My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleywould make us a constant prey to sensational journalism. The only way out of thedilemma was, at any rate for the time being, to keep the marriage secret. The questionarose how this was to be done. In England, impossible; abroad, at any embassy?—Wemight as well tell the town crier. Was there then any country where under the law themarriage would be legal in England and where it could be kept secret? The onlyanswer appeared to be Germany, where by a reciprocal arrangement English nationalscould be married by a German registrar instead of at the embassy, as is necessaryelsewhere.Frau Goebbels, who was a friend of Diana's, helped to arrange the marriage, and afterthe ceremony she gave a luncheon for us at her villa near Wannsee. Hitler was a guest.From this incident arose the rumours that Hitler had been my best man, while in factthis duty was performed by an English ex-officer of the 6th Hussars whoaccompanied me. I recalled later that it does not necessarily follow that heads of stateare best men at weddings if they pay the compliment of being present; the kings ofEngland and Belgium had honoured my first marriage by their presence, but no one atthe time was fool enough to make such a suggestion. Exceptional nonsense emergeswhen it is armed by political malice.This event ruptured my relations with Mussolini because the Italians had some newsof it, and relations between the two regimes at that time were none too happy. Theywere not quite certain about the marriage, because on my next visit to Rome aninterview was arranged with Mussolini in the afternoon by his bureau in the ordinaryway. However, on the morning of that day, his son-in-law, Count Ciano, then ForeignSecretary, asked to see me. In the course of a long and courteous interview hesuddenly asked me the abrupt question whether I had been in Berlin on the day inquestion. I replied curtly that I had, without further explanation. It had been myintention to tell Mussolini of the marriage in the afternoon, but not to tell Ciano,whose discretion I did not entirely trust.Early in the afternoon a message arrived that Mussolini was ill and could not see me. Ileft Rome, not to return until after the war, and I never saw him again. Clearly, mynormal relations with him would easily have been restored if I had gone back to Romea year or two later, because he and Hitler were then on good terms. But for the lastthree years before the war I never left England at all; I was held fast by the growth ofour movement and the ever increasing intensity of our campaign. My scanty holidayswere spent at Wootton in my native Staffordshire. There was a poignant moment afterthe war when in Italy I received a message from one of Mussolini's intimates who hadbeen with him in the last days of his life, that he had regarded as one of his mistakesbeing divided from me by the intervention of Ciano. He apparently always told hisassociates that he believed in my star; poor man, he also believed in his own.The fact that we had been married in Berlin made a certain amount of trouble for mein England, not when I first announced it at the birth of our son Alexander in 1938,but later on. Perhaps it should be reckoned among my mistakes, though it was not areasonable calculation in 1936 that war would come because England wouldguarantee Poland and Germany would invade it. In any case, I was prepared to doanything to prevent a war by maintaining good relations between English andGermans, provided it was compatible with my duty to my own country. I will not,when charged with this error, follow Bernard Shaw in claiming that the only mistakes304 of 424