MOSLEY, Diana 1910-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born June 17, 1910, in London, England; died August 11, 2003, in Paris, France. Author. Mosley was one of the renowned sisters of the English Mitford family who became infamous in England for her marriage to the leader of the English fascist party and for her admiration for and friendship with Adolf Hitler. Born into a life of privilege, Mosley, whose sisters included novelist Nancy Mitford, was a young socialite in the 1930s who enchanted people with her wit and beauty. She married Bryan Guinness, the brewing company heir, at the age of eighteen, and seemed to be headed for a comfortable life among England's elite. However, she fell in love with Lord Oswald Mosley, a fascist, and left her first husband for him in 1932, creating a huge scandal. When the Mosleys married, their wedding guests included Hitler and Josef Göbbels, and she imagined that she could play a role in reconciling differences between England and Germany. However, she was quickly seen as a traitor, and in 1940 she was imprisoned, spending over two years at Holloway Prison during the war. After the war, she and her husband moved to Paris to live in exile, and she remained there even after his death in 1980. Forever unrepentant for admiring Hitler, she nevertheless acknowledged that he had been guilty of terrible things. She wrote about her feelings and experiences in her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts (1977), and was also the author of The Duchess of Windsor (1980).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, August 14, 2003, section 1, p. 11.

Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2003, p. B13.

New York Times, August 14, 2003, p. C14.

Times (London, England), August 13, 2003.

Washington Post, August 14, 2003, p. B6.