Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere (1868 - 1940) was a highly successful British newspaper proprietor, owner of Associated Newspapers. He is known in particular, with his brother Alfred Harmsworth, the later Lord Northcliffe, for the development of the London Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. He was a pioneer of popular journalism.
He also in later life used his newspaper ownership in attempts to influence British politics, notably being a strong supporter of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, he urged increased defence spending while being the owner of the only major newspapers to advocate an alliance with Germany. The Rothermere papers for an time in 1934 championed the British Union of Fascists (B.U.F), and were again the only major papers that supported the B.U.F.
Rothermere also strongly supported revision in favour of Hungary, to the extent that he was offered the Hungarian Crown in 1927. He declined, but purchased estates in Hungary in case Britain should fall to an Soviet invasion.
Secret British government papers, released in 2005, show that Rothermere wrote to Adolf Hitler congratulating him on annexing Czechoslovakia in 1938, and encouraged him to march into Romania. The MI5 papers also show that Rothermere paid a retainer of £5,000 per year to Stephanie Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingfurst , a glamorous Austrian princess and German spy, intending that she should bring him closer to Hitler's inner circle. She was known as "London's leading Nazi hostess". The secret services had been monitoring her since she came to Britain in the 1920s and regarded her as "an extremely dangerous person". As WW2 loomed, Rothermere stopped the payments and their relationship deteriorated into threats and lawsuits.
External link
