Gudrun Himmler with Hitler
Sidney Proud, was a leading member of Sir Oswald Mosley's post-war Union Movement. He owned a Holiday Travel Company which offered “affordable holidays in sunny Spain”. These vacations were particularly popular with Union Movement members who could wear their banned pre-war Blackshirt uniforms in public. Before the war, Proud had been a member of the British Union of Fascists. He claimed to have fought with the Falange during the Spanish Civil War. During WWII he was detained under regulation 18B.
In 1955, he utilised his links with the surviving families of Nazi leaders to invite Adolph von Ribbentrop (son of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister) and Gudrun Himmler (daughter of Heinrich Himmler) to come to Britain.
At that time, Gudrun Himmler was heavily involved in Stille Hilfe (Silent Aid), an organisation set up to assist former members of the SS who had fallen on hard times. In his book on Stille Hilfe, Oliver Schröm had described her as a "flamboyant Nazi princess" ("schillernde Nazi-Prinzessin").
While in England, Gudrun Himmler stayed with ardent supporters of Sir Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement. She was escorted around London by Mosley’s private secretary Jeffrey Hamm and leading Union Movement member Robert Row.
In his book Memoir of a Fascist Childhood, Trevor Grundy recalls the day she visited his home at 40 Blandford Square, Marylebone:
Klaus lacked the charm of Gudrun Himmler. She appeared one day at 40 Blandford Square with Jeffrey Hamm and Robert Row, a tall open-faced Lancastrian who had been appointed editor of Union. Fraulein Himmler, as we'd been told to call her, was visiting London for the first time and Mosley had suggested she should be introduced to some leading Movement members, hence the visit to the Grundys.
As Bob and Jeffrey put their hands out to help Fraulein Himmler from the taxi, Mrs Adams and Timothy, in his Haberdashers Askes, blazer and cap walked past. My mother said, 'Oh Mrs Adams, may I introduce you to a German friend of ours, Fraulein Himmler. And this is Timothy, Mrs Adams son, Fraulein Himmler.'
Fraulein Himmler smiled but said nothing. She looked like a schoolteacher, with fair hair, National Health-style glasses, a tweed skirt and brown jacket. She obviously knew she was a very, very important person as far as we were concerned.
The adults disappeared into the house and I stayed outside, too young to converse with such an eminent person. After half an hour, Fraulein Himmler came out, smiled at me and touched my face with her left hand, before being driven off with Jeffrey and Bob Row in the taxi, which had waited for her.
During her stay, Gudrun spoke at Union Movement meetings and told those present that, her father was “a great man, a very misunderstood man whose reputation had been destroyed by the Jews”. She later remembered that “I got to know many fascists there”.
In an event that received worldwide notoriety, Proud was photographed serving his guests sekt (sparkling wine) and leading Gudrun and von Ribbentrop in a rousing chorus of Horst Wessel Lied, the Nazi Party's anthem. Gudrun showed her appreciation by presenting Sidney Proud with a photograph album depicting her father and Hitler together. This album was acquired in the 1960s by Yad Vashem, the Jewish people’s memorial museum to the victims of the Holocaust in Jerusalem.
Whilst her visit to England boosted Proud's reputation within Union Movement, it caused Gudrun, 26 at the time, “terrible embarrassment” and she lost her job as a dressmaker’s apprentice.
She never renounced Nazi ideology and repeatedly sought to justify the actions of her father.
References:
Memoir of a Fascist Childhood: A boy in Mosley's Britain, by Trevor Grundy. Published by William Heinemann Ltd; First edition, 20 Jan. 1998.
Stille Hilfe für braune Kameraden: Das geheime Netzwerk der Alt- und Neonazis. Ein Inside-Report, Oliver Schröm/Andrea Röpke
