A British fascist who admired Adolf Hitler was cited the historical figure who allegedly inspired a man’s murderous attack on a mosque, said the accused New Zealand mosque shooter in his manifesto.
“Sir Oswald Mosley is the person from history closest to my own beliefs,” he wrote in the 74-page document. “I mostly agree with Sir Oswald Mosley’s views and consider myself an Eco-fascist by nature,” he said.
An aristocrat, Mosley’s full title was Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley of Ancoats. The sixth baronet of a title that had been in his family for centuries, he headed the British Union of Fascists and later the Union Movement in England.
Both groups disseminated anti-Semitic propaganda and wore Nazi-style uniforms and symbols. Mosley launched the British Union of Fascists in 1932 after visiting Italy’s Benito Mussolini and hired pro-Nazi radio broadcaster William Joyce as the group’s propaganda director.
His followers, known as the Blackshirts, were involved in mob violence. In 1936, the Battle of Cable Street was an event that took place in Cable Street and Whitechapel in London’s East End when the police were caught between the Blackshirts and anti-fascist demonstrators, including anarchist, communist, Jewish, and socialist groups.
Mosley married his mistress Diana Mitford in October 1936 after his wife Lady Cynthia “Cimmie” Curzon died. The couple wed secretly in the home of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in a ceremony attended by Adolf Hitler.
He was an officer in the 16th The Queen’s Lancers, the British cavalry regiment, and fought in France on the Western Front in World War I. He later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an observer. His stepfather was viceroy of the British Raj.
Mosley was elected as a Conservative member of Parliament in 1918 but later became an Independent. He later joined the Labour Party but moved toward fascism after he failed to be elected on their ticket. He and Mitford’s Nazi sympathies led to them being interned from 1940 to 1943.
In Mosley’s book Fascism, he argued that Jews in Britain would not be “persecuted” under a fascist regime but said that “those who have been guilty of anti-British conduct will be deported.”
Mitford attempted to start a pro-Nazi radio station in Britain and discussed the possibility with Hitler.
“Jews must put the interests of Britain before those of Jewry, or be deported from Britain,” Mosley wrote. “This is not a principle of racial or religious persecution. Any well-governed nation must insist that its citizens owe allegiance to the nation, and not to co-racialists and co-religionists resident outside its borders or organized as a state within the State.”
“The Jews, as a whole, have chosen to organize themselves as a nation within the Nation and to set their interests before those of Great Britain. They must, like everyone else, put ‘Britain First’ or leave Britain,” he wrote.
Mosley later tried to reject the notion he was anti-Semitic in his 1968 biography entitled My Life. He died in 1980.
Some recordings of Mosley’s speeches were included in an archived Facebook profile that is believed to belong to Brenton Tarrant, a suspect in the New Zealand mosque shootings.
The author claimed he didn’t view Jews as his “enemy” — provided they live in Israel and don’t “harm my people.” He wrote, “A jew living in israel is no enemy of mine, so long as they do not seek to subvert or harm my people.”
According to the manifesto, the author was inspired to conduct acts of violence to “create an atmosphere of fear” and to “incite violence” against the Muslim community.
The attacks on the two mosques took the lives of 49 people. Tarrant and three others are in custody, and police continue to investigate the matter.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern offered sympathies after the attack and said the shooter planned the attack in New Zealand because it condemns hate and bigotry.
“For those of you who are watching at home tonight, and questioning how this could have happened here, we — New Zealand — we were not a target because we are a safe harbor for those who hate,” she said. “We were not chosen for this act of violence because we condone racism, because we are an enclave for extremism.”
