My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyDeauville just after the First World War, when I was there to play polo and he to playgolf; he lost his eye on the golf links through an accidental shot of a French duke, arelation of his. He was a remarkable and likeable man, who was first a French deputy,and later by a strange metamorphosis became an English M.P. Finally, he was aconsiderable benefactor to our nation by leaving it his fine property at Waddesdonand a magnificent collection of pictures and French furniture. During the clash of thethirties I met him one day by chance and he addressed to me some pointed andimpressive remarks: 'Never believe the Jews are capable of acting together— we havetried to organise them for generations— they are an anarchic people, anarchic'; and hewalked off, shaking his head, his monocle firmly in his eye and his immense top hatswinging in his hand. It was the last time I saw him, and his statement seemed to meat least nearer truth than the fevered vision of the anti-semite.Any people with the quick, volatile intelligence of the Jews tends to be difficult toorganise for any concerted purpose; we can observe the same trouble in some Latins.Moreover, the chief Jews have for centuries been occupied in the operations offinance to which in early days they were largely confined, and this is generally ahighly individual business, dependent on speed and initiative rather than massive cooperation.The recent renewal of their power to work together in more primitiveconditions after a return to the soil in the state of Israel is of wide general interest,because it confounds one of the main Spenglerian themes which I always disputed buthave not the space further to pursue.The Jews as a people have not usually shown so much aptitude for politics, and in thissphere they tend to be rather clumsy, so far as it is possible to generalise about anygifted people. They produced in politics in the last century three men of genius, andtherefore 'hors de classed or race— Lassalle, Disraeli and Trotsky— to compare withthe glittering army of European statesmen who were in the same category. I met inofficial circles the formidable Rathenau when he represented Germany on a financialmission in Britain; also, of course, Mond and Samuel in the House of Commons; menof commanding capacity, but not among the really great. If Jews with abilitiesapproaching the divine are running the world, where are they? The simple answer is,they do not exist.All the same, when you are in a fight with the Jews for any reason, they can give youa lot of trouble. Like everyone else, they are capable of collective action when theyfeel themselves—in my case wrongly, but in Hitler's case rightly—collectivelythreatened. For instance, when Lord Rothermere was supporting me, they took himout at the point of the economic gun. He was quite frank in explaining that he pulledout on account of his advertisers, and the firms in question were under Jewishinfluence. This was confirmed in recent years by Randolph Churchill: 'I have seen theDaily Mail abandon the support of Sir Oswald Mosley in the thirties under thepressure of Jewish advertisers' (Spectator, December 27,1963). Lord Rothermerewithdrew from our support in July 1934, and later letters were published between uson the 20th of that month. This event and the Jewish attack on us at Olympia on June7, 1934, described by Hamilton Fyfe, occurred well in advance of the first occasionthat I ever raised the subject, at my Albert Hall meeting on October 23,1934. Inassessing blame for this quarrel it is well to be quite clear on the chronology.I had known Lord Rothermere for quite a long time and was always on good terms286 of 424