Hitler's Girl

March 1, 2022

Young draws on recently declassified intelligence files to rattle our nerves by showing just how close Great Britain came to trading in democracy for authoritarianism in the 1930s. She reveals a British aristocracy more deeply steeped in Nazi sympathies than ever acknowledged, with some members actively pursuing a pro-German agenda, and argues that Germany depended on this implicit support to conquer the country. Sober reading as authoritarianism flares today; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

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May 23, 2022
Defense analyst Young explores the pro-Nazi sentiments of “an influential segment of elite” in this thin yet intriguing history. Many in the British upper classes, reeling from WWI, the diminishment of the British Empire, and the threat of Communism, found a means “to preserve their way of life” in fascism and Nazism, according to Young. Though she documents the rise of the British Union of Fascists and the Right Club, among other organizations, Young focuses mainly on Unity Mitford, one of the aristocratic Mitford sisters and “a rabid Nazi” who sought the attentions of Adolf Hitler. After enrolling in German classes and staking out one of his favorite restaurants in Munich, Mitford eventually met with Hitler more than 160 times, and may have given birth to his son. As war between their countries became more likely, the relationship ended, resulting in Mitford’s reported suicide attempt (she claimed to have been shot by an unknown assailant). Young also suggests that pro-Nazi sentiment went all the way to the royal family, citing FBI reports that Wallis Simpson’s Nazi connections (rather than her marital status) forced Prince Edward’s abdication. The brisk narrative contains many shocking revelations but could benefit from additional context; it remains unclear just how widespread pro-German sentiment was among the British upper crust, and readers may wish for more details about efforts to undermine sympathy for fascism. This history is more titillating than definitive.

June 15, 2022
A fresh analysis of fascism in 1930s Britain. Using the outrageous behavior of Hitler devotee Unity Mitford, the youngest of the Mitford sisters, as a point of reference, Young examines the ingrained fascism of upper-crust British society in the years before World War II. Thanks to newly opened and expanded archives, the author is able to expose a host of fascist-leaning figures during the 1930s, revealing the shockingly broad complacency and complicity among the aristocratic class. As the author shows, the rise of nationalism occurring in Germany after the ravages of World War I was exported to Britain during a similarly vulnerable time. Britain was losing many of its imperial realms, and the communist threat was rampant. Consequently, many in Britain admired Hitler's strong-armed tactics in controlling inflation and squelching opposition, and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, a British parallel paramilitary operation of antisemitic, right-wing thugs, gained enormous popularity. Diana Mitford, eldest of the five aristocratic, free-willed Mitford sisters, left her marriage to Bryan Guinness to marry Mosley in secret, while her younger sister Unity, drawn magnetically to Hitler, installed herself in Munich until he drew her into his inner circle of sycophants. Meanwhile, the royal family, of German stock, was being recruited by Queen Mary's cousin, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, all while the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson continued to demonstrate alarming German sympathies--a subject that has been well chronicled elsewhere. Young capably discusses many of the right-wing groups proliferating at the time as well as the long-running currents of antisemitism in Britain and the defeatist nature of Neville Chamberlain's government. The author also wonders how Unity, followed by British intelligence, could have met "with Hitler more than 140 times between February 1935 and September 1939, espousing Nazi vitriol, without the British government ever taking a real interest." A pertinent historical study of "a dangerous combination of complacency and complicity."

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July 1, 2022
Young illuminates the British aristocracy's fascist sympathies in the interwar years, noting that the royal family had many blood ties to Germany. While she devotes some ink to the Nazi partialities of the Duke of Windsor and his wife, Wallis Simpson, she focuses primarily on two of the infamous Mitford sisters, Diana Mosley and Unity Mitford. Diana divorced her first husband, Bryan Guinness, in 1932 to marry Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Unity traveled with her sister to Germany in 1933 to attend the Nuremburg Rally, becoming enamored with Hitler and insinuating herself into his inner circle. Young draws on newly augmented archives to trace antisemitism among the British ruling class, noting that it dovetailed with the broader decline of the British Empire and the perceived threat of communism. She astutely observes that although the British government was well aware of Unity's years-long interactions with Hitler, it did little to hinder her. Hitler's Girl joins other recently published titles, including Geoffrey Wheatcroft's Churchill's Shadow (2021), in interrogating the British government's own racism and postcolonial legacy.

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May 1, 2022

When a cache of classified documents covering the 1930s opened to researchers, Young pored over them looking for evidence of the nature and extent of support for appeasement in Britain in the pre-war period. What she found was damning: direct existence of a "murky fifth column" of British aristocrats insidiously collaborating with Germany, in the hope fascism would triumph at home as well as abroad. Parts of the story are familiar: Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts; the aristocratic Mitford sisters widely broadcast antisemitism and enthusiasm for Hitler (notably 22-year-old Unity Mitford's 140 meetings with the F�hrer in 1935-39); Hitler's courting of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and their support for him, which edged up to the brink of treason. But Young's new evidence confirms not only the danger British fascists posed to the nation but also the government's embarrassing, often inexplicable unwillingness to take steps against them. She also looks at evidence suggesting that Unity Mitford might have given birth to Hitler's baby. VERDICT Though it will be primarily of interest to history buffs, this may be a cautionary tale for today. Democratic institutions are fragile and many of the problems roiling the waters of the '30s are ascendant again.--David Keymer

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