Tea at Trianon: Nazi Wives

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Nazi Wives

Beyond morbid. It's hard to believe that two of the Mitford sisters were part of Hitler's social circle. From The Daily Mail:

Was she from good Aryan stock? After completing a thorough investigation, Martin Bormann was able to confirm that Eva Braun did not possess a single drop of Jewish blood. From then on, Hitler regularly dropped in on her at the studio, taking her out to dinner or a film. He probably started sleeping with her in early 1932. In some respects, Eva didn’t fit the mould of Nazi womanhood: she smoked, followed the latest American dance crazes, read fashion magazines and wore make-up. Yet in other ways, she embodied Hitler’s ideal: she was athletic and sporty, a true blonde and had almost no interest in politics. Best of all, she was emotionally immature and easy to manipulate.

After allowing Hitler to seduce her, however, Eva became distraught, imagining herself abandoned because she hardly ever saw him. One day, in despair, she scribbled a farewell note and shot herself. The bullet lodged in her neck, just missing the artery. Bleeding profusely, she managed to call a doctor, who had her carted off to hospital. Hitler was shocked, vowing to see her more often. And he did for a few years.

Then, in 1935, for weeks on end, he failed to call. When Eva finally got to see him for two hours, he returned to Berlin without saying goodbye. For the next two months, her moods fluctuated wildly, reaching a near-hysterical peak that May — when she took an overdose of sleeping pills. Her younger sister found her in time. At this point, Hitler realised it was time to bring Eva out into the open. (Read more.)