From left to right
Front row: the mother Sydney Bowles, Unity Mitford, Jessica Mitford, Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd baron Redesdale
Second row: Diana Mosley and Pamela Mitford
Back row: Nancy Mitford and Tom Mitford
(An autobiography of Diana Mitford describing how it came ...)
An autobiography of Diana Mitford describing how it came about that both Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler adored her, and Evelyn Waugh and Oswald Mosley fell in love with her.
Diana Mosley was an English writer, editor, and reviewer. She was one of the renowned sisters of the English Mitford family who became infamous in the United Kingdom for her marriage to the leader of the English fascist party and her admiration and friendship with Adolf Hitler.
Background
Diana Mosley was born on June 17, 1910, in London, United Kingdom. She was the fourth child and third daughter of David Freeman-Mitford and Sydney Bowles. Mosley grew up in the country estate of Batsford Park, then from the age of 10 at the family home, Asthall Manor, in Oxfordshire, and later at Swinbrook House.
Education
Diana Mosley studied at home by a series of governesses. She also spent six months at day school in Paris in 1926.
Career
Born into a life of privilege, Diana Mosley, whose sisters included novelist Nancy Mitford, was a young socialite in the 1930s who enchanted people with her wit and beauty. She married Bryan Guinness, the brewing company heir, at the age of eighteen, and seemed to be headed for a comfortable life among England's elite. However, Mosley fell in love with Lord Oswald Mosley, a fascist, and left her first husband for him in 1932, creating a scandal. After the war, Mosley and her husband moved to Paris to live in exile, and she remained there when he died in 1980. The couple established Euphorion Books, a publishing company, where she edited several of her husband's books. Mosley also served as an editor of the fascist cultural magazine The European for six years.
Forever unrepentant for admiring Hitler, Diana Mosley nevertheless acknowledged that he had been guilty of terrible things. She wrote about her feelings and experiences in her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts. Mosley was also the author of The Duchess of Windsor. Besides, she was also a regular book reviewer for Books & Bookmen and later at The Evening Standard in the 1990s.
Diana Mosley was a supporter of the British Union of Fascists, then the Union Movement. When she married Lord Oswald Mosley, their wedding guests included Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, and she imagined that she could play a role in reconciling differences between England and Germany. However, she was quickly seen as a traitor, and in 1940 she was imprisoned, spending over two years at Holloway Prison during the war.
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
Diana Mosley was afflicted by regular bouts of migraines and being deaf. In 1981, she underwent successful surgery to remove a brain tumor, and in the early 1990s, she was treated for skin cancer.
Quotes from others about the person
James Lees-Milne: "Diana Mosley was the nearest thing to Botticelli's Venus that I have ever seen."
Interests
Gardening, swimming
Politicians
Adolf Hitler
Connections
Diana Mosley's first husband was Bryan Guinness, whom she married in 1929 and divorced in 1932. They had two sons, Jonathan and Desmond Guinness. Then Diana married Sir Oswald Mosley in 1936. They also had two sons, Alexander and Max Mosley.