“REVEALED: The secret meeting between Max Mosley, his father Oswald, two infamous Nazis – and Himmler’s daughter,” reported the Daily Mail at the weekend, reporting the news that Oxford University had “sparked outrage” by accepting millions in donations from a family trust controlled by the late Max Mosley, the son of British fascist leader Oswald.
“As they polish their bons mots over the vintage port at High Table, those Oxford luminaries who begged for donations from the Mosley family might care to ruminate on the horrific extent to which that money is dripping in blood,” wrote Bill Akass and Richard Pendlebury, as the detailed how Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall had solicited funds from Mosley via his Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, named after his late son.
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“While there was ample evidence of Mosley’s fascist funding already in the public domain when Oxford did their due diligence, the Mail‘s investigation has uncovered historically significant new material to show this money was then further tainted by father and son’s business dealings with surviving Nazis, and investments by both in South Africa’s racist apartheid regime,” they wrote.
All true – but what Akass and Pendlebury could have mentioned – but didn’t – is that there is also ample evidence that Oswald Mosley’s biggest press cheerleader as his thuggish British Union of Fascists marched through the East End of London was… the Daily Mail, controlled then, as now, by the Rothermere family.
‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’ was the infamous headline over a comment piece published on January 15, 1934, personally written by Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, great-grandfather of the Daily Mail and General Trust’s current chairman, Jonathan.
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In the article, Rothermere praised Mosley for his “sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine” and the Blackshirts as “a symbol of realism in public life which alone will arouse the nation from its torpor”. Following their proprietor’s cue, staff at the paper began showing up for work wearing black shirts.
That, too, sparked outrage at the time, but happily, just 92 years later, the Mail seems to have been won round to the view that Mosley was a wrong ‘un after all. Hurrah for the Rothermeres!
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