neemeyer 1920–36.

6 Ann (Id, Idden) Farrer (1916–95). A first cousin of the Mitfords and lifelong friend and correspondent of Jessica. Worked as an actress and married the actor David Horne in 1941. Author, under the pseudonym Catherine York, of If Hopes Were Dupes (1966), an account of her nervous breakdown.

7 The Poor Old Leader, i.e. Mosley.

8 Desmond Guinness (1931–). Diana’s second son. President of the Irish Georgian Society 1958–91 and author of books on architecture. Married to Princess Mariga von Urach 1954–81 and to Penelope Cuthbertson in 1985.

1 ‘A heavenly evening bag’; a sophisticated present for a thirteen-year-old.

1 Nancy had married Peter (Prod) Rodd (1904–68) in London on 4 December. They were honeymooning in his parents’ flat in Rome.

1 Wigs on the Green (1935). Nancy’s satirical novel, which poked fun at Unity and Diana’s extremism, was the only one of her books never to be reissued after the war. She wrote to Evelyn Waugh, ‘Too much has happened for jokes about Nazis to be regarded as funny or as anything but the worst of taste.’ The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, edited by Charlotte Mosley (Hodder & Stoughton, 1996), p. 249.

2 The Poor Tremorgan Poor Old Female.

3 Dorothy Cordes (1887–1967). Married Lord Redesdale’s younger brother Bertram (Tommy) in 1925.

1 Mosley had addressed a huge audience at Olympia, Kensington, where violent fights broke out between Blackshirts and communists. Diana was unable to attend the meeting because she had a high fever.

2 William Anstruther-Gray (1905–85). Conservative MP who co-signed a letter to The Times accusing the uniformed Blackshirts at Olympia of ‘wholly unnecessary violence’.

3 Adolf Hitler (1889–1945). Eighteen months after his appointment as Chancellor, the Führer’s Nazification of Germany was well under way.

4 Derek Hill (1916–2000). Painter, notable for his portraits and landscapes, who was studying stage design in Munich.

5 ‘The kittens’; i.e. Diana’s two sons, Jonathan and Desmond.

1 Ottilie (Tilly) Losch (1907–75). Austrian dancer and actress who had been a girlfriend of Tom. Married the capricious poet and collector Edward James in 1931 and sued for separation in 1934, charging him with homosexuality among other things. James scandalized everyone by counter-suing, accusing her of adultery with Prince Serge Obolensky.

2 The Daily Express was waging a vendetta against Hanfstaengl for expelling their Munich correspondent, and reported that on a visit to America he had fallen in love with a nightclub hostess and invited her to Germany where he would ‘personally supervise’ her career. (20 June 1934)

3 The Nazi Party headquarters in Munich.

4 Ernst Röhm (1887–1934). Chief of Staff of the Sturmabteilung (SA), a large, unruly army that constituted a potential threat to Hitler’s dictatorship. On 30 June, in the Night of the Long Knives, Röhm and members of his staff were dragged from their beds and shot, ostensibly for plotting a coup.

5 Josef Goebbels (1897–1945). Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda since March 1933. Married his secretary, Magda Ritschel-Friedländer, in 1931.

6 Kurt von Schleicher (1882–1934). The former Chancellor of Germany and his wife were murdered by the SS in Berlin on 30 June.

7 Edmund Heines (1898–1934). The SA commander who, like Röhm, was a homosexual, was also executed for his part in the alleged plot.

1 Lady Redesdale’s maid who ran up the sisters’ evening dresses for £1 a time.

2 Wigs on the Green.

3 Nancy had written an ambivalent article in which she began by decrying Britain’s ‘decaying democracy’ that could be saved only by a ‘great Leader’, before going on to lampoon Mosley in the same mocking tones that she had used in Wigs on the Green. ‘Fascism as I See It’, Vanguard, July 1934.

4 Unity, Jessica and Lady Redesdale had attended the 300th anniversary performance of the Passionsspiel, the annual re-enactment of Christ’s Passion performed at Oberammergau, where Hitler was also present.

Jessica (left) on her second visit to Germany, with Unity. Weilheim, 1935.

5 Lady Redesdale.

1 Lady Redesdale considered it too expensive to keep a governess just for Deborah and had enrolled her as a day girl at Wychwood, a weekly boarding school in Oxford, where she lasted for just one term.

2 A newsreel at the cinema was showing a short interview with Mosley. Diana complained that in order to see it twice she twice had to sit through a boring documentary called Amazing Maize.

1 Mosley had brought a libel case against the Daily Star for reporting that his movement was ready to ‘take over government with machine guns when the moment arrived’. He was awarded £5,000 damages.

2 Count Serge Orloff-Davidoff (d.1945). Married Elisabeth Scott-Ellis in 1935.

1 Derek Hill.

1 Jessica.

2 Penelope Chetwode (1910–86). Writer and traveller. Married the poet John Betjeman in 1933. They lived at Uffington, not far from Swinbrook.

3 Unity had presented Hitler with a collage she had made of Hannibal crossing the Alps.

4 Nancy’s nickname for Unity. Horst Wessel (1907–30) was an SA storm trooper murdered by communist sympathizers in a private quarrel. Goebbels exploited his death and transformed him into a martyr. A poem written by Wessel and set to music became the marching song of the SA and later the official song of the Nazi Party.

1 Cecily Fenwick; a friend of Lady Redesdale.

2 A noisy beer hall with a rustic cabaret that performed Bavarian dances.

3 On 9 February, Unity had met Hitler for the first time at the Osteria Bavaria.

4 Wilhelm Brückner (1884–1954). Hitler’s chief adjutant.

5 Probably diplomatic notes that were being exchanged following Hitler’s violation of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles.

6 Jakob Werlin (1886–1958). An SS regional commander and manager of Daimler-Benz in Munich who supplied Hitler with Mercedes cars.

7 Julius Stadelmann; one of Hitler’s junior adjutants.

1 Unity had been apprehensive about introducing Tom to Hitler as he was anti-Nazi – or lukewarm towards Nazi policies at best – and was not an anti-Semite. Although Unity tried to reassure Diana that Tom had been won over by meeting Hitler, Diana remained uncertain of her brother’s allegiance. When Hitler extended an invitation to Tom for the 1936 Parteitag, Unity wrote to Diana, ‘Oh Nardy please don’t think it’s my fault because it really isn’t, it was his [Hitler’s] own idea.’ A year later, however, she wrote to Diana that she was composing a verse to celebrate Tom’s conversion.

2 Joachim ‘von’ Ribbentrop (1893–1946). Hitler’s foreign affairs adviser since 1933. Appointed ambassador to London in August 1936 and Reich Foreign Minister in 1938. Unity and Diana both disliked him and regarded him as a poor choice for ambassador.

3 Erna Hanfstaengl; Putzi’s sister, whom he once referred to as ‘a good girl’, worked in the family shop selling prints of Old Masters. She often invited Unity to stay at her cottage at Uffing near Munich.

1 A Burford antique shop.

1 Unity had addressed the annual Nazi festival at Hesselberg where she expressed sympathy with the German people and admiration for the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. She also gave an interview to a Munich newspaper about the BUF and its anti-Semitic stance.

2 Hermann Göring (1893–1946). The most powerful man in the Third Reich after Hitler was present at the Hesselberg rally. Nancy was parodying Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The May Queen’ (1833): ‘You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear … For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother.’

3 Germany’s first concentration camp had been opened at Dachau in March 1933 by Heinrich Himmler (1900–45), head of the Gestapo and Waffen-SS. The first prisoners were political detainees, rounded up after the burning of the Reichstag.

4 William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (1879–1964). The politician, financier and newspaper proprietor campaigned for appeasement with Germany.

1 Diana had been involved in a car crash in which her face was badly injured.

1 This letter was transcribed in Lady Redesdale’s unpublished memoir of Unity. The orìginal has not been found.

2 Jessica and Unity left on a ten-day sightseeing tour of Germany on 24 September.

3 Although they both knew the invented language, it was unusual for Jessica and Unity to communicate in Honnish rather than Boudledidge.

4 ‘In spite of all.’

5 For the second time in two years, Diana had aborted a child she was expecting with Mosley.

1 Erich Widmann; Unity’s SS boyfriend who worked in a photography shop.

2 Ella van Heemstra (1900–84). Dutch-born mother of the actress Audrey Hepburn. She and her English husband, Joseph Hepburn-Ruston, were both keen BUF members at the time.

3 Michael Burn (1912–). A young reporter on the Gloucester Citizen who had met Unity in London. An initial enthusiasm for Hitler soon turned to disenchantment. He was imprisoned in Colditz during the war and became a convert to Marxism.

4 A waitress at the Osteria Bavaria.

5 Hitler suffered from a chronic stomach condition.

6 Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957). Hitler’s official photographer and author of The Hitler Nobody Knows (1933).

7 Otto Dietrich (1897–1952). Hitler’s press chief 1933–45.

8 ‘Just ran away.’

9 James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell (1858–1941). Nancy’s father-in-law was a diplomat, poet and scholar. Married Lilias Guthrie in 1894. He and his wife attended the 1936 Olympic Games.

10 ‘The most beautiful moment of my life.’

1 Lady Redesdale had taken Jessica and Deborah to Paris for a few weeks.

2 Liliane (Baba) d’Erlanger (1902–45). A girlfriend of Tom Mitford. Married Prince Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge in 1923.

3 A Mitford word for spaniel, hence anything very sweet.

4 The Duke of Gloucester (1900–74), third son of King George V, and Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott (1901–2004) were married on 6 November 1935.

1 Ann Farrer.

2 ‘Love forever, Your Boud.’

1 Max Schmeling (1905–2005). German world heavyweight boxing champion 1930–32. In June 1936, he beat Joe Louis in his first fight against the black American heavyweight champion.

2 Eva Baum was a keen Nazi who taught German to Unity. Having been friends, they fell out when Baum reported Unity to the SS, claiming, amongst other things, that she was bloodthirsty and had an ‘hysterical’ passion for Hitler. She also reported that Unity was having ‘a real affair’ with Erich Widmann and that she was not a suitable friend for an SS member. (Unity to Diana, 8 February 1935) The rumour that Unity had in turn denounced Baum for being Jewish is not borne out by this letter.

3 An SS doctor who ran a children’s clinic in Munich.

4 Armida (1917–) and Rosemary (1918–) Macindoe were English sisters studying German in Munich.

1 7th Marquess of Londonderry (1878–1949). Until 1938, the former Air Minister was an admirer of Hitler and worked for rapprochement with Germany. His wife, Edith, was more sceptical and saw that ‘to live in the upper levels of National Socialism may be quite pleasant, but woe to the poor folk who do not belong to the upper orders’. (Quoted in Anne de Courcy, Circe, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992, p. 270) After their visit to Germany, the Londonderrys and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Mairi, left bearing photographs of the Nazi leaders in silver frames, which may have made Unity jealous.

2 Mary Pollen (1892–1983). Married Colonel J. D. Macindoe in 1915 and K. W. Newall in 1933. Contrary to what Unity believed, the mother of her friends Armida and Rosemary was not an admirer of Hitler.

3 Rudolf Hess (1894–1987). Deputy leader of the Nazi Party since 1933.

4 Mary Wooddisse; an exact contemporary and close friend of Unity who was also studying German in Munich.

5 A small gathering.’

6 Paula Hitler (1896–1960). Hitler’s younger sister was the only one of his five full siblings to survive to adulthood.

1 Lady Redesdale transcribed this letter in her unpublished memoir of Unity. The original has not been found.

2 Lady Redesdale was taking Unity, Jessica and Deborah on a cultural cruise of the Mediterranean.

1 Jessica was on holiday in Brittany with Nancy and Peter.

2 As children, Jessica and Deborah imagined that Anthony Sewell, a neighbour at Rutland Gate, was a white-slave trader – their nanny having warned them that London was the centre of the traffic. Sewell was married, 1930–45, to Mary Lutyens, daughter of the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

3 ‘Popo is sixty, she is guaranteed for a hundred.’

4 It is more likely that Nancy stayed at home because her husband and Mary Sewell were having an affair.

1 Alexandra Cecilia Hay (1922–91). A friend of Deborah who did lessons with her at Swinbrook.

2 Peter Ramsbotham (1919–). The future distinguished diplomat had made friends with the sisters during their Mediterranean cruise.

3 Unity had cancelled her plan to travel down the Danube and on to Constantinople with Tom and Jessica because the Redesdales had forbidden Jessica to go.

4 Deborah’s dachshund.

5 Ivan Hay (1884–1936). Cecilia’s father.

1 Magda Ritschel-Friedländer (1901–45). The ideal of German motherhood married Dr Joseph Goebbels in 1931 in order to be close to Hitler, whom she idolized. Her first marriage in 1921 to Gunther Quandt, a rich industrialist, ended in 1929.