Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Given the non-dom billionaire-owned Daily Mail's support for the neofascist #Rwanda plan, here's a thread about Left-hating Harold Harmsworth - 1st Lord Rothermere, owner of the Mail - specifically his vocal support for both Hitler, & Mosley's British Union of #Fascists.

Devised in 1896 by Alfred Harmsworth (Viscount Northcliffe) & his brother Harold (Lord Rothermere), the Mail has campaigned against Unions & the Left, & against all women & most working-class men being given the vote.

By 1930, they owned 14 national daily & Sunday newspapers.

Harold Harmsworth (Lord Rothermere) was a great supporter of Adolf Hitler.

According to James Pool, author of 'Who Financed Hitler': "Shortly after the Nazis' sweeping victory in the election of September 14, 1930, Rothermere went to Munich to have a long talk with Hitler."

Ten days after the 1930 election, Rothermere wrote an article discussing the significance of the National Socialists' triumph.

The article drew attention throughout England and the Continent because it urged acceptance of the Nazis as a bulwark against Communism.

Rothermere continued to insist that if it were not for the Nazis, the Communists might have gained the majority in the Reichstag.

The by now grotesquely wealthy Rothermere went so far as to provide funds to Adolf Hitler via Ernst Hanfstaengel.

When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Rothermere produced a series of articles acclaiming the new regime:

"I urge all British young men & women to study closely the progress of the Nazi regime in Germany. They must not be misled by the misrepresentations of its opponents."

"The most spiteful detractors of the Nazis are to be found in precisely the same sections of the British public and press as are most vehement in their praises of the Soviet regime in Russia." - Harold Harmsworth (Rothermere) in The Daily Mail, 10th July, 1933.

"They have started a clamorous campaign of denunciation against what they call "Nazi atrocities" which, as anyone who visits Germany quickly discovers for himself, consists merely of a few isolated acts of violence... which have been generalized, multiplied & exaggerated."

"The German nation was rapidly falling under the control of its alien elements. In the last days of the pre-Hitler regime there were twenty times as many Jewish Govt officials in Germany as had existed before the war."

Rothermere pointed out Hitler's critics were on the Left.

According to the German historian Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, the Mail's foreign correspondent, George Ward Price, developed a very close relationship with Adolf Hitler.

Rothermere, George Ward Price, Hitler, Fritz Wiedemann, Joseph Goebbels, Princess Stephanie & Magda Goebbels, 1936:

"The correspondent of the London Daily Mail, Ward Price, was welcomed to interviews in the Reich Chancellery in a more privileged way than all other foreign journalists... His paper supported Hitler more strongly & more constantly than any other newspaper outside Germany."

Hitler regarded Ward Price as "the only foreign journalist who reported him without prejudice", & in his autobiography, Ward Price defended himself, claiming: "I reported Hitler's statements accurately, leaving British newspaper readers to form their own opinions of their worth."

Hitler wrote to Rothermere: "I should like to express the appreciation of countless Germans, who regard me as their spokesman, for the wise & beneficial public support which you have given to a policy that we all hope will contribute to the enduring pacification of Europe." 12/33

"We are fanatically determined to defend ourselves against attack. We reject the idea of taking the initiative in bringing about a war. I am convinced that no one who fought in the front trenches during the world war, no matter in what European country, desires another conflict."

As Martin Pugh suggests in his history of British interwar #fascism, Rothermere was “perhaps the most influential single #propagandist for fascism between the wars.”

As early as 1931, Rothermere had given his full support to Oswald Mosley & the National Union of Fascists.

Rothermere offered to place “the whole of the Harmsworth press at Mosley's disposal”, believing Mosley & his fledgling Fascists represented - like today's ERG - "sound, commonplace, Conservative doctrine", inspired by "loyalty to the throne & love of country".

The infamous 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts' article appeared on 22nd January, 1934.

"Timid alarmists have been whimpering that the rapid growth in numbers of the British Blackshirts is preparing the way for a system of rulership by means of steel whips and concentration camps."

"Very few of these panic-mongers have any personal knowledge of the countries that are already under Blackshirt government. The notion that a permanent reign of terror exists there has been evolved entirely from their own morbid imaginations, fed by sensational #propaganda."

"As a purely British organization, the Blackshirts will respect those principles of tolerance which are traditional in British politics. They have no prejudice either of class or race. Their recruits are drawn from all social grades & every political party."

In 1934, David Low, an Evening Standard cartoonist, drew a cartoon showing Rothermere as a nanny giving a Nazi salute & saying "we need men of action such as they have in Italy & Germany who are leading their countries triumphantly out of the slump... blah... blah... blah..."

The child in the pram is saying "But what have they got in their other hands, nanny?" Hitler & Mussolini are hiding the true records: "Hitler's Germany: Estimated Unemployed: 6M. Fall in trade under Hitler, £35,000,000. Burden of taxes up several times over. Wages down 20%."

Lord Beaverbrook, the owner of the Evening Standard, was a close friend & business partner of Lord Rothermere, & refused to allow the original cartoon to be published. At the time, Rothermere had a virtual monopoly on the UK press, & controlled 49% of the Evening Standard shares.

Low was told by one of Beaverbrook's men: "Dog doesn't eat dog. It isn't done." He was forced to make the nanny unrecognisable as Rothermere & had to change the name on her dress from the Daily Mail to the Daily Shirt.

The Daily Mail continued to support the fascists. In 1934, Mosley founded the January Club as a discussion group to attract establishment support for the movement. Lord Rothermere allowed fellow member, Tory MP Sir Thomas Moore, to publish pro-fascist articles in his newspaper.

Tory MP Moore described the British Union of Fascists as being "largely derived from the Conservative Party". He added "surely there cannot be any fundamental difference of outlook between the Blackshirts and their parents, the Conservatives?"

In April 1934, The Daily Mail published an article by Winston Churchill's son & future Tory MP, Randolph Churchill (who in 1935 sponsored a member of the BUF), praising a Mosley speech: "Sir Oswald's peroration was one of the most magnificent feats of oratory I have ever heard."

The London Evening News, also owned by Harold Harmsworth, found a different way of supporting the Blackshirts. It obtained 500 seats for a BUF rally at the Royal Albert Hall & offered them as prizes to readers sending in the most convincing reasons why they liked the Blackshirts.

Rothermere's The Sunday Dispatch even sponsored a Blackshirt beauty competition to find the most attractive British Union of Fascists supporter. Nobody entered & the contest was declared void.

Mosley announced a large British Union of Fascists rally at Olympia on 7th June, 1934. The Daily Worker issued a statement declaring that the Communist Party of GB intended to demonstrate against Mosley by organized heckling inside the meeting & a mass demonstration outside.

The CPGB did what it could to disrupt the meeting: "They (the CPGB) printed illegal tickets. Groups of hecklers were stationed at strategic points inside the meeting, & Press interviews with their members were organized outside. First-aid stations were set up in near-by houses...

...and there were the inevitable parades, banners, placards and slogans." - Robert Benewick, author of The Fascist Movement in Britain (1972).

About 500 anti-fascists including Vera Brittain, Richard Sheppard & Aldous Huxley, managed to get inside the hall.

When they began heckling Mosley they were attacked by 1,000 black-shirted stewards. Several of the protesters were badly beaten by the fascists: "A young woman carried past me by five Blackshirts, her clothes half torn off and her mouth and nose closed by the large hand of one".

Collin Brooks, a journalist who worked for Lord Rothermere at the The Sunday Dispatch, attended the the rally at Olympia.

Brooks wrote in his diary: "The Fascist technique is really the most brutal thing I have ever seen, which is saying something."

Brooks also commented that one of his "party had gone there very sympathetic to the fascists and very anti-Red", but as they left the meeting he said "My God, if it's to be a choice between the Reds and these toughs, I'm all for the Reds".

Several members of the Conservative Party attended. Tory MP Geoffrey Lloyd pointed out that Mosley stopped speaking at once for the most trivial interruptions, although he had a battery of twenty-four loud-speakers. The interrupters were then attacked by ten to twenty stewards.

Lloyd wrote that Mosley's tactics were calculated to provide an "excuse" for violence.

Tory MP William Anstruther-Gray: "Frankly if anybody had told me an hour before the meeting that I should find myself on the side of the Communist interrupters, I'd have called him a liar."

George Ward Price of The Daily Mail disagreed: "If the Blackshirts movement had any need of justification, the Red Hooligans who savagely and systematically tried to wreck Sir Oswald Mosley's huge and magnificently successful meeting at Olympia last night would have supplied it."

In the Parliamentary debate on the BUF rally, several Tory MPs defended Mosley; Michael Beaumont by admitting that he was an "anti-democrat & an avowed admirer of Fascism in other countries"; Tom Howard admired Mosley for his 'determination to maintain the right of free speech'.

Clement Attlee, then Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, claimed to have evidence to demonstrate that the Blackshirts used "plain-clothes inciters to disorder" at their meetings and that the Blackshirts used deliberate incitement as an excuse for force.

Walter Citrine, the General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress, demanded an end to "the drilling and arming of civilian sections of the community", and deplored the inactivity of the police and the courts in dealing with the British Union of Fascists."

PM Stanley Baldwin admitted similarities between the @Conservatives & the BUF "the policies of fascism is what you may call an Ultramontane Conservatism... it takes many of the tenets of our own party and pushes them to a conclusion which (would) be disastrous to our country."

In July, 1934 Lord Rothermere suddenly withdrew his support from Mosley. Historian James Pool argues "The rumour on Fleet Street was that the Daily Mail's Jewish advertisers had threatened to place their adds in a different paper if Rothermere continued the pro-fascist campaign."

Rothermere met with Hitler at the Berghof & told him how the "Jews cut off his complete revenue from advertising" & compelled him to "toe the line." Hitler later recalled Rothermere telling him that it was "quite impossible at short notice to take any effective counter-measures."

Vernon Kell, of MI5, reported to the Home Office that the rally at Olympia appeared to have had a negative impact on the future of the British Union of Fascists: "It is becoming increasingly clear that at Olympia Mosley suffered a check which is likely to prove decisive."

"He suffered it, not at the hands of the Communists who staged provocations & now claim victory; but at the hands of Conservative MPs, Conservative press, & all those organs of public opinion which made him abandon the policy of using his Defence Force to overwhelm interrupters."

We must #NeverForget that it was Rothermere's Daily Mail - which today supports the UK Government's barbaric #Rwanda Plan, which is reminiscent of the Nazi's Madagascar Plan - which led the campaign against Jews fleeing from Europe being allowed into Britain.
#NeverAgain

In August 1938, the Daily Mail published the despicable & abhorrent headline: "Aliens Pouring into Britain".

The Mail's jingoistic, xenophobic, racist & neofascist rhetoric is a hair's breadth away from its contemporary anti-migrant, anti-asylum seeker, & anti-Muslim rhetoric.