Jonathan Guinness

“But there was more to Hitler’s charm than this. Incredible as it may sound, he excited protective, almost motherly instincts by a sort of helpless look, and this at the height of his power. Diana says that ‘what one might call the chivalrous attitude towards Hitler’ seemed particularly marked in Goering. There is one place where, to this day, one can get a feeling of this aspect of Hitler’s appeal – in Leni Riefenstahl’s film about the 1934 Parteitag, Triumph of the Will. There is a moment when Hitler gets out of his aircraft and looks around him for the welcoming party; he seems, for that moment, helpless and vulnerable, the Little Man. That apparent vulnerability can exercise mass attractiveness is, of course, well known. In the case of Hitler, who was also possessed of strong dominance and almost hypnotic powers of persuasion, this faculty helped him by, as it were, disarming those he confronted before they were overwhelmed. There are several passages in the correspondence between Diana and Unity in which they refer to Hitler as looking ‘sweet’ or ‘beloved’. This was the effect he had on them. This lovable man was then in due course to have enormous numbers of innocent people slaughtered. Life would be simpler if someone capable of ordering mass murder could never show an attractive side.”
― Jonathan Guinness, The House of Mitford

“Thomas was already showing the first signs of that individuality which was later to make him a well-known eccentric. At the time it showed itself mainly in his dress. He designed his own collars, and had his shirts made with a special kind of tail. His jackets had pockets in unusual places. It is the particular nature of this sartorial originality which provides a clue to Thomas’s character.”
― Jonathan Guinness, The House of Mitford