TODAY’S Mail on Sunday makes a great fuss about the recent forum at a London hotel, where a range of speakers including American Prof. Kevin MacDonald addressed cultural and historical topics.
The Mail gets into a frenzy about this event, describing it as a “Nazi invasion of London.” (ILLUSTRATION: Mail owner Lord Rothermere with Adolf Hitler)
But what did the paper’s own proprietor Lord Rothermere think of the real National Socialists and their leader Adolf Hitler, whose 126th birthday falls tomorrow?
As early as September 1930, more than two years before Hitler came to power, Rothermere wrote an article in the Mail praising the National Socialist leader. Under the headline ‘A Nation Reborn’, the press baron wrote:
“What are the sources of strength of a party which at the general election two years ago could win only 12 seats, but now, with 107, has become the second strongest in the Reichstag, and whose national poll has increased in the same time from 809,000 to 6,400,000? Striking as these figures are, they stand for something far greater than political success. They represent the rebirth of Germany as a nation.”
Lord Rothermere
When Sir Oswald Mosley created the British Union of Fascists in 1932, Rothermere became one of his earliest and strongest supporters. Though the Mail today referred to Mosley’s “hateful Blackshirt insignia”, at the time the paper’s line was very different. Rothermere wrote an article for his paper in 1934 under the headline ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’
Rothermere (great-grandfather of the present Lord who is still chairman of the newspaper) visited Hitler in January 1937. The führer‘s press chief Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary afterwards:
“Rothermere pays me great compliments. Enquires in detail about German press policy. Strongly anti-Jewish.”
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Source: Heritage and Destiny magazine
