Lord Rothermere was a friend of
Benito Mussolini and
Adolf Hitler, and directed the Mail's editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s.
[40][41] Rothermere's 1933 leader "Youth Triumphant" praised the new Nazi regime's accomplishments, and was subsequently used as propaganda by them.
[42] In it, Rothermere predicted that "The minor misdeeds of individual Nazis would be submerged by the immense benefits the new regime is already bestowing upon Germany". Journalist
John Simpson, in a book on journalism, suggested that Rothermere was referring to the violence against Jews and Communists rather than the detention of political prisoners.
[43][
page needed]
Rothermere and the
Mail were also editorially sympathetic to
Oswald Mosley and the
British Union of Fascists.
[44] Rothermere wrote an article titled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" published in the
Daily Mail on 15 January 1934, praising Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine",
[45] and pointing out that: "Young men may join the British Union of Fascists by writing to the Headquarters, King's Road, Chelsea, London, S.W."
[46]
The Spectator condemned Rothermere's article commenting that, "... the Blackshirts, like the Daily Mail, appeal to people unaccustomed to thinking. The average Daily Mail reader is a potential Blackshirt ready made. When Lord Rothermere tells his clientele to go and join the Fascists some of them pretty certainly will."
[47]
The paper's support ended after violence at a BUF rally in Kensington Olympia in June 1934.
[48] Mosley and many others thought Rothermere had responded to pressure from Jewish businessmen who it was believed had threatened to stop advertising in the paper if it continued to back an anti-Semitic party.
[49] The paper editorially continued to oppose the arrival of Jewish refugees escaping Germany, describing their arrival as "a problem to which the
Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed."
[50]