Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948) was a British fascist and socialite and member of the Mitford family known for her relationship with Adolf Hitler.

Both in the United Kingdom and Germany, she was a prominent supporter of Nazism, fascism and antisemitism, and belonged to Hitler's inner circle of friends.

When the United Kingdom declared war on Germany she attempted suicide in Munich by shooting herself in the head, surviving, but with extensive brain damage.

Unity Mitford was the fifth of seven children born in London to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife, Sydney, daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles.

"[4][5] Diana Mosley’s biographer, Jan Dalley, believes that "Unity found life in her big family very difficult because she came after these cleverer, prettier, more accomplished sisters.

[4] That same year, her elder sister Diana left her husband to pursue an affair with Oswald Mosley, who had just founded the British Union of Fascists.

[1] Mitford's grandfather, Bertram Freeman-Mitford, had been a friend of Richard Wagner, one of Hitler's idols, and had written introductions to two works of Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

"[1] Mitford subsequently received invitations to party rallies and state occasions and was described by Hitler as "a perfect specimen of Aryan womanhood.

She subsequently repeated these sentiments in an open letter to Streicher's paper, Der Stürmer, which read: "The English have no notion of the Jewish danger.

"[5][7] The letter caused public outrage in Britain, but Hitler rewarded her with an engraved golden swastika badge, a private box at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and a ride in a party Mercedes to the Bayreuth Festival.

[8] Pryce Jones reports that "She [Mitford] saw him, it seemed, more than a hundred times, no other English person could have anything like that access to Hitler",[1] and the suspicions of the British SIS were aroused.

[8] Mitford is reported to have visited one apartment to discuss her decoration and design plans while the soon-to-be-dispossessed residents, a Jewish couple, sat in the kitchen crying.

[8] In his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer said of Hitler's select group: "One tacit agreement prevailed: No one must mention politics.

The sole exception was Lady [sic] Mitford, who even in the later years of international tension persistently spoke up for her country and often actually pleaded with Hitler to make a deal with Britain.

[9] Mitford summered at the Berghof where she continued to discuss a possible German–British alliance with Hitler, going so far as to supply lists of potential supporters and enemies.

[8] At the 1939 Bayreuth Festival, Hitler warned Unity and her sister Diana that war with Britain was inevitable within weeks and they should return home.

[11] He was concerned by her demeanour and assigned two men to follow her, but she managed to shake them off by the time she entered the English Garden in Munich, where she took a pearl-handled pistol given to her by Hitler for protection and shot herself in the head.

In a 2002 letter to The Guardian, Deborah relates the experience: "We were not prepared for what we found – the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost 2 stone [28 pounds; 13 kilograms], was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull.

[12] She had a tendency to talk incessantly, had trouble concentrating her mind, and showed an unusually large appetite with sloppy table manners.

[19] On 1 December 2002, following the release of declassified documents (including the diary of wartime MI5 officer Guy Liddell), investigative journalist Martin Bright published an article in The Observer saying that Home Secretary John Anderson had intervened to prevent Mitford being questioned on her return from Germany.

[20] Bright cites the statements of press photographers and others who witnessed Mitford's 3 January 1940 return to Britain that "there were no outward signs of her injury."

Liddell had written on 2 January, "We had no evidence to support the press allegations that she was in a serious state of health, and it might well be that she was brought in on a stretcher in order to avoid publicity and unpleasantness to her family."

On 8 January, Liddell notes receiving a report from the Security Control Officers who were responsible for meeting the arrivals that states "there were no signs of a bullet wound.

The caller said that during the war, her aunt, Betty Norton, had run Hill View Cottage, a private maternity hospital in Oxford where Mitford had been a client.

[6][21] Bright travelled to Wigginton where the current owner of Hill View confirmed that Norton had indeed run the cottage as a maternity hospital during the war.

[6] Bright contacted Unity's sister Deborah who denounced the villager's gossip and claimed she could produce her mother's diaries to prove it.

He received special permission to open it and discovered that in October 1941, while living at the family home in Swinbrook, she had been consorting with a married RAF test pilot – throwing doubt on her reported invalidity.

[1] This included a visit to an Oxfordshire register office, showing an abnormally large number of birth registrations at Hill View at that time, apparently confirming its use as a maternity hospital.

The publication of the article and the broadcast of the film the following week stimulated media speculation that Hitler's child could be living in the United Kingdom.