Many of the week's top shows are featured in our new On The Couch weekly podcast, which looks at what we've watched and all that's best in the coming seven days.
On 3 September 1939, 25-year-old English aristocrat Unity Mitford walked into a Munich park and shot herself in the head. Distraught at the prospect of England declaring war on her beloved Führer, Britain's most notorious Nazi sympathiser seemed determined to make the ultimate act of fanatical devotion.
One of the six Mitford sisters - siblings surrounded by controversy and the cause of much fascination - Unity's story has always been cloaked in secrecy and the source of decades of speculation. This film tells the extraordinary story of how Churchill's cousin fell under Hitler's spell and became one of his closest confidantes; spending five years with an astonishing ringside seat as he plotted global domination.
Unity's suicide attempt failed, and the programme charts her recovery, funded by Hitler himself, and her mysterious return to Britain in early 1940. The film unravels the rumours and looks at the myths that have always surrounded Unity - did she have a physical relationship with Hitler? Was she a British spy, targeted by the Gestapo? And what lay behind her convalescence in a discreet English clinic?
The programme also examines her treatment by the British authorities - based on research by Martin Bright, Political Editor of The New Statesman. MI5 had wanted Unity searched, interned and interrogated, but the woman once rumoured to be Hitler's bride, remained free for the rest of the war, officially declared a brain-damaged invalid.
Featuring original testimony and with the release of secret documents from the Home Office and MI5, this film offers unique insights and theories about "Hitler's Girl".
Many of the week's top shows are featured in our new On The Couch weekly podcast, which looks at what we've watched and all that's best in the coming seven days.
Add a comment