Old family footage shows Queen delivering Nazi salute as a child
Britain’s largest-selling tabloid has released a 17-second film showing a very young Princess Elizabeth, nearly 20 years before she became Queen, delivering a Nazi salute.
The Queen, who was about seven at the time the hitherto unknown film was made, is shown with her mother, sister and uncle — all of whom were also delivering the salute, according to The Sun.
Buckingham Palace said in a statement late Friday that it was “disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago … has been obtained and exploited,” the BBC reported.
The newspaper has declined to say where it got the film or who shot it, according to the BBC report.
The film is believed to have been shot in the gardens of Balmoral Palace in 1933 or 1934, a time when Adolf Hitler was just solidifying power in Germany.
In the film, the future Queen is shown playing briefly with a dog, and then her mother raises her arm in the straight gesture of the Nazi party.
Seeing her mother raise her arm, the young princess does the same — as does her uncle, Prince Edward.
He was within three or four years to become King briefly, before abdicating.
BBC quoted a Buckingham Palace source as saying: “Most people will see these pictures in their proper context and time. This is a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have seen from contemporary news reels.
“No one at that time had any sense how it would evolve. To imply anything else is misleading and dishonest,” the source said.
The Sun’s managing editor, Stig Abell, took issue with the Palace’s contention that the footage had been “exploited,” according to the BBC.
Edward, then the Prince of Wales, faced many accusations of being a Nazi sympathizer, and met Hitler in 1937.
“We are not using it to suggest any impropriety on behalf of them. But it is an important and interesting issue, the extent to which the British aristocracy — notably Edward VIII, in this case — in the 1930s, were sympathetic towards fascism,” Abell was quoted as saying.
“That must be a matter of national and public interest to discuss. And I think this video and this footage animates that very clearly.”
Dickie Arbiter, a longtime former press secretary for the Royal Family, said he expected the Palace would investigate how the newspaper obtained the film, which appeared to be privately created.