page_title: David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale
section_title: Political views and family splits
hierarchical_section_title: David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale / Work and war / Political views and family splits
caption_attribution_description: British Brothers League poster, from 1902, aiming at stemming Jewish immigration to the East End of London.
context_page_description: David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, was an English landowner and was the father of the Mitford sisters, in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted.
context_section_description: As a peer, Redesdale was a member of the House of Lords, then a hereditary chamber, apart from the bishops and Law Lords. He attended the House conscientiously, although he was not really interested in party politics or in legislation, except for being opposed to nearly all change. In the 1930s, however, both he and his wife developed a strong sympathy for fascism, and Redesdale became known for his extreme right-wing views, particularly anti-Semitism. His daughter Diana, herself a keen fascist and from 1936 the wife of British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, described him as "one of nature's fascists", but it seems he never joined any fascist party. As a result, he was permanently estranged from his daughter Jessica, who was a communist from her teenage years, and partly estranged from his eldest daughter Nancy, who was a strong anti-fascist though not as left-wing as Jessica.
  His wife Sydney's father Thomas Gibson Bowles had been one of the strongest parliamentary supporters of the Royal Navy while he was an MP; and her maternal uncle William Evans-Gordon MP was a retired British Indian Army officer who was opposed to uncontrolled immigration into Britain, was allied to the British Brothers League, and helped to enact the Aliens Act 1905. 
  Redesdale was an instinctive xenophobe; he came back from the First World War with a dislike of the French and a deep hatred of the Germans. He was widely quoted as saying that: "Abroad is bloody". As Uncle Matthew, who was modelled on Redesdale, put it in his daughter Nancy's novel The Pursuit of Love: "Frogs are slightly better than Huns or Wops, but abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends." He was initially scornful of the enthusiasm shown by his daughters Diana and Unity for Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler: Hitler was, after all, a Hun. In November 1938, however, the Redesdales accompanied their daughters to Germany, where they attended the Nuremberg Rally and met Hitler, with whom Unity and Diana were already acquainted. Both the Redesdales were immediately won over by Hitler's superficial charm and his declarations of Anglophilia. Redesdale later spoke in the House of Lords in favour of the Anschluss and of returning Germany's colonies, and became a strong supporter of Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards Germany. Lady Redesdale went further, writing articles in praise of Hitler and in support of National Socialism.
  The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 precipitated a series of crises in the Mitford family. Redesdale was above all a patriot, and as soon as war was declared he recanted his support for Hitler and once again became violently anti-German. Lady Redesdale stuck to her Nazi sympathies, and as a result the pair became estranged, and separated in 1943. Unity, who was in love with Hitler, attempted suicide in Munich on the day war was declared and suffered severe brain damage. She was brought home an invalid and Lady Redesdale cared for her until her death in 1948. Diana and Oswald Mosley were interned in 1940 as security risks and spent three years in prison. Jessica's husband, Esmond Romilly, was killed in action in 1941, deepening her bitterness towards the "fascist branch" of the family – she never spoke to her father again, nor to Diana until 1973, although she was reconciled with her mother in the 1950s.
caption: Notice of a demonstration organised by the British Brothers League
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