Christian Dior's Neo-Nazi Niece ("Charming")

From Jezabel:

There's a bit of charming file footage of Christian Dior's niece Françoise that has been going quietly viral in France. Françoise Dior, you see, is a self-described Nazi. In this 1963 interview for French television, she discusses the importance of defending the Aryan race, the difference between "hating" Jews and merely preferring not to have them around, and why Hitler is her hero.

Christian Dior had been dead for five years by the time this interview was recorded, and designer Marc Bohan had taken over the creative direction of the house. Although Françoise Dior claims in the full interview to have been a Nazi "for a number of years," it is not known how close Christian Dior was to his niece during his lifetime. She was 27 years his junior, and did not work for the fashion house he founded.

This interview took place on the occasion of Françoise Dior's engagement to Colin Jordan, a prominent Holocaust-denier and member of the British far-right. He led organizations with names like "The White Defence League," co-founded the British National Party (which still exists, though it has tried in recent years to downplay its extremist roots), and was imprisoned for trying to start up a paramilitary organization modeled on the Brownshirts of Nazi Germany. Jordan is silent throughout the video; Dior explains that he doesn't speak French. Dior, despite her fervor, seems to have little understanding of the beliefs she professes. She struggles to articulate what National Socialism even means, beyond "defending the race," and eventually falls back on the tautological explanation that National Socialism means "fighting for National Socialism." She also describes her and Jordan's planned "Nazi wedding," which will involve "rites" sacred to their "race." Those rites, which are "a little bit difficult to explain," include cutting each other's fingers, and mixing their blood over an open copy of Mein Kampf.

Dior's marriage to Jordan didn't take — she left him for a 19-year-old — but her Nazism did. She spent time in prison in Britain for participating in arson attacks against London synagogues, and in France for posting Swastika stickers on the walls of the British embassy. She eventually died of lung cancer at the age of 60.