Holocaust denial goes uncensored on BBC, but don’t mention the war
Fawlty Towers and Dad’s Army come with warning, but Diana Mosley’s speech on loving Hitler does not
THE BBC has deemed its viewers so sensitive that they need to be alerted to the potentially offensive content of innocuous family favourites such as Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers and Porridge.
But the horrifying opinions of Diana Mosley about the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler’s charisma apparently require no such warnings.
This lapse comes in a historical episode of Desert Island Discs, which is freely available on BBC Sounds.
It contains no contemporary framing about Mosley’s views or introductory warnings that it may contain material of an offensive nature, despite the episode’s notoriety since it was first broadcast in November 1989.
But in Sue Lawley’s interview with Mosley, who died in 2003, listeners hear to a shocking denial of the Holocaust and an extended love letter to Hitler.
Mosley, ley, one of the Mitford sisters and whose second husband, Oswald Mosley, was as leader of the British Union of Fascists, s, was personal friends with Hitler in the he years leading up to the Second World War.
The first red flag comes after 15 minutes, es, when Mosley denies that her husband, usband, who notoriously had his s thuggish followers target Jewish wish areas of London, was anti- ti-Semitic, saying: “He didn’t know a Jew from a gentile e … As the Jews were so anti- i-him and attacked him, he, e, as it were, picked up the challenge.” allenge.”
She then discusses her friendship dship with Hitler, describing bing how she met him many times and found him “extraordinary, ordinary, fascinating and clever ever … He was the person who was making the news, which made him extremely interesting.”
Mosley, by then a 79-year-old widow, talks repeatedly about her admiration for the Nazi leader, referring to his “mesmeric blue eyes” and adding: “He had so much to say, so interesting, so fascinating … I can’t regret the relationship.”
She even appears to suggest Hitler has been unfairly maligned by historians, saying: “The nonsense that’s written – if you don’t like someone, you attack them.”
Asked whether her warmth towards Hitler changed when she discovered his plans for the extermination of the Jews, Mosley says: “We didn’t discover that for so long. First of all, after the war, I simply didn’t believe it, having been in Germany … And it was years before I could really believe that such things had happened.”
Lawley interjects: “And do you believe it now?”
Mosley replies: “I don’t really, I’m afraid … believe that six million people were … I just think it’s not conceivable, it’s too many.”
And only then does she finally signal any disapproval, adding: “But whether it’s six million or one really makes no difference. Morally, it’s equally wrong. I think it was a dreadfully wicked thing.”
Lawley repeatedly tries to challenge her, at one point observing: “It’s almost as if you’re rewriting history.” She also responded to the contention that Oswald Mosley wasn’t anti-Semitic by asking: “But did he not call them [the Jews] ‘an alien force which rises to rob us of our heritage’?”
Dave Rich, director of policy for the Community Security Trust, the charity that attempts to safeguard the Jewish community in Britain, said: “Diana Mosley’s responses response are full of lies. Her own anti-Jewish animus an and her admiration for Hitler shine s through. Most objectionable of all is her denial that six million Jews were wer murdered by the Nazis. The whole package p could not be more repulsive. There Th is no mention of any of this in the blu blurb that promotes the episode on the BBC Sounds website.”
Lord Mann, who serves as an adviser to the Government Governmen on anti-Semitism, said: “It would be appropriate to put a warning in relation relatio to this broadcast and the holocaust denial d that is spewed out by Mosley.”
A BBC spokesman spokesma said: “This episode of Desert Island Discs Dis is part of the most complete possible archive resource of programmes from the past 80 years and is not something that is being newly transmitted.
“The programme progr page indicates that Diana Mosley M was married to Oswald Mos Mosley, the leader of the British Union Un of Fascists and clearly shows show the date of broadcast. Radio 4’s audience is likely to be aware of the controversial views that Diana D Mosley held if they choose choos to explore the archive.”
In the episode, episo Mosley chooses two pieces by the composer synony
mous with the Na Nazi regime, Richard Wagner.