ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 1900 - 1949.
Tematika: Istorija
Jezik: Nemački
Kulturno dobro: Predmet koji prodajem nije kulturno dobro ili ovlašćena institucija odbija pravo preče kupovine
Autor: Strani

H.R. Knickerbocker - Die Schwarzhemden in England und Englands wirtschaftlicher Aufstieg
Crnokosuljasi u Engleskoj i engleski privredni uspon

Rowohlt, Berlin, 1934.
Tvrdi povez, zastitni omot i korice kao na slici (pohabani pri vrhu), 107 strana.
IZUZETNO RETKO IZDANJE!

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980), was a British aristocrat and politician who rose to fame during the 1920s and 1930s when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Harrow from 1918 to 1924 and for Smethwick from 1926 to 1931. He founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932 and led it until its forced disbandment in 1940.[1][2][3][b]

After military service during the First World War, Mosley became the youngest sitting member of Parliament, representing Harrow from 1918, first as a member of the Conservative Party, then an independent, and finally joining the Labour Party. At the 1924 general election he stood in Birmingham Ladywood against the future prime minister Neville Chamberlain, coming within 100 votes of defeating him. Mosley returned to Parliament as the Labour MP for Smethwick at a by-election in 1926 and served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Labour government of 1929–1931. In 1928, he succeeded his father as the sixth Mosley baronet, a title in his family for over a century.[4] Some considered Mosley a rising star and a possible future prime minister.[5] He resigned in 1930 over discord with the government`s unemployment policies. He chose not to defend his Smethwick constituency at the 1931 general election, instead unsuccessfully standing in Stoke-on-Trent.

Mosley`s New Party became the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932. As its leader, he publicly espoused antisemitism and sought alliances with Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Fascist violence under Mosley`s leadership culminated in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, during which anti-fascist demonstrators including trade unionists, liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists, and British Jews prevented the BUF from marching through the East End of London. Mosley subsequently held a series of rallies around London, and the BUF increased its membership there.[6][7]

In May 1940, after the outbreak of the Second World War, Mosley was imprisoned and the BUF was made illegal. He was released in 1943 and, politically disgraced by his association with fascism, moved abroad in 1951, spending most of the remainder of his life in Paris and two residences in Ireland. He stood for Parliament during the post-war era but received very little support. During this period he was an advocate of pan-European nationalism, developing the Europe a Nation ideology,[8] and was an early proponent of Holocaust-denial conspiracy theories.[9][10]
Life and career
Early life and education

Mosley was born on 16 November 1896 at 47 Hill Street, Mayfair, London.[11] He was the eldest of the three sons of Sir Oswald Mosley, 5th Baronet (1873–1928), and Katharine Maud Edwards-Heathcote (1873–1948),[12] daughter of Captain Justinian Edwards-Heathcote, of Apedale Hall, Staffordshire. He had two younger brothers: Edward Heathcote Mosley (1899–1980) and John Arthur Noel Mosley (1901–1973).[13] His father was a third cousin to Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, the father of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

The progenitor, and earliest-attested ancestor, of the Mosley family was Ernald de Mosley (fl. 12th century), Lord of the Manor of Moseley, Staffordshire, during the reign of King John. The family were prominent landholders in Staffordshire and seated at Rolleston Hall, near Burton upon Trent. Three baronetcies were created, two of which are now extinct (see Mosley baronets for further history of the family); a barony was created for Tonman Mosley, brother of the 4th baronet, but also became extinct.[13][14]

After Mosley`s parents separated, he was raised by his mother, who went to live at Betton Hall near Market Drayton, and his paternal grandfather, Sir Oswald Mosley, 4th Baronet. Within the family and among intimate friends, he was always called `Tom`. He lived for many years at his grandparents` stately home, Apedale Hall in Staffordshire, and was educated at West Downs School and Winchester College.[13]

Mosley was a fencing champion in his school days; he won titles in both foil and sabre, and retained an enthusiasm for the sport throughout his life.[13]
Military service

In January 1914 Mosley entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but was expelled in June for a `riotous act of retaliation` against a fellow student.[15] During the First World War, he was commissioned into the British cavalry unit the 16th The Queen`s Lancers and fought in France on the Western Front. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot and an air observer,[16] but while demonstrating in front of his mother and sister he crashed, which left him with a permanent limp, as well as a reputation for being brave and somewhat reckless.[1] He returned to the Lancers, but was invalided out with an injured leg.[15] He spent the remainder of the war at desk jobs in the Ministry of Munitions and in the Foreign Office.[15]
Marriage to Lady Cynthia Curzon
Oswald Mosley and Lady Cynthia Curzon on their wedding day, 11 May 1920

On 11 May 1920, he married Lady Cynthia `Cimmie` Curzon (1898–1933), second daughter of George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925), Viceroy of India 1899–1905, Foreign Secretary 1919–1924, and Lord Curzon`s first wife, the American mercantile heiress Mary Leiter.

Lord Curzon had to be persuaded that Mosley was a suitable husband, as he suspected Mosley was largely motivated by social advancement in Conservative Party politics and Cynthia`s inheritance. The 1920 wedding took place in the Chapel Royal in St James`s Palace in London. The hundreds of guests included King George V and Queen Mary, as well as foreign royalty such as the Duke and Duchess of Brabant (later King Leopold III and Queen Astrid of Belgium).[1][17]

During this marriage, he began an extended affair with his wife`s younger sister, Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, and a separate affair with their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, the American-born second wife and widow of Lord Curzon of Kedleston.[18] He succeeded to the Mosley baronetcy of Ancoats upon his father`s death in 1928.
India and Gandhi

Among his many travels, Mosley travelled to British India accompanied by Lady Cynthia in 1924. His father-in-law`s past as Viceroy of India allowed for the acquaintance of various personalities along the journey. They travelled by ship and stopped briefly in Cairo.[19]

Having initially arrived in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), the journey then continued through mainland India. They spent these initial days in the government house of Ceylon, followed by Madras and then Calcutta, where the governor at the time was Lord Lytton.[19]

Mosley met Mahatma Gandhi through C. F. Andrews, a clergyman and an intimate friend of the `Indian Saint`, as Mosley described him. They met in Kadda, where Gandhi was quick to invite him to a private conference in which Gandhi was chairman. Mosley later called Gandhi a `sympathetic personality of subtle intelligence`.[19]
Marriage to Diana Mitford

Cynthia died of peritonitis in 1933, after which Mosley married his mistress Diana Guinness, née Mitford (1910–2003). They married in secret in Nazi Germany on 6 October 1936 in the Berlin home of Germany`s Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Adolf Hitler was their guest of honour.[20]

Mosley spent large amounts of his private fortune on the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and tried to establish it on a firm financial footing by various means including an attempt to negotiate, through Diana, with Hitler for permission to broadcast commercial radio to Britain from Germany. Mosley reportedly made a deal in 1937 with Francis Beaumont, heir to the Seigneurage of Sark, to set up a privately owned radio station on Sark.[n 1][21]
Entering Westminster as a Conservative

Mosley was first encouraged to enter politics by F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead.[22] By the end of the First World War, Mosley, now aged 21, decided to go into politics as a member of Parliament, as he had no university education or practical experience because of the war. He was driven by, and in Parliament spoke of, a passionate conviction to avoid any future war, and this seemingly motivated his career. Uninterested in party labels, Mosley primarily identified himself as a representative of the `war generation` who would aim to create a `land fit for heroes.`[23] Largely because of his family background and war service, local Conservative and Liberal associations made appeals to Mosley in several constituencies.

Mosley considered contesting the constituency of Stone in his home county of Staffordshire, but ultimately chose the Conservative stronghold of Harrow, for it was closer to London and, as Mosley claimed, a seat that he sought to win on his own merits, free from family connections.[24] On 23 July, 1918, Mosley competed with three other candidates for the Conservative Party nomination at the upcoming general election. Though his 15-minute speech `fell flat,` Mosley won over the 43 delegates with the `lucid and trenchant manner` in which he answered their questions.[25] Mosley`s opponent in the race was A. R. Chamberlayne, an elderly solicitor who complained that the well-connected, wealthy Mosley was `a creature of the party machine` and too young to serve as a member of Parliament.[26] Mosley retorted that many of Britain`s greatest politicians entered parliament between the ages of 19 to 25, such as Charles James Fox, William Pitt the Younger, William Ewart Gladstone, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury.[27] Mosley chose red as his campaign colour rather than the traditional blue associated with conservatism.[28] In the election that December, Mosley easily defeated Chamberlayne with a majority of nearly 11,000.[29]

He was the youngest member of the House of Commons to take his seat, although Joseph Sweeney, an abstentionist Sinn Féin member, was younger. He soon distinguished himself as an orator and political player, one marked by confidence, and made a point of speaking in the House of Commons without notes.[19]: 166 [independent source needed]

Mosley was an early supporter of the economist John Maynard Keynes.[30][31] Mosley`s economic programme, which he coined `socialistic imperialism,` advocated for improved industrial wages and hours, the nationalisation of electricity and transportation, slum-clearance, the protection of `essential industries` from `unfair competition,` and higher government investment in education, child-welfare, and health services.[32][33]
Crossing the floor
Portrait of Oswald Mosley by Glyn Philpot, 1925

Mosley was at this time falling out with the Conservatives over their Irish policy, and condemned the operations of the Black and Tans against civilians during the Irish War of Independence.[34] He was secretary of the Peace with Ireland Council.[35] As secretary of the council, he proposed sending a commission to Ireland to examine on-the-spot reprisals by the Black and Tans.[36] T. P. O`Connor, a prominent MP of the Irish Parliamentary Party, later wrote to Mosley`s wife Cynthia, `I regard him as the man who really began the break-up of the Black and Tan savagery.`[37] In mid-1920, Mosley issued a memorandum proposing that Britain`s governance over Ireland should mirror the policy of the United States towards Cuba, in effect granting Ireland internal autonomy whilst retaining British oversight regarding defence and foreign policy matters.[38]

In late 1920, he crossed the floor to sit as an independent MP on the opposition side of the House of Commons. Having built up a following in his constituency, he retained it against a Conservative challenge in the 1922 and 1923 general elections.

According to Lady Mosley`s autobiography,

The Liberal Westminster Gazette wrote that Mosley was `the most polished literary speaker in the Commons, words flow from him in graceful epigrammatic phrases that have a sting in them for the government and the Conservatives. To listen to him is an education in the English language, also in the art of delicate but deadly repartee. He has human sympathies, courage and brains.`[39]

Joining Labour

`We have made the acquaintance of the most brilliant man in the House of Commons - Oswald Mosley. `Here is the perfect politician who is also a perfect gentleman,` said I to myself as he entered the room....He is also an accomplished orator in the old grand style, and an assiduous worker in the modern manner - keeps two secretaries at work supplying himself with information but realizes that he himself has to do the thinking! So much perfection argues rottenness somewhere...he seems to combine great personal charm with solid qualities of character, aristocratic refinement with democratic opinions.`

— Beatrice Webb, 8 June 1923[40]

By now, Mosley was drifting to the left and gaining the attention of both the Liberals and Labour for his foreign policy polemics, which advocated for a strong League of Nations and isolationism (i.e. Britain should only go to war if it or its empire were attacked).[41] Mosley was growing increasingly attracted to the Labour Party, which had recently formed its first government under Ramsay MacDonald after the 1923 general election. On 27 March 1924, Mosley formally applied for party membership.[42] Shortly thereafter, Mosley joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP). MacDonald, who believed that aristocratc members gave Labour an air of respectability, was congratulated by The Manchester Guardian on `the fine new recruit he has secured.`[43]
Unsuccessfully challenging Chamberlain

When the government fell in October, Mosley had to choose a new seat, as he believed that Harrow would not re-elect him as a Labour candidate. He therefore decided to oppose Neville Chamberlain in Birmingham Ladywood. Mosley campaigned aggressively in Ladywood, and accused Chamberlain of being a `landlords` hireling`.[44] Chamberlain, outraged, demanded Mosley to retract the claim `as a gentleman`.[44] Mosley, whom Stanley Baldwin described as `a cad and a wrong `un`, refused to withdraw the allegation.[44] Mosley was noted for bringing excitement and energy to the campaign. Leslie Hore-Belisha, then a Liberal Party politician who later became a senior Conservative, recorded his impressions of Mosley as a platform orator at this time, claiming him to be `dark, aquiline, flashing: tall, thin, assured; defiance in his eye, contempt in his forward chin`. Together, Oswald and Cynthia Mosley proved an alluring couple, and many members of the working class in Birmingham succumbed to their charm for, as the historian Martin Pugh described, `a link with powerful, wealthy and glamorous men and women appealed strongly to those who endured humdrum and deprived lives`.[45] It took several re-counts before Chamberlain was declared the winner by 77 votes and Mosley blamed poor weather for the result.[46] His period outside Parliament was used to develop a new economic policy for the ILP, which eventually became known as the Birmingham Proposals; they continued to form the basis of Mosley`s economics until the end of his political career.

Mosley was critical of Sir Winston Churchill`s policy as Chancellor of the Exchequer. After Churchill returned Britain to the gold standard, Mosley claimed that, `faced with the alternative of saying goodbye to the gold standard, and therefore to his own employment, and goodbye to other people`s employment, Mr. Churchill characteristically selected the latter course.`[47]
Return to parliament

On 22 November 1926, the Labour-held seat of Smethwick fell vacant upon the resignation of John Davison, and Mosley was confident that this seat would return him to Westminster (having lost against Chamberlain in 1924). In his autobiography, Mosley felt that the campaign was dominated by Conservative attacks on him for being too rich, including claims that he was covering up his wealth.[19]: 190  In fact, during this campaign, the Daily Mail frequently attacked `Mr. Silver Spoon Mosley` for preaching socialism `in a twenty guineas Savile Row suit` whilst Lady Cynthia wore a `charming dress glittering with diamonds.`[48] As the historian Robert Skidelsky writes, `The papers were full of gossipy items about the wealthy socialist couple frolicking on the Riviera, spending thousands of pounds in renovating their `mansion` and generally living a debauched aristocratic life.`[49] The recurring accusation against Mosley was that he was a `champagne socialist` who `never did a day`s work in his life.` Mosley, in response, told his Smethwick supporters, `While I am being abused by the Capitalist Press I know I am doing effective work for the Labour cause.`[50] At the by-election`s polling day (21 December), Mosley was victorious with a majority of 6,582 over the Conservative candidate, M. J. Pike.

`This is not a by-election, it is history. The result of this election sends out a message to every worker in the land. You have met and beaten the Press of reaction....Tonight all Britain looks to you and thanks you. My wonderful friends of Smethwick, by your heroic battle against a whole world in arms, I believe you have introduced a new era for British democracy.`

— Oswald Mosley, election victory speech, 21 December 1926[51]

In 1927, he mocked the British Fascists as `black-shirted buffoons, making a cheap imitation of ice-cream sellers`. The ILP elected him to Labour`s National Executive Committee.[52]

Mosley and Cynthia were committed Fabians in the 1920s and at the start of the 1930s. Mosley appears in a list of names of Fabians from Fabian News and the Fabian Society Annual Report 1929–31. He was Kingsway Hall lecturer in 1924 and Livingstone Hall lecturer in 1931.
Office
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Mosley then made a bold bid for political advancement within the Labour Party. He was close to Ramsay MacDonald and hoped for one of the Great Offices of State, but when Labour won the 1929 general election he was appointed only to the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a position without portfolio and outside the Cabinet. He was given responsibility for solving the unemployment problem, but found that his radical proposals were blocked either by Lord Privy Seal James Henry Thomas or by the cabinet.
Mosley Memorandum

Realising the economic uncertainty that was facing the nation because of the death of its domestic industry, Mosley put forward a scheme in the `Mosley Memorandum` that called for high tariffs to protect British industries from international finance and transform the British Empire into an autarkic trading bloc, for state nationalisation of main industries, for higher school-leaving ages and pensions to reduce the labour surplus, and for a programme of public works to solve interwar poverty and unemployment. Furthermore, the memorandum laid out the foundations of the corporate state (not to be confused with corporatocracy) which intended to combine businesses, workers and the government into one body as a way to `Obliterate class conflict and make the British economy healthy again`.[53]

Mosley published this memorandum because of his dissatisfaction with the laissez-faire attitudes held by both Labour and the Conservative party, and their passivity towards the ever-increasing globalisation of the world, and thus looked to a modern solution to fix a modern problem. But it was rejected by the Cabinet and by the Parliamentary Labour Party, and in May 1930 Mosley resigned from his ministerial position. At the time, according to Lady Mosley`s autobiography, the weekly Liberal-leaning paper The Nation and Athenaeum wrote: `The resignation of Sir Oswald Mosley is an event of capital importance in domestic politics... We feel that Sir Oswald has acted rightly—as he has certainly acted courageously—in declining to share any longer in the responsibility for inertia.`[39] In October he attempted to persuade the Labour Party Conference to accept the Memorandum, but was defeated again.

The Mosley Memorandum won the support of the economist John Maynard Keynes, who stated that `it was a very able document and illuminating`.[54] Keynes also wrote,

`I like the spirit which informs the document. A scheme of national economic planning to achieve a right, or at least a better, balance of our industries between the old and the new, between agriculture and manufacture, between home development and foreign investment; and wide executive powers to carry out the details of such a scheme. That is what it amounts to. ... [The] manifesto offers us a starting point for thought and action. ... It will shock—it must do so—the many good citizens of this country...who have laissez-faire in their craniums, their consciences, and their bones ... But how anyone professing and calling himself a socialist can keep away from the manifesto is a more obscure matter.`[55]

According to Lady Mosley`s autobiography, thirty years later, in 1961, Richard Crossman wrote: `this brilliant memorandum was a whole generation ahead of Labour thinking.`[39] As his book, The Greater Britain, focused on the issues of free trade, the criticisms against globalisation that he formulated can be found in critiques of contemporary globalisation. He warns nations that buying cheaper goods from other nations may seem appealing but ultimately ravage domestic industry and lead to large unemployment, as seen in the 1930s. He argues that trying to `challenge the 50-year-old system of free trade ... exposes industry in the home market to the chaos of world conditions, such as price fluctuation, dumping, and the competition of sweated labour, which result in the lowering of wages and industrial decay.`[56]

In a newspaper feature, Mosley was described as `a strange blend of J.M. Keynes and Major Douglas of credit fame`.[57] From July 1930, he began to demand that government must be turned from a `talk-shop` into a `workshop.`[58]

In 1992, the then UK prime minister, John Major, examined Mosley`s ideas in order to find an unorthodox solution to the aftermath of the 1990–91 economic recession.[59]
New Party
Main article: New Party (UK)
Mosley on the cover of Time in 1931

Dissatisfied with the Labour Party, Mosley and six other Labour MPs (two of whom resigned after one day) founded the New Party.

Its early parliamentary contests, in the 1931 Ashton-under-Lyne by-election and subsequent by-elections, arguably had a spoiler effect in splitting the left-wing vote and allowing Conservative candidates to win. Despite this, the organisation gained support among many Labour and Conservative politicians who agreed with his corporatist economic policy, and among these were Aneurin Bevan and Harold Macmillan. Mosley`s corporatism was complemented by Keynesianism, with Robert Skidelsky stating, `Keynesianism was his great contribution to fascism.`[60]

The New Party increasingly inclined to fascist policies, but Mosley was denied the opportunity to get his party established when during the Great Depression the 1931 general election was suddenly called—the party`s candidates, including Mosley himself running in Stoke which had been held by his wife, lost the seats they held and won none. As the New Party gradually became more radical and authoritarian, many previous supporters defected from it. According to Lady Mosley`s autobiography, shortly after the 1931 election Mosley was described by The Manchester Guardian:

When Sir Oswald Mosley sat down after his Free Trade Hall speech in Manchester and the audience, stirred as an audience rarely is, rose and swept a storm of applause towards the platform—who could doubt that here was one of those root-and-branch men who have been thrown up from time to time in the religious, political and business story of England. First that gripping audience is arrested,[n 2] then stirred and finally, as we have said, swept off its feet by a tornado of peroration yelled at the defiant high pitch of a tremendous voice.[39]

Harold Nicolson, editor of the New Party`s newspaper, Action, recorded in his diary that Mosley personally decided to pursue fascism and the formation of a `trained and disciplined force` on 21 September, 1931, following a recent Communist-organized disturbance at a public meeting attended by 20,000 people in Glasgow Green.[61][62] Approximately four weeks before the general election, Mosley was approached by Neville Chamberlain to ally with the newly-formed National Government coalition led by Baldwin and MacDonald, with Nicolson writing that `the Tories are anxious to get some of us in and are prepared to do a secret deal.`[63] Throughout early 1932, David Margesson, the chief whip of the Conservatives, continually attempted to persuade Mosley to rejoin the party.[64] Meanwhile, Mosley was also approached by right-wing `die hards` who opposed the National Government and Baldwin`s `centrist` leadership of the Conservative Party. This group included Winston Churchill, who `[promised] to come out in his support` should Mosley contest a by-election, and Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, the owner of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror.[65] In addition, Nicolson noted that Mosley was being courted by Joseph Kenworthy to `lead the Labour Party.`[66] In the end, however, Mosley refused to return to the `machine` of the `old parties.`[67] Convinced that fascism was the necessary path for Britain, the New Party was dissolved in April 1932.[68]
After his election failure in 1931, Mosley went on a study tour of the `new movements` of Italy`s Duce Benito Mussolini and other fascists, and returned convinced, particularly by Fascist Italy`s economic programme,[69] that it was the way forward for Britain. He was determined to unite the existing fascist movements and created the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932.

The British historian Matthew Worley argues that Mosley`s adoption of fascism stemmed from three key factors.[62] First, Mosley interpreted the Great Slump as proof that Britain`s economy, which had historically favored liberal capitalism, required a fundamental overhaul in order to survive the rise of cheap, global competition. Second, as a result of his experience as a Labour minister, Mosley grew to resent the apparent gridlock inherent in parliamentary democracy (see criticism of democracy). Mosley believed that party politics, parliamentary debate, and the formalities of bill passage hindered effective action in addressing the pressing economic issues of the post-war world. Finally, Mosley became convinced that the Labour Party was not an effective vehicle for the promulgation of `the radical measures that he believed were necessary to prevent Britain’s decline.`[62] As Worley notes about Mosley, `Cast adrift from the political mainstream, he saw two alternative futures. One was the ‘slow and almost imperceptible decline’ of Britain to the ‘level of a Spain’...[and the other] a deepening sense of crisis opening the way for a ‘constructive alternative’ to take the place of both liberal capitalism and parliamentary democracy.`[62] Mosley believed that Britain was in danger of a Communist revolution, of which only fascism could effectively combat.

The BUF was protectionist, strongly anti-communist and nationalistic to the point of advocating authoritarianism.[70] He claimed that the Labour Party was pursuing policies of `international socialism`, while fascism`s aim was `national socialism`.[71] It claimed membership as high as 50,000, and had the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror among its earliest supporters.[72][73] The Mirror piece was a guest article by the Daily Mail owner Viscount Rothermere and an apparent one-off; despite these briefly warm words for the BUF, the paper was so vitriolic in its condemnation of European fascism that Nazi Germany added the paper`s directors to a hit list in the event of a successful Operation Sea Lion.[74] The Mail continued to support the BUF until the Olympia rally in June 1934.[75]

John Gunther described Mosley in 1940 as `strikingly handsome. He is probably the best orator in England. His personal magnetism is very great`. Among Mosley`s supporters at this time included the novelist Henry Williamson, the military theorist J. F. C. Fuller, and the future `Lord Haw Haw`, William Joyce.

Mosley had found problems with disruption of New Party meetings, and instituted a corps of black-uniformed paramilitary stewards, the Fascist Defence Force, nicknamed `Blackshirts`, like the Italian fascist Voluntary Militia for National Security they were emulating. The party was frequently involved in violent confrontations and riots, particularly with communist and Jewish groups and especially in London.[76] At a large Mosley rally at Olympia on 7 June 1934, his bodyguards` violence caused bad publicity.[77] This and the Night of the Long Knives in Germany led to the loss of most of the BUF`s mass support. Nevertheless, Mosley continued espousing antisemitism.[78] At one of his New Party meetings in Leicester in April 1935, he said, `For the first time I openly and publicly challenge the Jewish interests of this country, commanding commerce, commanding the Press, commanding the cinema, dominating the City of London, killing industry with their sweat-shops. These great interests are not intimidating, and will not intimidate, the Fascist movement of the modern age.`[79] The party was unable to fight the 1935 general election.
Plaque commemorating the Battle of Cable Street

In October 1936, Mosley and the BUF tried to march through an area with a high proportion of Jewish residents. Violence, now called the Battle of Cable Street, resulted between protesters trying to block the march and police trying to force it through. Sir Philip Game, the police commissioner, stopped the march from proceeding and the BUF abandoned it.

Mosley continued to organise marches policed by the Blackshirts, and the government was sufficiently concerned to pass the Public Order Act 1936, which, amongst other things, banned political uniforms and quasi-military style organisations and came into effect on 1 January 1937. In the London County Council elections in 1937, the BUF stood in three wards in East London (some former New Party seats), its strongest areas, polling up to a quarter of the vote. Mosley made most of the Blackshirt employees redundant, some of whom then defected from the party with William Joyce.

In October 1937 in Liverpool, he was knocked unconscious by two stones thrown by crowd members after he delivered a fascist salute to 8,000 people from the top of a van in Walton.[80]

As the European situation moved towards war, the BUF began to nominate parliamentary by-election candidates and launched campaigns on the theme of `Mind Britain`s Business`. Mosley remained popular as late as summer 1939. His Britain First rally at the Earls Court Exhibition Hall on 16 July 1939 was the biggest indoor political rally in British history, with a reported 30,000 attendees.

After the outbreak of war, Mosley led the campaign for a negotiated peace, but after the Fall of France and the commencement of aerial bombardment during the Battle of Britain overall public opinion of him became hostile. In mid-May 1940, he was nearly wounded by an assault.[81]
Internment

Unbeknown to Mosley, MI5 and the Special Branch had deeply penetrated the BUF and were also monitoring him through listening devices. Beginning in 1934, they were increasingly worried that Mosley`s noted oratory skills would convince the public to provide financial support to the BUF, enabling it to challenge the political establishment.[82] His agitation was officially tolerated until the events of the Battle of France in May 1940 made the government consider him too dangerous. Mosley, who at that time was focused on pleading for the British to accept Hitler`s peace offer of October 1939, was detained on 23 May 1940, less than a fortnight after Winston Churchill became prime minister.[1] Mosley was interrogated for 16 hours by Lord Birkett[82] but was never formally charged with a crime, and was instead interned under Defence Regulation 18B. Most other active fascists in Britain met the same fate, resulting in the BUF`s practical removal at an organised level from the United Kingdom`s political stage.[1] Mosley`s wife, Diana, was also interned in June,[83] shortly after the birth of their son Max Mosley; the Mosleys lived together for most of the war in a house in the grounds of Holloway prison. The BUF was proscribed by the British government later that year.

Mosley used the time in confinement to read extensively in classics, particularly regarding politics and war, with a focus upon key historical figures. He refused visits from most BUF members, but on 18 March 1943, Dudley and Norah Elam (who had been released by then) accompanied Unity Mitford to see her sister Diana. Mosley agreed to be present because he mistakenly believed that it was Lady Redesdale, Diana and Unity`s mother, who was accompanying Unity.[84] The internment, particularly that of Lady Mosley, resulted in significant public debate in the press, although most of the public supported the government`s actions. Others demanded a trial, either in the hope it would end the detention or in the hope of a conviction.[1] During his internment he developed what would become a lifelong friendship with his fellow-prisoner Cahir Healy, a Catholic Irish nationalist MP for the Northern Irish Parliament.[85]

In November 1943, the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, ordered the release of the Mosleys. After a fierce debate in the House of Commons, Morrison`s action was upheld by a vote of 327–26.[1] Mosley, who was suffering with phlebitis, spent the rest of the war confined under house arrest and police supervision. On his release from prison, he first stayed with his sister-in-law Pamela Mitford, followed shortly by a stay at the Shaven Crown Hotel in Shipton-under-Wychwood. He then purchased Crux Easton House, near Newbury, with Diana.[86] He and his wife remained the subject of much press attention.[87]
Post-war politics

After the Second World War, Mosley was contacted by former supporters and persuaded to return to participation in politics. In 1948 he formed the Union Movement, which called for a single nation-state to cover the continent of Europe (known as Europe a Nation) and in 1962 attempted to launch a National Party of Europe to this end. He had connections with the Italian neo-fascist political party, Movimento Sociale Italiano, and contributed to a weekly Roman magazine, Asso di bastoni (Ace of Clubs, published from 1948 to 1957), which was supported by his Europe a Nation.[88] The New European has described Mosley as an `avowed Europhile`.[89] The Union Movement`s meetings were often physically disrupted, as Mosley`s meetings had been before the war, and largely by the same opponents. This may have contributed to his decision, in 1951, to leave Britain and live in Ireland.[90] He responded to criticism of his abandoning his supporters in a hostile Britain for a life abroad by saying, `You don`t clear up a dungheap from underneath it.`[91] In the 1950s Mosley advocated that Africa be divided into black and white areas,[92] but the decolonisation of the 1960s put an end to this proposal.[93][page needed]

Mosley was a key pioneer in the emergence of Holocaust-denial. While not denying the existence of Nazi concentration camps, he claimed that they were a necessity to hold `a considerable disaffected population`, where problems were caused by lack of supplies due to `incessant bombing` by the Allies, with bodies burned in gas chambers due to typhus outbreaks, rather than being created by the Nazis to exterminate people. He sought to discredit pictures taken in places like Buchenwald and Belsen. He also claimed that the Holocaust was to be blamed on the Jews and that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about it. He criticised the Nuremberg trials as `a zoo and a peep show`.[9]

In the wake of the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, Mosley briefly returned to Britain to stand in the 1959 general election at Kensington North. He led his campaign stridently on an anti-immigration platform, calling for forced repatriation of Caribbean immigrants as well as a prohibition upon mixed marriages. Mosley`s final share of the vote, within the Kensington North constituency, was just 8.1%.[94] Shortly after his failed election campaign, Mosley permanently moved to Orsay, outside Paris.

In 1961, he took part in a debate at University College London about Commonwealth immigration, seconded by a young David Irving.[95] He returned to politics one last time, contesting the 1966 general election at Shoreditch and Finsbury, and received 4.6% of the vote.[94] After this, he retired and moved back to France,[94] where he wrote his autobiography, My Life (1968). In 1968 he remarked in a letter to The Times, `I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the left and is now in the centre of politics.`[96]

In 1977, Mosley was nominated as a candidate for Rector of the University of Glasgow.[97] He polled over 100 votes, but finished last.[citation needed]

Mosley`s political thought is believed to have influence on the organic farming movement in Great Britain. The agricultural writer and ruralist Henry Williamson put the theories of `blood and soil` into practice, which, in effect, acted as a demonstration farm for Mosley`s ideas for the BUF. In The Story of a Norfolk Farm (1941) Williamson recounts the physical and philosophical journey he undertook in turning the farm`s worn-out soil back into fertile land. The tone contained in this text is more politically overt than in his nature works. Throughout the book, Williamson makes references to regular meetings he had held with his `Leader` (Mosley) and a group of like-minded agrarian thinkers. Lady Eve Balfour, a founder of the Soil Association, supported Mosley`s proposals to abolish Church of England tithes on agricultural land (Mosley`s blackshirts `protected` a number of East Anglian farms in the 1930s from the bailiffs authorised to extract payments to the Church).[98] Jorian Jenks, another early member of the Soil Association, was active within the Blackshirts and served as Mosley`s agricultural adviser.[99][100]
Personal life
Mosley in fascist uniform in 1936.

Mosley had three children with his first wife Lady Cynthia Curzon.[13]

Vivien Elisabeth Mosley (1921–2002); she married Desmond Francis Forbes Adam (1926–1958) on 15 January 1949. Adam had been educated at Eton College and at King`s College, Cambridge. The couple had two daughters, Cynthia and Arabella, and a son, Rupert.
Nicholas Mosley (1923–2017) (later 3rd Baron Ravensdale, a title inherited from his mother`s family), and 7th Baronet of Ancoats; he was a novelist and wrote a biography of his father and edited his memoirs for publication.
Michael Mosley (1932–2012), unmarried and without issue.

In 1924, Lady Cynthia joined the Labour Party, and was elected as the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent in 1929. She later joined Oswald`s New Party and lost the 1931 election in Stoke.[101] She died in 1933 at 34 after an operation for peritonitis following acute appendicitis, in London.

Mosley had two children with his second wife, Diana Mitford (1910–2003):[13]

(Oswald) Alexander Mosley (1938–2005)
Max Mosley (1940–2021), who was president of the Fédération Internationale de l`Automobile (FIA) for 16 years

In later life he developed Parkinson`s disease.[102]
Death and funeral

Mosley died on 3 December 1980 at Orsay. His body was cremated in a ceremony held at the Père Lachaise Cemetery, and his ashes were scattered on the pond at Orsay. His son Alexander stated that they had received many messages of condolence but no abusive words. `All that was a very long time ago,` he said.[103]

tags: engleski fasisti, osvald mozli, engleska unija fasita, nacizam, nacionalsocijalizam, fasizam, musolini, hitler...