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.

Achievements

• Diana Mosley was one of the famous Mitford sisters and yet perhaps best known as the wife of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Fascist movement before World War II. Additionally, the Mosleys were the founder of Euphorion Books, a publishing company. Besides, she was well known as a writer. Diana Mosley's work included Wallis Simpson's autobiography, The Duchess of Windsor.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Life of Contrasts

    (An autobiography of Diana Mitford describing how it came ...)

    1977
  • The Pursuit of Laughter

    (The book was published after Diana Mosley's death in 2003.)

    2008
  • Loved Ones 1985
  • Duchess of Windsor 1980

Politics

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.

Father:

David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdal

Mother:

Sydney Bowles

husband:

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists.

Friend:

Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor

Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, was Wallis Simpson's third husband. He was an English Prince of Wales and the king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the British dominions and emperor of India from January 20 to December 10, 1936.

Ex-husband:

Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne

Bryan Guinness was Diana Mosley's first husband. They divorced in 1932.

Acquaintance:

Winifred Marjorie Wagner

Winifred Wagner was a British-born German cultural figure who directed the Bayreuth Festival of Richard Wagner's operatic works from 1930 to 1944 and gained notoriety for her friendship with Adolf Hitler.

Acquaintance:

Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels

Magda Goebbels was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, and a close ally, companion, and political supporter of Adolf Hitler.

Friend:

Wallis Simpson

Wallis Simpson was an English writer and noblewoman. She became the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, after the latter had abdicated the British throne to marry her.

Sister:

Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford

Unity Mitford was an aristocratic English socialite who was a devotee of Adolf Hitler.

Sister:

Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford

Jessica Mitford was an English author noted for their sharply conflicting politics.

Sister:

Pamela Freeman-Mitford

Sister:

Nancy Freeman-Mitford

Nancy Freeman-Mitford was an English writer noted for her witty novels of upper-class life.

Sister:

Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

Brother:

Thomas David Freeman-Mitford

Son:

Max Rufus Mosley

Max Mosley is a British former racing driver, lawyer, and the former president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile.

Son:

Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne

Son:

Desmond Walter Guinness

Desmond Guinness was an Anglo-Irish architect, a conservationist, and the co-founder of the Irish Georgian Society.

Son:

Alexander Mosley

Friend:

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was a founder and leader of the Nazi Party, Reich Chancellor, and guiding spirit of the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945, dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945, and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

Acquaintance:

Joseph Goebbels

As Minister of Propaganda, Paul Joseph Goebbels was known for presenting the Nazi regime in the best possible light.

References

• Diana Mosley
  2003