'The Fuhrer was heavenly… he is an angel.' Intimate, horrifying and historic, the secret diary of Hitler's English girlfriend Unity Mitford reveals late-night assignations that thrilled the anti-Semitic debutante. Read it here

As 1935 begins, the Honourable Unity Mitford has just one thing on her mind: she desperately wants to meet Adolf Hitler.

At just 20, she is 25 years his junior. She’s worked herself up into such a star-struck frenzy that she’s prepared to do just about anything to wheedle her way into the Fuhrer’s life.

Thanks to a tip from her German teacher, Unity knows he often frequents a small Italian restaurant in Munich called the Osteria Bavaria. She’s been lunching there every day for a few months now in the hope he’ll turn up and – this time – finally speak to her.

As her sister Debo will remark many years later: ‘She would be arrested as a stalker today.’

During his frequent trips to Munich, Hitler has certainly noticed Unity. She’s always sitting at a table he and his henchmen have to walk past in order to reach his own – and sometimes, to attract his attention, she talks loudly or drops a book.

On top of that, Unity is blonde, nearly 6 ft tall (about three inches taller than Hitler) – and fixes her quarry with melting blue eyes. (Indeed, she’s a near-perfect specimen of ‘Aryan’ womanhood, just Hitler’s type.)

As she starts filling in her five-year diary, Unity is back in England, visiting her family – Lord and Lady Redesdale (Farve and Muv), her brother (Tom) and her five sisters (Nancy, Pam, Diana, Decca and Debo).

Three years before, Diana had left her husband to become the mistress of the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, who had no intention of leaving his wife. Forbidden by the Redesdales to associate with her scandalous sister, Unity defiantly paid her secret visits.

A solemn middle child, flanked by witty and ravishingly pretty sisters, she’d long relied on attention-seeking tactics. As a debutante – presented at Buckingham Palace in 1932 – she livened up balls by wearing Enid as a necklace or stroking Ratular, a white rat that nestled in her handbag.

The first time Unity saw her hero Hitler in the flesh was in 1933, when she accompanied Diana to the Fuhrer’s Nuremberg rally, attended by 400,000 Nazis. Enraptured by the ranks of young men in sharp uniforms and jackboots, and seduced by Hitler’s ranting speeches, Unity formed a plan.

She’d persuade Lord and Lady Redesdale to let her move to Munich to learn German. Then she’d impress the Fuhrer by talking to him in his own language.

It’s now nearly eight months since she settled in Munich, and her German is serviceable – while Hitler, albeit a frequent presence at the Osteria, remains elusive. In January 1935 Unity is accompanied by Farve, who views the Nazis as ‘a murderous gang of pests’. They pop into the Brown House, Nazi HQ in Munich, to see Unity’s SS friend Max Ettinger, who gives her a signed photo of the Fuhrer.

They have tea with Baroness Laroche, who runs an upper-crust finishing school where Unity lodged when she first came to Munich in May 1934.

Twice, she deserts Farve to go to a cafe with two men competing for her affections – Erich Widmann, a member of the elite SS paramilitaries, and Harry, almost certainly also in the SS.

‘Lots of English girls got tied up with SS men – you know, the boots, the red leather in their cars,’ Lady Gainer, wife of the British consul, will acidly remark.

In the 1970s, Lady Gainer is one of more than 200 of Unity’s friends and acquaintances who speak openly about her to her biographer, David Pryce-Jones. Some of their insights are included in this exclusive serialisation.

One interviewee, an SS officer who knew Unity well, is convinced that Erich Widmann was under orders to shadow her as a potential British spy. If so, her diary shows that Erich soon viewed her in a different light.

Cramming as much as she can into the spaces allotted for each day, Unity will not only chart her love life, but also provide a stream of fresh revelations about her relationships with the Fuhrer and his inner circle. She will meet Hitler, sometimes alone, 139 times.

In the diary, which is occasionally picked up by a nosy sister, she veils her lively sex life in rather obvious codes – such as filled-in circles and details of the gap between when she goes to bed and when she goes to sleep.

That Unity Mitford was sexually active can no longer be in doubt – which raises the tantalising question of whether she had a sexual relationship with the Fuhrer himself.

The historical value of this small leather-bound journal, written by Hitler’s English girlfriend, is almost incalculable. No Briton ever knew the Fuhrer as well as she did, or tracked his moods and movements as closely. And, as Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer pointed out, no other foreigner ever became part of Hitler’s inner circle.

Handwritten in short phrases, Unity’s diary is also naive, grotesquely anti-Semitic and a shameful testament to her infatuation with a monster.

But for now, that’s all to come. Before Farve leaves Munich, Unity has two sightings of her beloved Fuhrer – which make her burst into joyful capital letters...

The secret diary of Hitler's English girlfriend - 1935

Friday, Jan 18, 1935: Coffee, Osteria. THE FUHRER COMES.

Saturday, Jan 19: Lunch, Osteria. THE FUHRER COMES. We sit at little table where we can see him. Farve [Unity’s father, Lord Redesdale, known by Unity and her sisters as Farve] goes early, bows to the Fuhrer before going, but the Fuhrer doesn’t see him. The Fuhrer nods and smiles to me on way out. Farve leaves Munich. Harry [almost certainly an SS paramilitary] fetches me 9 & we go to a room in a pension over Cafe Luitpold. Bed about 2.30 [a.m.] Furious with Harry.

[Is Unity furious because Harry tried to have sex with her, or perhaps because he took her virginity? It’s been widely assumed she died a virgin. Unity’s tryst with Harry is the first of many indications in the diary that she has an active sex life.]

Monday, Jan 21: Erik [Erich, her SS boyfriend – but Unity misspells his name] fetches me at the Heim [the Studentinnenheim, women- only student lodgings] 10pm. We have a long talk (mostly about Harry) in Cafe Preysing Palais.

Thursday, Jan 24: Letter from Harry. Tea in Mary [Woodisse’s] room. Erik rings up and asks me to go out with him. Fetches me 8. Cafe Luitpold. Harry there but we don’t speak.

Friday, Jan 25: [German] lesson. Wash stockings, clean out rat, etc [Unity owns a pet white rat, which she often carried around in a handbag]. Stadelmann [junior Hitler adjutant] rings up. Meet him Cafe Hag 8.30. He tells me Baum has written about me to the Geheimpolizei [secret police]. He astonishes me by the amount he knows about me. [Eva Baum, Unity’s fanatically Nazi German teacher, is thought to have denounced her as a spy.]

Saturday, Jan 26: Hairdresser 9.30. Visit Brian [Howard] Continental [hotel] 11. Tell him he must leave Germany (Stadelmann has told me to advise him to go).

[Brian is an unlikely friend: he’s homosexual, claims to be part-Jewish and despises Hitler. During his visit to Munich, Eva Baum has been spreading rumours that he’s a Jewish communist. To Unity’s credit, she’s furious about this.]

Monday, Jan 28: Harry fetches me 10.30 in uniform. He is very passionate but I am still determined not to see him alone again.

[Unity has a fascination for men in uniform, and records when Hitler, her brother or one of her boyfriends is wearing one.]

Tuesday, Jan 29: Hairdresser. Meet Stadelmann Cafe Hag. We talk about Frl. Baum, Brian, the Ehrendolch [SS dagger] etc. He tells me I am watched by the Gestapo and that he receives reports on me. Home 12.15.

Wednesday, Jan 30: Erik fetches me 8 to dance. Home 1, in a taxi. He makes love to me in the taxi. I give him photo.

[From now on, Unity lunches most days at the Osteria in the hope of seeing Hitler, sometimes dining there, too.]

Saturday, Feb 9: 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.

[From her letters, we know Unity and Hitler talk for half an hour about London, films they’ve seen – his favourite is Cavalcade – and his favourite composer, Richard Wagner. Hitler also looks at her copy of Vogue and tells her the English were much braver than the French in WWI.]

Sunday, Feb 10: Write to Farve. Can still hardly believe in yesterday. I am SO happy.

Monday, Feb 11: [Am asked] to speak to the English Speaking Society on Wednesday. I say I will speak on Fascism in England. Wake Mary [Woodisse] to tell her about Saturday (she was away for the wk-end ski-ing). She is thrilled. Brown House [Nazi HQ] to tell Max about Saturday. Visit Good Girl. Start preparing speech.

[‘Good Girl’, who’ll feature large in Unity’s diary, is Erna Hanfstaengl – sister of Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl, Hitler’s foreign press secretary. He once referred to her as ‘a good girl’ and the name has stuck.]

Wednesday, Feb 13: Give speech on Fascism in England to about 30 members of Society.

Monday, Feb 18: Lunch Osteria. Fuhrer comes but doesn’t speak to me. With Mary to Carlton [tearoom]. THE FUHRER INVITES US TO HIS TABLE through Herr Werlin. Bruckner & Dietrich also there. We sit & talk to him from 6.15-8.15. He talks wonderfully. Invites me to visit him in Berlin if I go, & compliments me on my German.

[For the next four years, Unity will use red ink each time she records having a conversation with Hitler.]

Saturday, Feb 23: Hairdresser. Osteria. THE FUHRER COMES. He shakes hands with us on way out. Tea Carlton. THE FUHRER IS THERE. He doesn’t see me. After he goes Herr Werlin comes & sits with Brian & me & tells us stories about Him.

[Three months later, Unity’s sister Decca writes in a letter to Diana: ‘Did she write & tell you how she saw the Fuhrer, of whom she writes as “Him” with a capital H, as for Christ or God!!’]

Monday, Feb 25: Osteria, with Mary. THE FUHRER COMES 2.30. Leaves about 4. Shakes hands with us on way out. Carlton [teahouse] 4.30. [After] 8.30, THE FUHRER COMES. Shakes hands on his way out.

Thursday, Feb 28: Cafe Hag with Mary. New airman friend comes (whom I picked up on Sunday.) Tells us the Fuhrer arrives Flugplatz [airport] 7. Home. With Mary to Flugplatz 7.30. No-one there.

[Unity’s constantly on the lookout for anyone who can help her discover Hitler’s movements – hence her ‘pick-up’ of the airman.]

Friday, March 1: Mary and I march with 1 Active SS Standarte [SS unit that protects Nazi leaders] for 2 hours through the town.

Saturday, March 2: Osteria. Goebbels comes, later the FUHRER. About 4, Bruckner comes to me & says Dr Goebbels would like to meet me. I sit next to the Fuhrer, opposite Goebbels. Talk to them for about 20 minutes. Goebbels very gay, laughs a lot.

[Joseph Goebbels is suspicious of Unity. In his own diary, he calls her charmless and narrow-eyed.]

Sunday, March 3: With Erik to Osteria. THE FUHRER is there. Bruckner comes to me at once & asks if I am alone. I say no I am with a friend and he returns. The Fuhrer smiles at me. I tell Werlin I have got the record he wanted (‘Mlle, from Armentieres’). The Fuhrer shakes hands with me on the way out. Home 7. Werlin sends his Merc for the record.

Ash Wednesday, March 6: Lunch Osteria 2. Talk to Frl. Rosa [waitress] about Baum.

[Eva Baum has now reported Unity to the SS, claiming she’s bloodthirsty, has a hysterical passion for Hitler and is having ‘a real affair’ with Erich Widmann.]

Sunday, March 10: Diana arrives unexpectedly. See crowd outside Carlton. THE FUHRER is sitting there with Wagner & others. I go up & shake hands & introduce Diana. We sit at other side of room. THE FUHRER goes about 8.30 & gives us a special smile & salute.

[Adolf Wagner, Bavarian interior minister, is a chain-smoking anti-Semite with a paunch, a peg leg and a reputation for chasing anything in skirts.]

Monday, March 11: Visit Good Girl. Lunch Osteria [with Diana]. THE FUHRER comes later. Bruckner comes to us at once and invites us to His table. We sit there about one and a half hours. The Fuhrer invites us to the Festspiele [Wagner opera festival] at Bayreuth 1936.

[Bruckner tells a friend of Unity: ‘We are hypnotised by [Unity and Diana] because they are the portrait of Germanism.’ Hitler thinks they’re from a very good family, he adds, ‘and that was enough for him’.]

Wednesday, March 13: Pick up Stadelmann and drive to animal shop. Buy monkey, go to Carlton with monkey for tea. Stadelmann, monkey, Diana & I drive to Isartal for dinner. Back to Munich. Give monkey back to former owner and get money back.

Monday, March 18: Osteria. The FUHRER comes. Invites us to his table about 3. Diana sits next to him, I next to Diana. We sit & talk to him until 4.30. Very nice & gay. Sends out for record of ‘Der alte Peter’ [unofficial Munich anthem], for me in return for record I got him. Herr Werlin brings me a book of Wagner gramophone records from the FUHRER. [The following day, Diana and Unity drive 900 kilometres to Paris, arriving at the Hotel Palais d’Orsay at about 2.30am.]

Wednesday, March 20: Bryan [Guinness, Diana’s ex-husband], visits us in bed with Jonathan [their elder son], & they bring us flowers and chocolates. Lunch Bryan in flat, with Man Ray [American artist] & children. Paris looked lovely, but I was too sad to have left Munich.

[The following day, Unity travels to London, where she’s reunited with her mother – known as Muv – Farve and siblings Pam, Tom and Debo.]

Friday, March 22: Lady Constance Gaskell [Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary] to lunch. See ‘Lives of a Bengal Lancer’ with Diana. Cry terribly.

[Hitler admires the film, starring Gary Cooper, so much that he’s seen it 5 times and makes all SS members watch it.]

Saturday, March 23: Decca and I to Black House [HQ of British Union of Fascists (BUF)] to buy Diana a Black Shirt [part of BUF uniform].

[As children, Decca and Unity made up a complete language called Boudledidge, and nicknamed each other Boud. Decca is now a communist supporter, but as she later reflects: ‘I still loved Boud for her huge glittering personality, for her rare brand of eccentricity, for a kind of loyalty to me which she preserved in spite of our very real differences of outlook.’]

Sunday, March 24: With Diana for Great Meeting in the Albert Hall. Leader [Oswald Mosley] speaks marvellously. Diana and I follow the boys [fascist followers, known as Blackshirts] marching back to Black House.

Thursday, March 28: Lunch House of Lords with Farve. Find all streets abgesperrt [closed off] when I come out by police for King & Queen to meet Duke of Gloucester. Wait at Cenotaph about 30 min for King & Queen. Dine Eaton Square [Diana’s flat, also called Eatonry]. Give [Mosley] the Fuhrer’s message.

Thursday, April 4: Stick postcards into postcard book in the afternoon. [In a letter to Nancy, dated July 1934, Unity says she already has 304 postcards of the Fuhrer.]

Sunday, April 7: Decca & I drive to White Horse Hill, Faringdon, & wish on the eye of the White Horse. I thanked the Horse for making my last wish come true [meeting Hitler].

Sunday, April 14: I work on Hannibal [collage of Hannibal crossing the Alps, which Unity will later give to Hitler] for a bit. (Nancy & Decca sit in my room before we go to bed & talk about Nancy’s novel. I say she can’t publish it.) [Nancy Mitford’s satirical third novel, Wigs On The Green, lampoons fascism. It will be published laterin the year.]

Wednesday, April 17: Muv & I start for Germany 10.50 (going 3rd class all the way).

[Unity almost always opts for 3rd class. She tells a friend: ‘Why go first class? We can save the money and I’ll buy a dress with it.’]

Thursday, April 18: Arrive Munich. Erik comes 8. P. Palais. E. Garten.

[This is the first of many times Unity goes late at night to the English Garden, a nearby park, with her SS boyfriend. She’s unable to entertain men at her student lodgings.]

Monday, April 22: Muv & I to Osteria. The FUHRER had just arrived (about 8.15). I go & say how do you do, & then go & sit with the others. He leaves about 9, & on his way out thanks me for my letter. I introduce Muv. Great crowds in & outside Osteria.

Tuesday, April 23: Osteria. At 2.30 have to move our places as the Fuhrer is coming [cheekily, Unity’s started sitting at Hitler’s table]. He comes about 3, goes about 4, shakes hands with us coming & going, bows to Muv. Home. I walk to Osteria to fetch umbrella. The FUHRER there. Sit at table at back. Bruckner comes and invites me to move table. I sit next the Fuhrer. On my other side Gauleiter Forster of Danzig [later responsible for atrocities against the Poles.] Hitler talks wonderfully. He goes after about three quarters of an hour.

Wednesday, April 24: Osteria. Bruckner asks me to wait after lunch while he goes to see the Fuhrer. He returns about 4.15 & says the Fuhrer will be pleased if Muv & I have tea with him Carlton 6. We change & go to Carlton. Muv sits next the Fuhrer, I sit next to her. [Hitler asks Unity to interpret as Muv doesn’t speak German.] Schaub, Werlin, Hoffmann & another also there. Muv goes 7.15. I stay on & talk to the Fuhrer till 8.45.

‘I fear the whole thing was wasted on Muv, she is just the same about him as before,’ Unity writes later to Diana. ‘Having so little feeling, she doesn’t feel his goodness & wonderfulness radiating out like we do, & like even Farve did.

‘She still says things like “Well I’m sure he is very good for Germany, but” and then she enumerates the things she disapproves of. The most she will admit is that he has a very nice face.’

Friday, April 26: Schaub rings up & says he will send car for me at 12.45. Car takes me to the FUHRER’S flat in Prinz Regenten-Platz. There I find Frau Wagner, Schaub, Bruckner, Ribbentrop, a Greek princess, Doktor & Frau Goebbels, Bill Allen & many others. We all go into the Fuhrer’s room, where he is with the Leader [Mosley]. Von R. takes me in to lunch, on my other side the Leader. Stay till about 4. Horrid wet day but WONDERFUL.

[Mary Woodisse recalls: ‘Perhaps [Hitler] thought she had a certain influence. After that, a phone call would come from Bruckner to say, “Will you have tea with the Fuhrer?” – and, in case it rang, Bobo (Unity’s nickname) would sit by the telephone until about 2 o’clock. That became the pattern of her day – first the tension, then the anticlimax or the frenzy of getting ready.’]

Saturday, April 27: Osteria. Werlin drinks coffee with me. The FUHRER comes about 3. He immediately sends Schaub to invite me to his table. All the usual men there. Erich [Unity finally spells his name right] and I see Walt Disney Programme. Englischer Garten. Home 2.30 [am].

Monday, April 29: Meet Stadelmann 8.15. We see ‘Triumph des Willens’ [Triumph of the Will, Nazi propaganda film]. Walk home with Stadelmann. He tells me that Faust thinks I am a spy.

[Army officer Gerhard Engel, later Hitler’s adjutant, recalls: ‘[Unity] had a shadow on her but nothing else, and Hitler did not even want that much. Not from the Gestapo but the Abwehr [German military intelligence]...

‘The great enigma was . . . did she have an assignment from the [British] secret service? Or from Winston Churchill, who was after all her relation [Lord Redesdale was a first cousin of Winston’s wife]? ‘We thought frankly in our circle that she must be an agent . . . She was too thoroughly briefed about Hitler’s life, and in particular his timetable.

‘She knew everything about his meetings, conferences, intentions, private life. For example, he’d decide to have five o’clock tea in the Haus der Kunst, and lo and behold – five minutes before he turned up, Unity was there. Hitler would be flabbergasted. [But] Hitler didn’t think she was a paid agent.’

Indeed, Julius Schaub, who keeps a file on Unity, writes that the Fuhrer cuts off any criticism of Unity sharply.]

Tuesday, May 7: Osteria. Ella [waitress] tells me the FUHRER is coming. Taxi home. Change. THE FUHRER comes 1.45. Doesn’t see me on way in and asks Ella where I am, and when he hears I am there sends Bruckner to invite me. Bruckner invites Mary too. I sit next to the Fuhrer and talk to him until 3.30. He invites me to Berlin. Hoffman gives me new photo of the Fuhrer which the Fuhrer writes on for me. He also signs PC [postcard] for me for Erich. THE FUHRER goes 3.30.

Thursday, May 9: Meet Erich [at] Preysing Palais about 11.30, after sit in Englischer Garten. Home 1.45. 

[On this day, Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun writes in her diary: ‘Herr Hoffman lovingly and as tactlessly informs me that he [Hitler] has found a replacement for me.

‘She is known as the Walkure [Unity’s middle name is Valkyrie, after the war maidens in Wagner’s operas] and looks the part –including her legs. But these are the dimensions he prefers. If this is true, though, he will soon make her lose 30 lb, through worry, unless she has a gift for growing fat in adversity.’

Eva’s almost certainly referring to Hitler’s infuriating habit of arranging to see her and then not turning up. As for the remark about her rival’s legs – Unity, according to friends, is self-conscious about them.]

Friday, May 10: [Eva Braun writes in her diary that she’s going to confront Hitler about the Unity rumours.]

Tuesday, May 14: [London]. I lunch with Sir Horace & Lady Rumbold. Talk about Hitler most of lunch. P. [Peter] Jones to buy gloves for Court Ball. Hired Daimler fetches Pam & me. On to Buck. Pal. to Court Ball. Ends 1. Ball unbelievably beautiful.

Saturday, May 18: [Diana and Unity travel together to Germany.] Convert 2 Belgian young men in train about Hitler. Smuggle cigarettes for Erich over German frontier by hanging them on my suspenders.

Monday, May 27: Mary & I to Osteria about 2. The FUHRER comes about 4 straight from Berlin. Sits in garden, sends Dietrich to invite us. I sit on his right. Mary on his left. He says he is staying here 8 days. I tell him I am going to Berlin tomorrow. He goes about 5. Ring up Diana London 7.45. We decide not to go to Berlin as the Führer is here.

Tuesday, May 28: Diana’s plane arrives. With her [to] Osteria. Lunch indoors. The Fuhrer comes out of doors [to his table in small courtyard]. He goes about 3.30 and shakes hands with us on way out. Diana tells me about our mission from the Leader.

[The ‘mission’ is to persuade Hitler to help fund the BUF – British Union of Fascists.]

Wednesday, May 29: Diana & I Osteria about 2. The FUHRER comes about 2.45. Immediately asks us to his table in garden. He is very sweet & gay. Says Fascism must come in England. Goes about 4.45.

Sunday, June 2: Osteria. We hear the FUHRER is coming. The Fuhrer comes & goes & sits in garden. Immediately sends Dietrich to ask us out. We go & sit next him. He buys us each lottery tickets. He is simply sweet. Diana asks [Hitler] to see G-C [Bobby Gordon-Canning, British fascist seeking funds for BUF] and he is wonderful about it & says he will send airoplane [sic] for V. Schirach to interpret. He asks Diana and me to lunch tomorrow in his flat. I give him my address and phone number. He goes 4.15. Curse [period].

[Unity writes to Muv: ‘Today he was so kind and divine that I suddenly thought I would not only like to kill all who say or do things against him but also to torture them.’]

Monday, June 3: Schaub telephones about 11 & says G-C is to go to the Fuhrer at 12.30, Diana & I at 1. I may ask Mary too if I like. Diana, I & Mary to the Fuhrer’s flat, Prinzregentenplatz, in a taxi. Have lunch there. Leave about 2.45. Fuhrer has to go to a funeral. [The assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris by a Jewish teenager will lead to appalling reprisals against German Jews.]

[Mary Woodisse recalls: ‘We went a lot to [Hitler’s] flat – it was round the corner. The curtains would be drawn – it was always dark. Lovely flowers everywhere. He ordered lots of cream cakes which he’d be disappointed if we left.

‘He’d talk for an hour. He wanted to discuss music, education, social services. Tell me about Lloyd George, he’d say. It was easy-going, something to boast about to friends and family. For Bobo [Unity’s nickname] it was the highlight of her week. Her eyes would brighten and shine.’]

Saturday, June 8: Tom arrives. Visit Good Girl. Osteria. The Führer comes about 1.45. I introduce Tom. He sends Bruckner to invite us. Sit in garden either side of him. He offers to send us a car to make a tour in. Goes about 2.45.

[Unity’s brother Tom has been a member of the British Territorial Army since 1932. He’s not anti-Semitic, but has loved Germany since studying there after leaving Eton.]

Whit Sunday, June 9: Mercedes Benz car with chauffeur, sent by the FUHRER, comes 9.30. Blazing hot day. Drive in open Merc to Eibsee, beautiful lake, where we lunch. Face burnt scarlet.

Tuesday, June 11: Osteria. Lunch in garden. THE FUHRER comes about 3.30. Sends Bruckner to invite Tom & me. We sit on either side of him. He is in good stimmung [mood]. He goes about 4.30. With Tom to station. 

[Unity had been apprehensive about introducing her brother to Hitler. But Tom ‘adored the Fuhrer’, she writes to Diana.]

Wednesday, June 12: Erich comes 8.15[pm] We go for a walk in Englischer Garten. Lie on grass a long time. Home 11.45. Out again to Garden. Home 12.30.

Friday, June 14: Pam rings up 9. With Pam & Heskeths [Mitford family friends] to buy paddle boats, then they [go] on their way to Austria. Meet Erich, in uniform, after Dienst. On to Englischer Garten about 12.30. Home 2.15.

[One can but speculate what Unity was doing with her SS boyfriend for nearly two hours in a dark Munich park.]

Thursday, June 20: Erich & I to Osteria 8. Dr Wurm, Streicher’s representative, comes. Invites Mary & me to go to Nurnberg on Sat. for Kundgebung [rally].

[Julius Streicher, a vulgar and sadistic Nazi, is publisher of the virulently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Sturmer, which is posted on bulletin boards throughout Germany. A small, squat man of 50 with a shaven head, he often boasts of his cruelties – such as making Jews lie down and eat grass. In 1946, he’ll be executed as a major war criminal.

So close do Unity and Streicher become that she can phone him direct whenever she wants. Lady Phipps, wife of the British ambassador to Germany, remembers Unity telling her Streicher is her favourite among the senior Nazis.

But Unity’s friend Mary Woodisse says: ‘Unity adored being singled out – it was some kind of insecurity. She liked Streicher because it was a sure-fire way of putting up the backs of all decent people.’

In fact, the only Jew Unity knows at all well is her friend Nica Rothschild, whose ball she attended in London.]

Sunday, June 23: Hesselberg [midsummer festival]. Sit on blazing hot Tribune. Pour with sweat. Goering, Streicher & Frau Goring arrive 3.30. Streicher speaks. Calls me to microphone & makes me speak. Back to seat. Goering speaks 4-5. [On] to Dinkelsbuhl. Children march-past in historic uniform. Meet Goring. Drive in kolonne [motorcade] to Ansbach. See historic dances. All dine Hotel Stern. Band & huge crowd outside.

[Streicher has called Unity to the microphone on the spur of the moment. A German newspaper reports that she ‘affirmed in some wonderful words her solidarity with the German people and the struggle of Julius Streicher’. The crowd chanted: ‘Heil England!’

Afterwards, she gives the paper an interview, saying: ‘If only England were inspired enough to have someone of your Fuhrer’s greatness, then everyone would fall into line and even the English would have to recognise that this system would not mean the denial of personal freedom.’

A few days later, her sister Nancy mockingly comments on this in a letter to Unity: ‘Darling Stoneyheart... Good gracious, that interview you sent us, fantasia, fantasia!’]

Monday, June 24: Lunch with [Streicher], in open air. Leni Riefenstahl comes. Train to Munchen [Munich]. To dinner with Paul & Brenda Willart.

[Paul Willart, a Guardian reporter, was at Eton with Unity’s brother Tom. He recalls: ‘I tried to argue with Unity on an intellectual basis, but she was a stupid girl, illiterate. She had mopped up everything in the Sturmer.’]

Tuesday, June 25: Baroness [Laroche] about 5 to shew newspapers. 

[Unity’s loathsome speech has made headlines, and she’s enjoying her notoriety.]

Wednesday, June 26: 10.30[pm] Stadelmann comes. With him to Engl. Garten. He gives me SS belt. Home 1.

[Unity is two-timing Erich with bespectacled Fritz Stadelmann.]

Thursday, June 27: Erich very cross.

Saturday, June 29: Osteria. The Fuhrer is already there (about 1.30) Lunch with him. Taxi [and] walk to start of new road. THE FUHRER comes. Road opened. All drive along it in kolonne [motorcade], headed by the Fuhrer, I in huge Mercedes lent by Werlin.

Monday, July 1: Osteria 1.30. Meet Stadelmann there. The FUHRER comes, 2.10, goes about 3.15. Says goodbye to me.

Turns round 3 times to look at me, & again at his car, sadly, without smiling. I am miserable. Home. Cry till I fall asleep. Out again 6.30. Prinz Regenten-Platz [Hitler’s flat]. See he has gone. [There are SS guards when Hitler’s in residence.]

[The July issue of Streicher’s crudely anti-Semitic Sturmer newspaper carries a letter from Unity, along with a photo of her in a BUF blackshirt.

She writes: ‘Dear Sturmer! If only we had such papers in England. Ordinary people in England have no idea of the Jewish danger.

'It is to be hoped that in England too we shall be victorious over the world-enemy, in spite of his cunning.

‘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.

‘P.S. Please print my name in full for everyone should know that I am a Jew-hater.’

After publication, she receives fan letters and presents from all over Germany.]

Tuesday, July 9: [London] Bed about 12. Muv snores in sleep. [In pencil, Decca writes in the diary:] No more than you do. Decca gave me a lovely present.

Wednesday, July 10: Diana & I to H of Lords. Have tea there with Farve on terrace. Muv & I to see ‘The 39 Steps’. Very good.

Friday, July 12: Ritz, Muv & Farve give lunch there for German ambassador. With Diana after lunch to Harrods. On to Astors’ dance. Not much fun.

Wednesday, July 17: Diana gives me lovely diamond ring for my birthday. Army & Navy to look at guns. Ring up Mary [Ormsby-Gore]. She tells me that the Fuhrer had told Lady Phipps I was a perfect German woman. So happy.

Friday, July 19: John Lewis for voiles & tweed suit. Start with Paul [Willart] for Hayling Island, arrive about 9.30[pm] Paul’s parents there.

[The Willarts have invited Unity to stay with them in Hayling Island, Hampshire. During the weekend, Paul’s father finds Unity firing at targets with a pistol. When he asks what she’s doing, she replies: ‘I’m practising to kill Jews.’]

Thursday, July 25: My new dog [bought in Regent Street the day before] wakes me up at 5. Whines & whines. Put him in garage. Still screams. Farve cross. [Unity then catches train to the Mitfords’ country house, Old Mill Cottage, near High Wycombe.] D. [Daily] Express rings up to ask about my letter to ‘Sturmer’. Play with dog (called Spitz).

Saturday, July 27: Hooper [servant] finds pup in ponies’ field, unconscious. Pup can’t walk, very ill. My Sturmer letter in D. Telegraph, D. Mirror, News Chronicle. Take Spitz to vet. Home. Look after him all day on & off. He can’t walk, hind leg paralysed.

Sunday, July 28: Woken early by pup, who is much better. Stick photos of Fuhrer into scrapbook.

Monday, July 29: Find pile of letters, anonymous, abusive & admiring, awaiting me, all about Sturmer letter. Tom & I see ‘Shanghai’ (Loretta Young).

Tuesday, July 30: Answer letters of admiration.

Sunday, August 4: Muv cross about anti-Jew stamps on letters. Tears them up. Farve rows me about it in bathroom. Cry.

Friday, August 16: [Munich] Micky comes to Osteria. Ella [waitress] tells me the Fuhrer is coming. I can’t eat for excitement. The Fuhrer comes about 2.35. Shakes hands with me. Sends Bruckner at once to ask me. I go & sit with him in garden. 7 other men with him. He goes about 4.

[Unity’s friend Michael ‘Micky’ Burn, a journalist on the Gloucester Citizen, is researching an article on German prisons. He writes to his parents on this day: ‘People think quite seriously that she is going to marry Hitler.’

Later, he recalls: ‘We [had] arranged to meet in the Osteria. There she was, sitting at a table facing the door. I began chatting about London gossip when I noticed she wasn’t paying attention.

‘I said, “Am I boring you?” She replied, “It would be better if you didn’t say anything – the Fuhrer is coming.” Sure enough, the procession (Hitler and his henchmen) came in. Bobo began to shiver all over.’]

Saturday, August 24: Hairdresser. Osteria. Sit at the Fuhrer-tisch [Fuhrer’s table]. Micky comes. We have to move to another table. I wait & wait. Hoffmann comes to me about 3.30 & invites me to go to the Fuhrer’s table. The Fuhrer is in a wonderful mood. Talks about Jews, Italy, Abyssinia, etc – laughs a lot. Tells me Micky came & spoke to him. Gives permission to us to wear uniform at Parteitag [party congress, or Nuremberg rally]. Goes 4.15. Meet Erich, [in] uniform, Luitpold. To his [new] flat, & make it up. Home 4.45[am].

[Army officer Gerhard Engel says Hitler saw Unity – who was impossibly indiscreet – as a handy megaphone. ‘[Hitler] told her a lot of political and military secrets because he was sure she would hand on to the English, especially Churchill, whatever information he pre-selected.’]

Monday, August 26: Micky fetches me 9, with car. To Arbeitsdienstlager [labour camp] in Dachau. Find Oberfeldmeister Meyer & several English young men. See over living quarters, then drive to field where men work. Hot sunny day. Stay a long time.

[At this stage, Dachau concentration camp – established 1933 – has Jewish, homosexual and political prisoners; brutal punishment beatings are common but it isn’t yet a death camp. A friend recalls Unity and Diana making ‘endless jokes’ about Dachau – ‘If somebody does anything bad, they said, we’ll send them to Dachau.’]

Thursday, August 29: I curl my hair. Micky & I drive to Dachau. Lunch there with the [SS] men. Lovely.

Monday, September 2: Osteria. Bruckner, Dietrich, etc there. I give Flocksy [Unity has renamed poor Spitz] away. To [Erich’s] Wohnung [flat]. Home 3.15[am].

Wednesday, September 4: Diana [who flew in the day before] & I to Frau Bermann. Diana’s lesson 11-12, mine 12-1. Osteria. THE FUHRER comes 2. Sends for us at once. Diana sits on his right, I on his left. He discovers we mayn’t wear uniform at the Parteitag. He is very sorry, & very sweet about it. Goes 3.30.

[Unity is unaware that her new German teacher, Frau Bermann, is Jewish.]

Saturday, September 14: [At Nuremberg rally] HJ [Hitler Youth] sing, then Schirach speaks, then the FUHRER [who reads out the new Nuremberg Laws, depriving German Jews of their citizenship and legal rights]. The Fuhrer shakes hands with us in hall.

Wednesday, September 18: Send letter to the FUHRER. Hairdresser. Osteria. The FUHRER comes about 2.30. Sends Bruckner for me about 3. He is in very good stimmung [mood] & pleased with the Parteitag. Signs my belt. I’m afraid he is not very well. Says I must go to Berlin. I tell him about Paris. He goes about 4.20.

[Unity writes to Diana: ‘I feel sure the Fuhrer had pains, which I know he sometimes does have. For one thing he didn’t stand up when I came to the table, which he always does. Also the skin around the outside corners of his eyes was yellow.

‘And then he couldn’t seem to keep still, he moved backwards & forwards the whole time, with his hands on his knees, you know how he does. I was so unhappy about it, it is so terrible to think of him being in pain...

‘We talked a lot about the Parteitag, he was terribly pleased at the way it had gone off. He said he felt terribly flat now that it’s all over, & that it was so depressing driving from Nurnberg, a few people in the street for about 100 yards & then no-one. I explained to him that they all thought he was going to the Flughafen [airport] and I think that cheered him up... He put his hand on my shoulder twice & on my arm once...

‘We came to speak of the English National Anthem, and he whistled it all the way through. Wasn’t it wonderful . . . I asked him to sign my belt, and he laughed like anything, he didn’t do it very well . . . I think it is the first time he has ever signed a belt.’]

Saturday, September 21: Choc shop. Osteria. Find Pam & B. [Baroness] de Heemstra there. The FUHRER comes about 2.45. Sends Bruckner to ask Pam & me to go & sit with him. We do. He goes 3.50.

[Pam later describes Hitler as ‘like a farmer in his old brown suit.’ He’s rather more impressed, commenting on Pam’s intensely blue eyes.]

Tuesday, September 24: Decca comes about 8. See Erich’s girlfriend in shop.

Saturday, September 28: Erich & I go for short walk. Had suspected Erich, but make it up.

Sunday, October 13: Erich arrives in uniform. Says goodbye to me. I won’t see him again for a long time.

[Unity’s SS boyfriend is being posted to Konstanz on the Swiss-German border.]

Monday, October 21: Arrive Berlin [with Farve]. Dine on Rhein Terrasse. Lovely. Very good lobster [and] cabaret. I’m afraid Farve doesn’t like Berlin much.

[In a letter to Muv on this day, Unity complains that Farve expects all Germans to understand English. ‘I think they think he’s a bit cracked.’]

Wednesday, October 23: To Reichskanzlei [Reich chancellery]. See Wiedemann. Back to hotel. Schaub rings up & asks us to tea with The Fuhrer. I go & sit with Wagner & Ribbentrop while they lunch. Man comes to fetch us to Reichskanzlei about 6.10. We have tea with the Fuhrer. Also at tea are Goebbels, Frau Goebbels, Goebbels’s sister, Helga Goebbels (aged 3) and Herr Schmidt, who translates all the time between the Fuhrer & Farve. Stay till about 8.20.

[Unity writes to Muv: ‘I think the Fuhrer liked Forge [Farve]... The Fuhrer roared with laughter when I said all Farve liked doing was [ice] skating.’

Hitler, who imagines British aristocrats are far more politically important than they really are, also discusses with Farve the ineffective League of Nations, the approaching UK general election, imperial economics and British dissatisfaction with Germany’s treatment of Ethiopia.]

Friday, October 25: Frau Goebbels calls for me 12. Drive to Pergamon Museum. Shewn round by director & 2 other men. Frau Goebbels & [Farve] & I lunch [at Hotel Bristol]. Frau Goebbels & I on to her hairdresser. Both have our hair done.

I am ready first, & drive round the streets in her car till she is ready. Bath & dress for opera. Frau Goebbels and Frl Maria Goebbels pick me up. We see ‘Madame Butterfly’. Afterwards back to Goebbels’ house for refreshments. Home in Frau G’s car 11.45.

[Magda Goebbels, who’s close to Hitler, is undoubtedly befriending Unity on his orders.]

Monday, October 28: [Munich]. Farve & I to Carlton Teeraum [tearoom] about 5.30. Find the Fuhrer there. He invites us after about 10 minutes. Gives me report about Diana at Jewish meeting [at the meeting in Hyde Park, she was the only person to oppose a ban on German goods]. Werlin & others there. The Fuhrer goes about 6.30. I say goodbye to him for a long, long time. Join Princess Auersperg & others. I go to Bahnhof [station] 9.40. Wait there 2 hours hoping to see the Fuhrer. Don’t see him.

[Princess Tima Auersperg recalls: ‘In the middle [of supper Unity] stood up to say that the Fuhrer was arriving on his train and she had to meet it. I was sitting next to the father and he said to me, “I am normal, my wife is normal, but my daughters are each more foolish than the other. Isn’t it very sad.”’]

Friday, November 1: [London] Diana & I change into [BUF] uniform. Tram to Clapham. The Leader [Mosley] speaks 8.15-10.15. Go to the Leader’s flat & watch him have supper.

Saturday, November 2: Diana to hairdresser. I sit in car & read sex encyclopedia.

Thursday, November 14: POLLING DAY [UK general election]. In uniform. [Diana and I] drive to [BUF] HQ for literature. [We] stand outside polling station in Croydon 11-1, yelling ‘Blackshirts’ & giving pamphlets. Cold windy rainy day. Lunch 1-2. Stand outside same polling station 2-4.15. Back to HQ. Arrive Eatonry cold & tired about 6.

Wednesday, November 27: Diana & I see ‘Curly Top’ (Shirley Temple).

Friday, November 29: [Unity travels to Paris]. Decca & I to dinner [with Mosley] at Cafe de Paris. Duke & Duchess of York also there.

Sunday, December 1: Diana & I in taxi to [Salvador] Dali’s studio 4. See his wonderful pictures, & draw a nude model. Diana & I to dinner with Madame de Noailles [French artist] 8.30. Large party, lots of Jews. After dinner I go with M. & Mme Dali to Casino de Paris to see [singer] Maurice Chevalier. Very good.

Wednesday, December 11: Taxi about 3 to [clothes designer] Schiaparelli. Home. Row about wearing Hakenkreuz [swastika]. Mary [Ormsby-Gore] & Decca & I to Champs Elysees, bus home about 1. Dr Jakob [a Jew] in bus. Decca & I sing Nazi songs walking home. He follows. We rush up in lift. He follows muttering. Mary furious.

[Extraordinary that Decca – the last Mitford one would suspect of anti-Semitism – joins Unity in tormenting a Jew.]

Sunday, December 15: Curse [period] comes badly. Muv late for dinner. Decca wants to phone police.

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). Discover I am in wrong train.

Sunday, December 22: [Munich – Unity and Mary have now moved to Pension Doering, a lodging house the Nazis have seized from a Jew.] Start thorough study of Mein Kampf [My Struggle, by Adolf Hitler]. To Weihnachtsfeier [Christmas party] of SS-Sturm 2/I. Lovely Feier [celebration].

Monday, December 23: Osteria. THE FUHRER comes about 2.30. Invites me at once himself to come & sit with him. Stays 2 hours. In wonderful stimmung [mood]. The FUHRER says he was very surprised to see me. I tell him about Paris. When the FUHRER goes, Werlin drives me to new Mercedes shop. Gives me an Xmas present.

[Unity writes to Diana: ‘The Fuhrer was heavenly, in his best mood, & very gay. There was a choice of two soups & he tossed a coin to see which one he would have, & he was so sweet doing it... He talked a lot about Jews, which was lovely. News from Abyssinia & Egypt kept on coming through on the telephone, which was rather exciting...

‘The most amazing piece of news of all is – Baum [Unity’s former German teacher] is out of the Partei! According to Stadelmann, she was discovered to be a half-Juden (Jew). Isn’t it amazing. I am really sorry for her, as the Partei & her hate for the Jews were really all she had.’]

Tuesday, December 24: CHRISTMAS EVE Take photos of SS men outside Wagnersaal [Wagner Hall]. Wait there 11.30-1. The FUHRER comes 1. Osteria. Walk back to Wagnersaal. The FUHRER comes out about 3 & drives away. Home. Find wonderful Christbaum [Christmas tree] from the FUHRER in my room. Write to the FUHRER.

[The tree arrives already decorated. Hitler has also sent Unity a huge basket of chocolates.]

Wednesday, December 25: CHRISTMAS DAY Osteria. Give Ella, Rosa & Marga [waitresses] Xmas presents. Erich & I walk to Prinz Rgntn-Platz, then to Schaub’s house to leave letter for the FUHRER.

Sunday, December 29: Osteria. The FUHRER sends for me. I go & sit by him. He is in a very good stimmung [mood]. I shew him photos of Mary, Kind [Child, Unity’s cruel nickname for Mary’s short SS boyfriend], Erich & self round his Christmas tree. He asks to keep them & does so. He notices I have a cough, & makes me drink a Schnapps & a glass of Gluhwein [hot mulled wine]. I manage to become quite drunk. Erich returns to Konstanz tomorrow.

Monday, December 30: Have hair permed and done quite a new way. I miss Erich. Rather depressed. Pleased with my new coiffure.

Tuesday, December 31: A.H. (M.K.) 4.15-6.15. [Unity’s begun the marathon self-appointed task of translating Hitler’s Mein Kampf – M.K. by A.H. – from German into English.] Walk to Osteria [with Fritz Stadelmann], where there is dancing. Home 2.15[am]. It has been a wonderful year. Ich danke Dir, mein Fuhrer, dass Du fur mich das Jahr 1935 so unglaublich schon gemacht hast. [I thank you, my Fuhrer, for making the year 1935 so incredible for me.]

Edited by Corinna Honan  

Unity Mitford – A Quest by David Pryce-Jones. The Mitfords – Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley. Valkyrie: Gender, Class, European Relations, And Unity Mitford’s Passion For Fascism, unpublished thesis by Kathryn Steinhaus. Take Six Girls by Laura Thompson. Wait For Me, Memoirs Of The Youngest Mitford Sister by Deborah Devonshire. Hons And Rebels by Jessica Mitford. 

All four episodes of Hitler's English Girlfriend: The Secret Diary of Unity Mitford are available now.