Unity Mitford, the English Girl who loved Hitler

If you read this story in a Harlequin Romance, you probably wouldn't believe it. But, like the saga of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, most of this story is true. It's just that whatever happened after November 8, 1939 is shrouded in mystery.

Her name was Unity, and she was born August 8, 1914, about a week after her future boyfriend, one in a cheering throng of Germans, had his photograph taken at the Odeonplatz in Munich. She was the fifth child of David Freeman-Mitford, later Lord Redesdale, and Sydney Bowles, the daughter of a British publisher. (Editor's Comment: I've seen the 1904 photo of Lady Redesdale, in her white straw skimmer and middy blouse, and she bears an uncanny resemblance to actress Lindsay Lohan.)

The Mitfords were stumped for a middle name, and then Bertie Redesdale, David's father, came up with one. "As a war baby, her second name," Valkyrie, "after the warrior maidens of 'The Ring,' was a tribute to her grandfather Redesdale's passion for Wagner." Indeed, Bertie's closest friend was none other than Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Wagner's son-in-law and the Nineteenth Century apostle of "Aryan supremacy."

So Unity Valkyrie became one of the Mitford Girls, the younger sister of Nancy, a famous British author, and Diana, who came damned close to becoming the first woman since Mary, Queen of Scots, to "shake hands with Jack Ketch at the Tower." By all accounts, it was a pretty boisterous family, with the girls referring to their parents as "Muv and Farve" and shrieking in unison whenever they felt amused. It was definitely a laugh a minute at Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire during the 1920s.

At age 18, Unity had her coming-out party with her cousin, Robin Farrar, on July 7, 1932 at Cheyne Walk, London, the home of her sister Diana, now married to millionaire brewer Bryan Guinness. It was the social event of the season, for, as Diana's biographer, Anne de Courcy, writes:

The beauties were there in force: Lady Weymouth in black and white cotton, Lady Jersey in pale blue with a blue feather boa, Lady Lavery in white, Penelope Dudley Ward in pale blue and silver lame; Unity in white satin with a black velvet sash. Winston and Clementine Churchill brought their daughter, Diana, and Augustus John arrived with one of his daughters, Poppet. All three Curzon daughters were there...Irene, Cynthia and Alexandra.

Diana Churchill was Unity's second cousin. Her grandmother, Lady Blanche Hozier, was the sister of Grandmother Redesdale. Unity occasionally visited Chartwell, the Churchill estate, but not as often as her older siblings, Diana and Tom, who were the regular playmates of Winston's kids, Diana and Randolph Churchill--a fact which may or may not have something to do with what happened to Unity after 1939.

In September 1933, while on tour in Munich, 19-year-old Unity dropped in on the annual rally of the Nazionalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterspartei (NSDAP or Nazi Party) She had found the first Nazi Party Congress so exciting that she was determined to return and bombarded her parents with requests to go back.

Accordingly in May 1934, she was installed by Sydney in the house of a respectable elderly (German) baroness who made ends meet by taking in young foreign girls of good family.

Unity soon had a circle of friends. As well as the other English girls staying with the baroness, she met young Germans through Putzi (Ernst) Hanfstängl's sister Erna. She also met a young artist, Derek Hill. Unity's younger sister, Pam, who had known Derek when he was a schoolboy, had told him to look up Unity, and the two of them often went sightseeing or walking in the mountains together.

Derek knew that Adolf Hitler, now the head of state, made a habit of stopping at tea rooms in Munich whenever he drove from his retreat at Berchtesgaden back to Berlin. So, on June 11, 1934, Derek brought his mother and his aunt, both from Scotland, to the Carlton Teeraum. While they were having their "cuppa," in walked Hitler, followed by (Dr. Josef) Göbbels, (Rudolf) Hess and various henchmen.

Excusing himself, Derek went to the cashier's desk and used the telephone to ring the baroness's house. "Guess who's here?" he said, "The Führer's here--if you want to look at him, you'd better come quick."

Unity rushed out, jumped into a taxi and arrived in a state of breathless excitement. She was trembling so much as she stared at Hitler that she was unable to drink her chocolate and had to hand her cup to Derek.

Later he was to recall a more bizarre manifestation of Hitler's extraordinary charisma: his mother and aunt, strong-minded, apolitical Scotswomen, were so affected by this sight of the Führer that they gave the Nazi salute as he left the Teeraum.

When Unity left the Teeraum, she now had only one goal in life--to meet this man that everybody's talking about. She enrolled at the University of Munich, joined the NSDAP and, in effect, became "Hitler's groupie," attending every Nazi event he was bound to be at.

Hitler's remarkable appeal to women of all ages is a hard thing to describe. There was nothing significantly sexy about the man. Except for his obsessive neatness and peculiarly white, well-shaped hands, he was unremarkable to the point of ordinariness--a man of about five feet, nine inches (1.7 meters), with a clear skin, fine dark hair and gold-filled teeth. When not in uniform, his clothes, said Randolph Churchill, 'had all the unpretentious respectability of the German or Austrian middle class'--grey or dark blue suits, not very well cut, worn with soft-collared white shirts and, instead of an overcoat, a mackintosh. 'Oh, he's so sweet in his dear little old mackintosh,' (Unity's sister) Diana would coo.

His most striking feature was his eyes, of a greyish blue so dark that contemporary observers often mistook them for brown, dull and opaque when in repose, piercing and vivid when he was speaking to a crowd or an individual.

And yet, women treated him like he was Elvis.

Some would turn up at Berchtesgaden almost naked under their coats to offer him their virginity; others would try to throw themselves under his car in the hope of being first injured and then comforted by the man they regarded as part prophet and part Leader.

Friedel from Hatmannsdorf wrote:

Herr Führer, Adolf Hitler, a Saxon woman would like to bear your child.

Margarete from Königsberg, who was the same age as Unity's mother--and certainly old enough to know better--wrote:

I'm having a front door key and a key to my room made for you, Adolf. In the next letter, you'll get the first one, and in the letter after that you'll get the room key. I'm certain I can trust you to be discreet.

Unity learned that, when in Munich, Hitler often had lunch"at the Osteria Bavaria, an artists' cafe full of drawings and watercolours that Hitler, himself a watercolorist, loved. He would usually arrive at about 2:30 p.m. and often later, accompanied his constant companions, photographer Heinrich Hoffman, his secretary Martin Bormann, Reich press chief Otto Dietrich and the Nazi Gauleiter of Munich, Alfred Wagner. They always made straight for their regular table, in a corner of the room shielded by a low partition.

Hitler, 46, was a creature of routine. After spending five minutes looking at the menu, he ordered the same thing every day--a dish of meatless ravioli, with either mineral water or herbal tea on the side. In a meat-eating, coffee-drinking culture, he was a vegetarian, subsisting largely on pasta, eggs, salad and fruit.

(This seems conclusive evidence that Hitler was a member of Jorge Lanz von Liebenfels' Order of the New Templars between 1910 and the outbreak of World War I four years later.)

Unity, 20, "was impossible to overlook. A tall, striking, well-dressed blonde, her scarlet mouth and silkily powdered complexion contrasted vividly with the scrubbed faces of the women around her as she sat at her corner table, her huge blue eyes fixed on the Führer. It was not long before he asked one of the waitresses who she was, but, to Unity's annoyance, the (1934) Christmas holidays intervened."

The meeting Unity longed for finally happened on Saturday, February 5, 1935. Hitler arrived at 3 p.m. with Bormann and the usual gang. Ten minutes later, the maitre d' sidled up to Unity's chair and whispered, "The Führer would like to speak to you."

Hitler and Unity hit it right off. Hitler's favourite piece of music was Wagner's Die Meistersinger, which was also the favorite of Unity's Grandfather Redesdale. Also she was a big fan of Cavalcade, which was Hitler's favourite film after King Kong.

Their hour together seemed like a minute or two. In her diary, Unity wrote, "I am so happy I wouldn't mind dying."

So began "an affair to remember," or maybe the one Churchill wanted to forget.

Here he was with an outside shot at Number 10 Downing, especially if l'affaire Simpson blew up in Baldwin's face, and where is Clemmie's niece, Unity Valkyrie Mitford? Why, she's in Munich, fooling around with Adolf Hitler.

But what about Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress since 1932? Was she aware of his interest in the British girl? You betcha. In her diary of May 10, 1935, Eva wrote, "She is known as die Walküre (the Valkyrie.) and looks the part. Including her legs..."

I shall wait until 3 June, in other words a quarter of a year since our last meeting, and then demand an explanation. Let nobody say I'm not patient."

The weather is magnificent and I, the mistress of the greatest man in Germany and the whole world, I sit here waiting while the sun mocks me through the windowpanes.

Ostensibly a "student," Unity continued her work for the NSDAP and even spoke at a Nazi rally in Hesselberg. She became friends with Julius Streicher, another of Hitler's "old Party comrades" and publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer. Streicher took it open himself to "educate" Unity "in all matters pertaining to the Jewish Question."

Like Eva Braun, Unity was enveloped in a shroud of secrecy by the SS, her existence unknown to the German people. Throughout the second half of the 1930s, she lived in Munich and had only sporadic contacts with her family. These were mainly with Diana, now married to Tom Mosley and struggling with the declining fortunes of the British Union of Fascists, and with younger sister Jessica, who scandalized UK society in 1937 by running off to Spain with her second cousin, Esmond Romilly.

UK and Germany came to the brink of war in 1938 over the Czechoslovakia crisis. The last-minute Munich accord, engineered by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, averted war that year, but relations between the two countries deteriorated swiftly. Hitler refused to back off from his pledge to bring all the Germans of Eastern Europe under the rule of the Third Reich.

Lady Redesdale was very much concerned about Unity, who resisted all suggestions that she return home. Joseph Kennedy Jr., son of the USA's ambassador to UK (and older brother of President John F. Kennedy) visited Unity in Munich in early 1939. Writing to his mother in Hyannisport, Mass., Joe Junior commented, "She (Unity) believes Hitler to be more than a genius...He can make no mistake and has made none. She has been afraid to go to England lately for fear there would be a war and she would be caught there."

Finally, Diana made a last-ditch effort to persuade Unity to leave. Flying to Munich on July 31, 1939, she joined Unity as Hitler's guest at the Bayreuth music festival. On August 1, 1939, they went to see the Götterdämmerung.

Afterward, Diana wrote, "Never had the glorious music seemed to me so doom-laden. I knew well what Unity, sitting beside me, was thinking. Next day (August 2, 1939) I left for England with death in my heart."

A month later, on September 4, 1939, Unity wrote to Diana and several friends; then "she took the small Walther pistol Hitler had given her from its drawer in her writing table and drove to see the Munich Gauleiter, Alfred Wagner, to ask him if she would be interned. Reassured that she would not be, she requested him, 'if anything happened,' to see that she was buried in Munich with her photograph of Hitler and her party badge, both of which she handed him for safekeeping.

After a few last errands, she walked to the Englischer Garten, a small park near the river Iser, sat down on a bench, took her pistol out of her handbag, took a trial shot at the ground and then put the muzzle to her right temple and pulled the trigger. She fell unconscious, but she had not succeeded in killing herself.

(This made Unity the third woman, after Angela Raubal and Eva Braun, to attempt suicide because of her relationship with Hitler.)

Unknown to Unity, however, Himmler and Wagner had assigned two Gestapo agents to keep her under surveillance. Hearing the first shot, they rushed towards the park bench. Their quick response undoubtedly saved Unity's life.

Unity was put in a private room at the Chirurgische Universitäts-Klinik, paid by Hitler. The bullet, it was discovered by the doctor who examined her the next day, had lodged in the back of her skull and was impossible to extract. Upon hearing the news, Hitler dispatched his personal physician, Dr. Theodor Morell, to Munich and visited the clinic himself a couple of days later.

The next two months of Unity's life are a complete mystery. Apparently, she remained a patient at the clinic.

Then, on November 8, 1939, the day before the NSDAP's "Day of the Martyrs" (commemorating the "Beer Hall Putsch" of November 9, 1923), Hitler "went to see Unity and asked her if she wanted to stay in Germany or go back to England. 'England,' she replied. Her belongings in Germany were put into storage at Hitler's expense, and she was dispatched to a nursing home in Switzerland by train, in a reserved carriage paid by Hitler.

In December, Lady Redesdale and her youngest daughter, Deborah, arrived in Berne to bring Unity home.

Flash forward six years to August 17, 1945

In the sparkling waters off Mar del Plata, Argentina, a submarine's prow breaks the surface. Up comes the U-977, commanded by Capt. Heinz Schäffer. She sits dead in the water until the Argentinian cruiser Belgrano comes alongside. Then Schäffer is piped aboard the Belgrano and surrenders his boat and crew.

During the debriefing, the Argentinian commodore told Schäffer:

Captain, I must tell you that your boat is suspected of having sunk the Brazilian steamship Bahia a few days ago. It is also suspected that you had Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun and Martin Bormann on board and put them ashore on the southern part of our continent.

Schäffer was stunned. But it was no joke, as he himself learned when he was flown to Washington D.C. and held prisoner for months "as though I were a major political figure of the Third Reich." For the rest of his life, he vigorously denied being part of a "ghost convoy" that had carried Hitler to South America.

However, Schäffer made some inquiries of his own into the matter. When Ladislas Szabo's book, Hitler Esta Vivo (Translated: Hitler Is Alive) was published in 1947, Schäffer asked a friend in Buenos Aires to mail him a copy

In the book, he found some mysterious items, "pictures of Hitler and Eva Braun and a girl in charge of two boys, who 'looked very like Hitler.'"

We know that Eva Braun never had children. But what about Unity Valkyrie Mitford?

The only person outside of Hitler's inner circle to see Unity was her sister Diana, on August 1, 1939, about a week before Unity's 25th birthday. At the time, Unity was living in a plush apartment in Munich, found with Hitler's help--it had belonged to a Jewish couple who had 'decided to leave.'

Then there are the two Gestapo watchdogs (bodyguards?), the paid-for trip to Bayreuth, Hitler's rushing Dr. Morell to her bedside, Hitler paying for a private room at the clinic, the private railroad car to Berne, the long-term storage of Unity's belongings, the stay at the Swiss nursing home, and the personal visit on November 8, 1939. All of this suggests that Unity was more to Hitler than just another girl friend.

Was she the mother of Hitler's children?

Let's assume that Unity gave birth the day before Hitler's arrival -- November 7, 1939. That means she would've missed her first period in March and the second in April, well after she spoke to Joe Kennedy Jr. By June, she would have known for certain that she was pregnant. Which meant a big surprise for Diana when she came through Unity's Munich flat doorway the evening of July 31, 1939.

"Hello--it's me." And, seeing her sister with her stomach sticking out, Diana slaps her forehead and yowls, "Omigawd! Farve's going to shoot you! To say nothing of Aunt Clemmie!"

Of course, that is only speculation. What is known for certain is that, after her failed suicide attempt, Unity was confined in the clinic under tight security for two months. And then Hitler made an unusual personal visit, giving her the option of remaining in Germany or returning home.

And that Captain Schäffer saw a photograph of two six-year-old boys with their nanny, whom Szabo claimed were Hitler's children.

As for "the Valkyrie," she retired to Inch Kenneth, her family's island off the coast of Scotland. Here her health steadily deteriorated, and she died on May 29, 1948, "the cause of death given as meningitis stemming from the bullet wound she had inflicted on herself almost nine years earlier."

If "the Hitler twins" do exist, then they just celebrated their 65th birthday. As to where they are now - Argentina, Antarctica or Aldebaran--your guess is as good as mine.

(See the books Diana Mosley: Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel by Anne de Courcy, Chatto & Windus, Random House, London, 2003 and U-Boat 977 by Heinz Schäffer, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, N.Y., 1952)