Matthias J. B. E. Ford

National Rejuvenationist Movement (1963 — 1965)

**Matthias James Baltimore Emmanuel Ford**, known as **Matthias Ford**, was a British politician, arithmetician, and the first Minister of Love of the Imperial Federation. He was one of several dozen high-profile victims of the Troubles, during which he was unpersoned and removed from state records.

## History

### Early Life & Military Career, 1899 — 1919

Matthias Ford was born on September 15th 1899 to Baltimore Emmanuel Ford of the Ford Family, a self-made Anglo-American steelworks family, and Amelia Ford (née Goldstein), daughter of a minor Ashkenazi Jewish banker. As a young boy, Ford held a love for fencing and horseriding during his school years at Winchester College, and retained enthusiasm for the sport throughout his later life. Little else is known of him before joining the British Army, during which he served at the 2nd Battle of Ypres,

### Post World War I, 1919 — 1929

After the end of the First World War, Ford left Britain to travel post-war Europe to document and further understand the impact of the war on the rest of the continent and moreover, the Central Powers. Most of this time was spent traveling through the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, the new countries of Czechoslovakia and Poland, as well as the Balkans, but the Weimar Republic was where he found most interesting, returning several times throughout his travels. It was here that Ford became near fluent in German and began to show interest in the radical Right-wing rhetoric espoused by the DAP and Adolf Hitler especially. Impressed by the young Hitler’s oratory skills and with similar ideas, Ford intended to relocate to Germany and join the NSDAP full-time, but the Great Depression prevented him from doing so, instead forcing him to return to England until at least 1933.

### The British Union of Fascists, 1929 — 1939

During the Great Depression, Ford returned home to England and took a keen interest in the British Fascists, having witnessed and fallen in love with the ideology during his time in the Weimar Republic. Disappointed however with the lack of direction, he was one of dozens who split to form the New Party in 1931-32, which soon after evolved into the BUF after leader Oswald Mosley became convinced that neither Labour nor the Conservatives were radical enough to foresee or adapt to a change in continental European politics and power dynamic.

In 1933, having joined the BUF that same year, Ford returned to Germany after the election of Adolf Hitler to Chancellor to further document the successes of Fascism, writing

*“It fascinates me to no end that a nation crippled by anarchists, agitators, socialist criminals and politicians — who in many cases have no idea as to what they are doing — can so quickly be repaired even in the shadow of economic collapse. If this is not a sign to Europe of Hitler’s genius and the brilliance of Fascism, nothing shall convince them!”*

Ford also traveled to the Italian Empire and Italian East Africa in 1934 and ‘35, using his now deceased father’s estate to fund his escapades, where he became an advocate for colonial imperialism and Mussolini’s style of economic Fascism. Upon his definite return to Britain in 1936, Ford forged close ties with Mosley, who shared a love for Italian Fascism — the two would go on to plan the economic structure of the Federation with this in mind — and in 1937 the BUF planned and staged a coup d’etat on the incumbent British Government of Neville Chamberlain. This however could not have been made successful without the funding and support of His Majesty the King, who held virulent anti-communist sympathies and saw Fascism as the necessary counterweight.