My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyIt was events after our European journey together which finally revealed the deephysteria of MacDonald's nature. His speech to the Reichstag was the main purpose ofour journey and it had a considerable success, for he was living a more reasonable lifethan usual and getting some rest. Surrounded by plump young Conservative M.P.s, towhom MacDonald talked quite lucidly, I never heard the name of Adolf Hitler, anddid not even know the Nazi Party existed in the spring of 1929.The Embassy suggested that we should invite Frau Stresemann, the wife of theGerman Chancellor, out to dinner. We were informed that she was a lady in themiddle fifties, very young for her age and very gay, and were tipped off that it meanta tour of the night resorts of Berlin. MacDonald behaved seriously, because hethought this a less suitable occasion for the coming Prime Minister than an eveningspent in Londonderry House, so he detailed us for the job, with the assistance of ourold friend Harold Nicolson, who was Counsellor at the Embassy.Cimmie and I had never seen anything like that night in our lives. In several of themany resorts to which we were taken, the sexes had simply exchanged clothes, makeupand the habits of Nature in crudest form. Scenes of decadence and depravitysuggested a nation sunk so deep that it could never rise again. Yet within two or threeyears men in brown shirts were goose-stepping down these same streets around theKurfurstendamm. The Germans in some respects are a rather exaggerated people; asCarlyle observed, 'there is a nimiety, a too-muchness' in them. Aldous Huxley addedacutely: 'The Germans dive deeper and come up muddier than any other people'. Whatwe then saw in Berlin was of course no more characteristic of the mass of the Germanpeople than some excesses in London today are typical of the British people. YetApollo and Dionysus are both represented in the vast energy of the German nature,both elements are inherent in the character and a part of its genius. When they fall, theGermans rest like Atlas on the earth, and when the giant rises much depends on whatvoice is whispering in his ear.My last memory of that evening in Berlin is of poor Harold dropping to sleep at sixo'clock in the morning while vigorous ladies waltzed with red roses behind their earsand roses drooping from their mouths—and not only ladies—until one of thoseterrible paper balls in use in German night clubs hit our counsellor a blow in the eyesevere enough to wake him up, and with fresh access of official zeal he swept us offto bed.MacDonald did not participate in the festivities of Berlin, but after our return toEngland suffered some embarrassment from involvement in a romantic relationshipwhich was brought to my notice by others. Most people in the modern world will atleast agree that no reason exists in morality or honour why an elderly widower shouldnot have such a liason. I feel that MacDonald himself was quite unconscious ofanything in this affair except his personal emotions; he ran true to the form ofPuritanism relapsing into hysteria. The poor man was just another illustration ofnature's requirement —sung by the poets—that romance belongs to youth rather thanto age. If the habit must become life-long, at least experience should be acquired early.Elderly statesmen should either know much about love, or refrain from it. Certainly ina position of high responsibility, time and energy should be conserved for the taskalone.203 of 424