Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford was a British socialite known for her relationship with Adolf Hitler. Both in Great Britain and Germany, she was a prominent supporter of Nazism, fascism and antisemitism, and belonged to Hitler's inner circle of friends. After the declaration of World War II, she attempted suicide in Munich by shooting herself in the head. She survived but was badly injured. She was allowed safe passage back to England but never recovered from the extensive brain damage; she later died from meningitis related to the bullet lodged in her head.

The Mitford family is an aristocratic English family whose principal line had its seats at Mitford, Northumberland. Several heads of the family served as High Sheriff of Northumberland. A junior line, with seats at Newton Park, Northumberland, and Exbury House, Hampshire, descends via the historian William Mitford (1744–1827) and were twice elevated to the British peerage, in 1802 and 1902, under the title Baron Redesdale.