43 Facts About Unity Mitford

Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford was a British fascist and socialite and member of the Mitford family known for her relationship with Adolf Hitler.

Unity Mitford returned to England but never recovered, ultimately dying from consequences of the wound.

Unity Mitford was the fifth of seven children born in London to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife, Sydney, daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles.

The Mitford family is an aristocratic family tracing its origins in Northumberland back to the 11th-century Norman settlement of England.

Unity Mitford was, coincidentally, conceived in Canada in the town of Swastika, Ontario, where her family had gold mines.

Unity Mitford's siblings were Nancy, Pamela, Thomas, Diana, Jessica, and Deborah, later the Duchess of Devonshire.

The Mitford children lived at Asthall Manor in Asthall, Oxfordshire, and Unity was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey.

Jessica's side was decorated with hammer and sickles and pictures of Vladimir Lenin, while Unity Mitford's was decorated with swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler.

Unity Mitford disobeyed and she met with Mosley that summer at a party thrown by Diana, where she was promised a party badge.

Unity and Diana Mitford travelled to Germany, as part of the British delegation from the British Union of Fascists to the 1933 Nuremberg Rally, seeing Hitler for the first time.

Unity Mitford was already, as it were, convinced about Hitler, but this turned conviction into worship.

Unity Mitford returned to Germany in the summer of 1934, enrolling in a language school in Munich close to the Nazi Party headquarters.

Unity Mitford set her mind on getting Hitler, and she discovered that Hitler's movements could be ascertained.

Unity Mitford was struck by her curious connections to the Germanic culture, including her middle name, Valkyrie.

Hitler and Unity Mitford became close, with Hitler reportedly playing Unity Mitford off against his new girlfriend, Eva Braun, apparently to make her jealous.

Unity Mitford attended the Hitler Youth festival in Hesselberg with Hitler's friend Julius Streicher, where she gave a virulently anti-semitic speech.

From this point on, Unity Mitford was inducted into Hitler's inner circle and remained with him for five years.

Unity Mitford was later arrested in Prague for distributing Nazi propaganda.

Pryce Jones reports that "She [Unity Mitford] saw him, it seemed, more than a hundred times, no other English person could have anything like that access to Hitler", and the suspicions of the British SIS were aroused.

Unity Mitford had remained behind after the outbreak of war and her action had come perilously close to high treason.

Unity Mitford is reported to have visited one apartment to discuss her decoration and design plans while the soon-to-be-dispossessed residents, a Jewish couple, sat in the kitchen crying.

Unity Mitford was at Berghof while the Hitler-Schuschnigg meeting took place in February 1938.

Diana returned to England, while Unity Mitford chose to remain in Germany, though her family sent pleas for her to come home.

Unity Mitford was concerned by her demeanour and assigned two men to follow her, but she managed to shake them off by the time she entered the English Garden in Munich, where she took a pearl-handled pistol given to her by Hitler for protection and shot herself in the head.

Unity Mitford survived, though badly injured, and was hospitalised in Munich, where Hitler frequently visited her.

Unity Mitford paid her bills and arranged for her return home.

In December 1939, Unity Mitford was moved to a hospital in Bern in neutral Switzerland, where her mother and youngest sister, Deborah, went to collect her.

Unity Mitford had lost 2 stone [28 pounds; 13 kilograms], was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull.

Unity Mitford could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke.

Unity Mitford had a tendency to talk incessantly, had trouble concentrating her mind, and showed an unusually large appetite with sloppy table manners.

Unity Mitford retained at least some of her devotion to the Nazi party.

Unity Mitford was reported to have had an affair with RAF Pilot Officer John Andrews, a test pilot, who was stationed at the nearby RAF Brize Norton, up to 11 September 1941.

Authorities then concluded that Unity Mitford did not pose a significant threat.

Unity Mitford was keen to visit her sister Diana in Holloway Prison, and Norah Elam offered to look after Unity Mitford at their home in Logan Place for a short period.

Unity Mitford was taken seriously ill on a visit to the family-owned island of Inch Kenneth and was taken to hospital in Oban.

On 28 May 1948,33 year old Unity Mitford died of meningitis caused by the cerebral swelling around the bullet, which was still in her head.

In 2025 diaries believed to be Unity Mitford's were discovered, documenting a fascination with Hitler, whom she stalked when she was 20 and moved to Munich.

On 1 December 2002, following the release of declassified documents, investigative journalist Martin Bright published an article in The Observer saying that Home Secretary John Anderson had intervened to prevent Unity Mitford being questioned on her return from Germany.

Unity Mitford had indeed shot herself and later died of an infection caused by the bullet in the brain.

In December 2007, Bright published an article in New Statesman stating that following a previous article on Unity Mitford, he had received a phone call from a Ms Val Hann, a member of the public, offering new information on the story.

Unity Mitford confirmed seeing "Unity wrapped in a blanket and looking very ill" but insisted that she was there to recover from a nervous breakdown and not to give birth.

Bright returned to the National Archives where he found a file on Unity Mitford sealed under the 100-year rule.

Unity Mitford is mentioned in the 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote.