Hitler’s Valkyrie: How Britain’s Unity Mitford met with the Führer 140 Times

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The first German book about British aristocrat and Adolf Hitler fan Unity Valkyrie Mitford reveals that the Führer was so obsessed with her that he met her 140 times while in the middle of preparing for World War Two.

(Daily Mail corrected)

Adolf Hitler was as spellbound by Unity – one of the famous ‘It’ girls of the 1930s.

The first German biography to deal with this mutual attraction is published entitled: ‘I was leafing through Vogue when the Führer spoke to me.’

Bestselling political science author Michaela Karl tells how the bond was forged at Hitler’s favourite Munich restaurant, the Osteria Bavaria, on February 9 1935.

Adolf Hitler and Unity Mitford at the Führer’s favourite Munich restaurant

Unity wrote to her sister Diana: ‘At 3.00pm I was done with eating when the Führer came in wearing his sweet trench coat and sat down with two other men at his table.

‘I was leafing through vogue when ten minutes after his arrival the innkeeper came over and said that the leader “wants to talk to you.”‘

Author Karl said; ‘Between 1935 and 1939 Hitler and unity met every ten days – for a busy leader, who at the same time was a leader of the third german reich, it was a total of 140 times, therefore surprisingly often.’

Soon he took her to the Wagner Festival to Bayreuth, to the Nuremberg rally and other grand events of National Socialism.

‘Unity quickly belonged to the inner circle,’ added Karl. ‘In England she is still well known but in Germany just a footnote in history.’

Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, later described Unity: ‘She was a very intelligent woman and had her own head, not a type like Eva Braun, who was interested in nothing.’

But Hitler’s longtime partner, who would marry him as Berlin collapsed in 1945 to become his bride of one day before killing herself with him, viewed Unity as a rival.

On May 10, 1934, the 23 year old Eva wrote in her diary that the wife of Hitler’s personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann had told her about Unity. Eva penned: ‘Mrs. Hoffmann, tactlessly and lovingly, tole me he has a replacement for me now.

‘Finally he could know me so well, that I could put him never something in the way of him, when he discovered he wanted his heart for another.’

A failed suicide bid by Eva in 1935 was interpreted by many as an act of jealousy against Unity.

1932: Three of the Mitford sisters at Lord Stanley of Aldernay’s wedding, l-r Unity Mitford; Diana Mitford (Mrs Bryan Guinness, later Lady Diana Mosley) and writer Nancy Mitford

In May 1939, Hitler organised for her a three bedroomed apartment in the Schwabing district of Munich. Jews who lived in the apartment block went abroad a short time afterwards and Unity put two huge swastika flags up in the bedroom.

Joseph Kennedy Jr., the son of the US Ambassador in London and elder brother of John F. Kennedy, wrote after meeting her there ‘Mitford is convinced that the conflict with England and the United States is, above all, the fault of Jewish propaganda and the only way to solve it was to throw out the Jews.’

When France and England declared war on Germany on the in september 1939 her world collapsed. What exactly happened after that remains murky: probably on the same day of the declaration Unity shot herself in the head in the English Garden in Munich.

Hitler arranged for her to be placed in the best hospital in Munich for treatment and visited her there on November 8 – the night that carpenter George Elser tried to kill him with a bomb at the Bürgerbräukeller where he was speaking.

He had left early to visit her and escaped death by 13 minutes. Eight people died in the blast.

Unity was repatriated to Britain where she died from her wounds in May 1948. Hitler, said Karl, never got over her.

Source: https://dailyarchives.org/index.php/history/1153-how-britain-s-unity-mitford-met-adolf-hitler-140-times