How Unity Mitford became Hitler’s ‘Baby Reindeer’ stalker

The publication of Unity Mitford’s diaries is of immense historical interest – and shows the true level of her infatuation with Hitler, writes Guy Walters. She displays an obsession with the Fuhrer that goes deeper than many historians had previously realised

Adolf Hitler, then chancellor of Germany, is welcomed by supporters at Nuremberg in 1933 (Photos Getty)

Of all the British people who met Adolf Hitler, Unity Mitford is surely the one who met him the most frequently, and therefore probably knew him better than anyone else from these islands. It is for this reason alone that the new publication of her diary is of immense historical interest. It would be fascinating enough if she had met the Fuhrer, say, 20 times, but Mitford met him on an astonishing 139 occasions, which therefore makes her diary even more fascinating.

The six Mitford Girls – of which Unity was the fourth – surely need little introduction. The eldest was Nancy, a novelist and biographer, famous for her witty novels like The Pursuit of Love; while the third sister, the glacially beautiful Diana, was a fascist and married the Blackshirt leader Sir Oswald Mosley.

The sixth sister, Deborah, would become the Duchess of Devonshire, and seemed to spend most of her later years writing letters to the travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor.

There is a whole industry attached to these wretched siblings. For decades, it seems, we have had to endure countless biographies, memoirs, letters, novels, filmed adaptations of novels and, yes, magazine and newspaper articles, about these six dead posh women and their dysfunctional and largely unpleasant family.

Unity’s diary will doubtless be pored over by those who are unhealthily obsessed by the Mitfords, who were in truth an absurd bunch of monstrously over-venerated, overrated and over-privileged women, who were dysfunctional, unpleasant, and largely fascist.

“I must admit, ‘The Mitfords’ would madden ME if I didn’t chance to be one,” wrote Diana Mitford in 1985, long before Mitfordmania went utterly over the top and we were regaled with ceaseless accounts of the cruel eccentricities of their strange father, Lord Redesdale – the repellent “Farve” – who shared a love of fascism with his wife, the tedious “Muv”.

Mitford moonies always take exception to the application of the f-word to the family, but the unpalatable fact is that many of them were a bunch of sordid fascists, and those who weren’t were either communist or politically apathetic.

Lord Redesdale was a member of the Right Club in the 1930s, which was as vile as it gets, run by a repulsive Tory MP who penned a hymn called “Land Of Dope And Jewry”, which ended with an exhortation to hang Jewish people.

However, Unity’s devotion to fascism easily exceeded that of her father, not least because it was boosted by a spectacularly vicious strain of antisemitism, which saw her even writing a letter to a Nazi newspaper in which she declared, “We look forward to the day on which we shall declare with full power and might ‘England for the English!’ Jews out! Heil Hitler! Unity Mitford. PS please print my name in full for everyone should know that I am a Jew hater.”

Unity, Diana and Nancy Mitford pictured at a wedding in 1932 (Getty)

Her diary reveals that such hatred was indeed sincere. One entry from 1935 recounts how she got on a train in Paris, only to find there was a Jewish person in her third-class carriage, whom she resented for having secured the most comfortable seat.

“Friday, December 20: Gare de l’Est. Just catch [train], by running hard. I get into very full III class carriage. Sit next to Jud [Jew]. Read & look at fuhrer books. Can’t sleep because not in corner. (Jude in corner of course).”

But what made Unity Mitford so exceptional was the fact that she was infatuated with Adolf Hitler. In the mid-1930s she started to spend a lot of time in Munich, and frequented a restaurant near the Fuhrer’s apartment in order to get the chance to meet him. Finally, on Saturday 9 February 1935, the 20-year-old’s wish was granted, and her reaction, as now revealed in her diary was gushingly ecstatic:

Adolf Hitler making a speech, circa 1936 (Getty)

“Lunch Osteria 2.30. THE FUHRER comes 3.15 after I have finished lunch. After about 10 minutes he sends the Wirt [owner] TO ASK ME TO GO TO HIS TABLE. I go and sit next to him while he eats his lunch and we talk. THE MOST WONDERFUL DAY OF MY LIFE. He writes on a postcard for me. After he goes Rosa [waitress] tells me he has never invited anyone like that before.”

What develops from here on is something more than a mere crush, but a full-blown infatuation that makes it tempting to describe Unity as the Nazi Baby Reindeer. On one occasion, she spends the best part of an hour with Hitler, and even says goodbye to him “for a long, long time”. Soon afterwards, she waits for two hours at a station until near midnight trying to catch a glimpse of him. This is seriously stalkerish stuff. Then there is the entry in which she describes crying “until I fell asleep” after realising she might not see Hitler again for some time.

Although what has been extracted from the diary so far does not provide an opportunity for us to revise what we know about Unity, what it does reveal is that she was even more infatuated with Hitler than perhaps many historians of the Third Reich have thought. She displays reverence, obsession, and dependency, and her devotion is near-religious, seeing Hitler as a figure whose virtues others fail to grasp.

‘Her worldview becomes insular, with her identity seemingly entwined with her proximity to Hitler and his Nazi ideology’ (Getty)

Ultimately, Unity’s mental and emotional state appears to have been deeply marked by her fixation on Hitler, and there is a sense of detachment from broader reality. Hitler dominates her life, and in the diaries she displays an extreme need for validation, interpreting small gestures from Hitler as profound affirmations of her worth.

Her writings reveal emotional highs when she receives attention from him and deep lows when she feels ignored. Her worldview becomes insular, with her identity seemingly entwined with her proximity to Hitler and his Nazi ideology. These traits suggest an undeniably emotionally unstable and impressionable state.

A cruel observer might state that anybody who behaved as Unity Mitford did would need their head examined, but unfortunately, a self-inflicted bullet through that same body part put paid to any such investigation.

For what the rest of the diary will undoubtedly show is how her obsessive dependency on Hitler would lead her in September 1939 to the English Garden in Munich where she attempted to kill herself with a pistol given to her by the object of her infatuation.

Repatriated, Unity would eventually die in Scotland in May 1948 from meningitis caused by a swelling around the bullet that would – just like Adolf Hitler – always remain stuck in her head.