''Hitler's British Girl'' is a
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
documentary film
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
about British
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
sympathiser
Unity Mitford
Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948) was a British fascist and socialite and member of the Mitford family known for her relationship with Adolf Hitler. Born in the United Kingdom, she was a prominent supporter of Nazis ...
and her relationship with
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
. The film was made by following an investigation by journalist
Martin Bright
Martin Derek Bright (born 5 June 1966) is a British journalist. He worked for the BBC World Service and ''The Guardian'' before becoming ''The Observer's'' education correspondent and then home affairs editor. From 2005 to 2009, he was the polit ...
which revealed that she may have secretly given birth to Hitler's child.
Production
The film follows the investigations of journalist Martin Bright who was contacted, after writing an article about Unity Mitford for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'', by a member of the public who claimed her aunt had acted as midwife when Unity gave birth to Hitler's child.
Martin's investigation is used to frame a biography of Unity given through contemporary photos and newsreel footage with commentary from prominent biographers of Unity and her family. There is also interview footage from Unity's sister Diana and Oswald Mosley's son
Nicholas
Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Ancient Greek, Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In ...
.
Participants
* Martin Bright, political editor of the ''
New Statesman
''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
''
* Anne de Courcy, Mitford biographer
* Jane Dalley, Mitford biographer
* David Pryce Jones, Unity Mitford biographer
*
Nicholas Mosley
Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale (25 June 1923 – 28 February 2017), was a British peer, novelist and biographer. Two of his volumes of biography covered the life of his father, Sir Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fasc ...
, son of
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980), was a British aristocrat and politician who rose to fame during the 1920s and 1930s when he, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, turned to fascism. ...
* Val Hann, niece of Betty Norton
* Audrey Smith, Wigginton resident
Reception
Gareth McLean
Gareth McLean (born c.1975) is a Scottish journalist and screenwriter who has written for ''The Guardian'' newspaper and on soap operas for the ''Radio Times'' magazine.
McLean graduated with an MA (Hons) in English from the University of Aberde ...
, writing for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', recommended the film but criticised it for perpetuating the fallacy that it was only the upper class and the underclass who become enamoured of the extreme right. Sister publication ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'' joked that it was a bad week for Unity with the story of a surviving Hitler bloodline that ''"reads like a Nazi twist on the plot of
The Da Vinci Code
''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is “the best-selling American novel of all time.”
Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon—the first was his 2000 novel '' Angels & Demons''� ...
."''
''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' described it as an ''"absorbing documentary"'' on Unity's suicide attempt that ''"unravels the reasons she did so and the murky politics of her return to England, alive, but severely brain-damaged."''
Originally broadcast at 9pm on 20 December 2007 on
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
, the program received 2.6 million viewers (11% audience share).
Plot summary
The film starts with footage showing the 19-year-old Unity Mitford at the 1933
Nuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg rallies ( , meaning ) were a series of celebratory events coordinated by the Nazi Party and held in the German city of Nuremberg from 1923 to 1938. The first nationwide party convention took place in Munich in January 1923, but the ...
where she is said to have become obsessed with Adolf Hitler. Unity and Hitler are said to have had a close relationship for five years and are even rumoured to have been engaged.
Newsreel footage from January 1940 shows Unity return to England from Nazi Germany in a stretcher. Contemporary newspapers speculate that her relationship with Hitler had resulted in her either poisoning herself or being shot by Hitler after a tiff. In truth she shot herself in the head on the day war was declared only to miraculously survive. There were public calls at the time for her to be interned. Recently released documents show that the head of
MI5
MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...
,
Guy Liddell
Guy Maynard Liddell, CB, CBE, MC (8 November 1892 – 3 December 1958) was a British intelligence officer.
Biography
Early life and career
Liddell was born on 8 November 1892 at 64 Victoria Street, London, the son of Capt. Augustus Frederic ...
, agreed. According to the film, Unity's father persuaded
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
Sir
John Anderson John Anderson may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* John Anderson (jazz trumpeter) (1921–1974), American musician
* Jon Anderson (John Roy Anderson, born 1944), lead singer of the British band Yes
* John Anderson (producer) (1948–2024 ...
not to do so. Furthermore, despite her having had a close relationship with Hitler, she was not even interrogated. Unity was allowed to retire quietly to the English countryside. The documentary suggests that Hill View Cottage, where she stayed, was often used as a maternity home, suggesting the possibility that she may have given birth to Hitler's baby. A niece of midwife Betty Norton is interviewed and claims that Unity had secretly given birth to a child at Hill View Cottage in
Wigginton, Oxfordshire
Wigginton is a village and civil parish about southwest of Banbury in Oxfordshire. The village is beside the River Swere, which forms the southern boundary of the parish. A Channel Four documentary, ''Hitler's British Girl'', investigated the ...
, rumoured to be the son of Hitler.
Biographers explain Unity's difficult upbringing as the younger sister of prettier, more clever, more successful sisters and her adoption of fascism as a way to rebel and make herself distinct. In 1932, Unity's elder sister Diana begins an affair with British fascist leader
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980), was a British aristocrat and politician who rose to fame during the 1920s and 1930s when he, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, turned to fascism. ...
. Against her father's wishes, Unity meets with Mosley and, according to Oswald's son, becomes a member of the party. The following year, Diana and Unity go to the Nuremberg rally as part of the British delegation, where Unity becomes obsessed with the Führer. Unity returns to Germany in the summer of 1934 and proceeds to stalk Hitler until she is eventually invited to his table at the Osteria Bavaria Restaurant in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
. Hitler feels a mystical connection with the girl and she is subsequently invited to party rallies and state occasions. Bright visits the Oxford registry office in search of birth records.
Records of numerous births at Hill View Cottage at the time corroborate claims that it was a secret wartime maternity hospital, but none is registered to Unity. Biographers report that Hitler and Unity had become very close and that Hitler would play Unity off against his new girlfriend
Eva Braun
Eva Anna Paula Hitler (; 6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was a German photographer who was the longtime companion and briefly the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich in 1929 (aged 17) when she was an assistant and model ...
until the latter attempted suicide. Unity learned from this that desperate measure were needed to capture the Fuehrer's attention and had written a virulently anti-Semitic open-letter to ''
Der Stürmer
''Der Stürmer'' (; literally, "The Stormer / Stormtrooper / Attacker") was a weekly German tabloid-format newspaper published from 1923 to the end of World War II by Julius Streicher, the '' Gauleiter'' of Franconia, with brief suspension ...
'' which concluded "P.S. please publish my name in full, I want everyone to know I am a Jew hater." Unity summers at the
Berghof and discusses a possible German-British alliance with Hitler, going so far as to supply lists of potential supporters and enemies. These dreams are shattered, however, at the Bayreuth festival in 1939 when Hitler warns her of imminent war and urges her to return to Britain. She refuses and, on the day war is announced, takes the gun Hitler had given her and attempts suicide. Surviving the attempt, she is visited in hospital by Hitler who arranges for her return to England. Back in England, Bright finds apparent confirmation that she did indeed go to Wigginton. A life-time resident of Wigginton confirms to Bright that Unity stayed at Hill View Cottage, but only to recover from a nervous breakdown. In 1948 the bullet, still lodged in her brain, became infected and she died en route to hospital.
Biographers maintain that the obsessive relationship between Unity and Hitler was strictly platonic.
External links
Official video clip
References
{{Reflist
Channel 4 documentaries
2007 television specials
British documentary television films
Documentary films about Adolf Hitler