Tanya Gold has narrated this article for you to listen to.
I was touched but not surprised that, despite his illness, the King attended the 80th anniversary of the ‘liberation’ of Auschwitz-Birkenau this week. His paternal grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was a rescuer. She hid the Cohen family in her house in Athens and is honoured as a ‘righteous’ gentile at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where she is buried on the Mount of Olives.
A less friendly aristocrat was Unity Mitford, whose views were probably a more accurate reflection of her class. Her newly published diary describes her friendship with Adolf Hitler. Here is a typical entry: ‘Lunch Osteria 2.30. THE FüHRER comes 3.15 after I have finished lunch. After about ten minutes he sends the Wirt [owner] TO ASK ME TO GO TO HIS TABLE.’ She sounds like Bridget Jones. ‘Met THE FüHRER139 times! (Vvg).’
Unity was the fourth of the Mitford sisters, a sort of six-headed manifestation of Tatler, Punch and the rise of murderous dictatorship. Nancy wrote novels. Diana married the British fascist Oswald Mosley. Jessica was a communist. Deborah was a duchess. Pamela wanted to be a horse. Amid such sisters, it’s hard to gain parental attention: invent a romance with the Führer and your mother might look up from her sewing.
Unity moved to Germany in 1934 and stalked Hitler, though she was pushing at an open door. Hitler suffered from acute class anxiety, and Unity, conceived in Swastika, Canada – was it fate, OMG?! – was very blonde. The results are hilarious.
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