Bryan Guinness is most well known for his notorious first wife.
Bryan married Diana Mitford in 1929. They had 2 sons, ??????? and
Desmond.
Bryan and Diana were divorced in 1933 and
Diana moved to live nearer to her family, including her sisters, Unity and
Decca. At the time Diana was the family's black sheep. Diana was divorced,
which in their parent's eyes, brought deep shame upon the family. The
younger Mitford girls were told that it was now unlikely that they would
ever marry, because no respectable man would associate with a sister of a
divorcee. To Unity and Decca, it made Diana all that more exotic.
Unity began sneaking over to Diana's apartment where she met
Oswald Mosley. Besides being Diana's lover, he was also the charismatic
leader of the British Union of Fascists -- the English equivalent of the
Nazi party. Unity joined up, and confided to Decca that she planned to learn
German, travel to Germany and meet Hitler. Finally, her family agreed
to send her to Munich; after all, she was expected to have her Year Abroad
before marriage.
Back in England, Decca was dismayed to find Unity and Diana's names in the
newspapers as Hitler's pet Britons. "Perfect specimens of Arayan womanhood"
Hitler supposedly called them, and the quote was often repeated in the
British press.
Unity and Diana Mitford
Diana and her husband were imprisoned when the war began. As war
between Germany and England grew closer, Unity was torn. She loved both
countries equally, and often said she would rather die than see either
destroyed. She was good for her word: on the day that Britian and the Reich
declared war, she pressed a pistol against her head and fired a bullet into
her brain. She survived, but remained an invalid until her death in 1948.
Thanks to the personal intervention of Winston Churchill, Mosby and Diana
were allowed to share a privileged cell. They were released before the end
of the war, and Diana is still alive.
