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Title: Diana Mosley : Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel by Anne de Courcy ISBN: 0-06-056532-2 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Biography of a Very Unusual Person and Family!
Comment: Diana was of the fabled Mitford sisters, and with the exception of her suicidal sister, Unity, the most bizarre. Both were completely infatuated with the Fuhrer, and his Germany. Now, in 2004, anyone can state the obvious about Nazi Germany. In the 1930's, this was definitely not as clear as now. Many forget the incredible attraction of the 1930's Germany to many at the time, not all Germans. And there was a deperate need not to have another terrible war between Germany & Birtain. Through her husband, the British Fascist Oswald Mosley, Diana, and Unity, met and befriended many top Nazi leaders. In sum, a really fine book in every way, not least for its insights into the times. A minor complaint is that the author could have written more about Diana's two author sisters, Jessica and Nancy, the 2 real brains in the family, both definitely more "normal" than Diana and Unity.
Rating: 5
Summary: An outstanding biography written with her full cooperation
Comment: Diana Mosley is one of the most controversial women of the 20th century: this outstanding biography is written with her full cooperation and also includes hundreds of hours of taped interviews, access to her private diaries and letters, and unparalleled ability to achieve intimate revelations. The story of the society darling's notorious departure from an established marriage in favor of the leader of the British Union of Fascists and a notorious womanizer makes for an account which explains much about not only her actions, but the history and politics of the times.
Rating: 4
Summary: Sensational and Shocking Reading
Comment: "Diana Mosley"-the person and the book-will rivet you and shock you. Not shock in a titilliating, revolving bedrooms way. Though Mosley does leave her devoted husband in her early 20's for a serial womanizer who cheats on her until his death nearly fifty years later, sex plays a minor role in this book. Mosley, after her youthful adultery, remained a one-man woman for the rest of her years. No, the shocking part lies in the lifelong devotion, actually obsession bordering on psychotic, for her lover and then husband, Oswald Mosley and his cause (British fascism). And this obsession led her to embrace both Nazism and a friendship with Adolf Hitler, both of which she defended until her death.
Diana Mosley was one of the fabled Mitford sisters, born to a minor, eccentric aristocrat and his equally well-born wife. Blessed with a perfect "face" and considered the beauty of her generation, she married early and well at the age of 18 to an heir to the Guinness fortune. She had two boys almost immediately and became a popular London society hostess of the early 1930's. At some point her path crossed Oswald Mosley's, the heir to a British baronetcy and the founder and leader of the British Fascist Movement, and that was that. Even though Mosley was married (happily too despite the infidelities) and had said he would never leave his wife, Diana left Guinness, his fortune and the good opinion of many including her family.
Soon after, Mosley's wife died and her family hated Diana for the rest of their mutually long lives (Diana died in august '03, Mosley's last sister-in-law in '95.)
Mosley then launched an affair with one of his sisters-in-law while simultaneously romancing Diana. Diana, perhaps to impress Mosley in the beginning, traveled to Germany on many occassions, attended Nuremberg rallies, and befriended Hitler. Her sister Unity Mitford, usually considered the "Mitford" sister most associated with Hitler, was obsessed with the fuhrer in a stalking, almost pathetic way. Diana, cooler, better looking, and far saner, enjoyed talking politics with him (eventually she did negotiate on behalf of the British fascists for a radio wave). Hitler reciprocated the friendship by arranging for her to marry Mosley in secret in Goebbels living room. He attended.
Well, she paid dearly for this friendship and her love for Mosley-she and MOsley were imprisoned during most of WWII, they were snubbed by many for years, they eventually lived out of the country-yet she never recanted her love for one and friendship for the other. Not after the reveleations of the Holocaust, not after her husband's numerous infidelities.
De Courcy does an excellent job of describing all aspects of Diana Mosley's life: not just her politics but her lifestyle, her intelligence, her reading, her friendships, her family. De Courcy admits in the beginning that she loved MOsley but saw her flaws...and she is critical, though at times could have been harder.
Perhaps the most damning section of the book: de Courcy inserts Diana Mosley's exchange with a Prison Advisory committee during her imprisonment. In it, she cooly responds to questions about her friendship with HItler, her dislike of Jews, her criticisms of her cousin Winston Churchill, her belief in fascism. The book ends with this chilling transcript--a fitting endnote to her life.
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Title: The Viceroy's Daughters : The Lives of the Curzon Sisters by Anne de Courcy ISBN: 006093557X Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club: Power, Passion, and Politics in the Nation's Capital by C. David Heymann ISBN: 0743428560 Publisher: Atria Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford ISBN: 0575400048 Publisher: Indigo Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.99 |
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Title: Counting My Chickens . . .: And Other Home Thoughts by Deborah Devonshire, Sophia Topley, Susan Hill ISBN: 0374130299 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell ISBN: 0393324141 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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