An image of Queen Elizabeth II giving a Nazi salute published by the British tabloid, The Sun has had the Buckingham Palace opening an inquiry. The 1930s home movie shows the future Queen practicing the Nazi salute alongside her mother, sister and uncle.
The black-and-white footage shows the Queen, then aged six or seven, and her sister Margaret, around three, joining the Queen Mother and her uncle, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, in raising an arm in the signature style of the German fascists.
Edward, who later became King Edward VIII and abdicated to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson, faced numerous accusations of being a Nazi sympathizer. The couple was photographed meeting Hitler in Munich in October 1937, less than two years before the Second World War broke out.
Buckingham Palace criticized the newspaper, with a spokesman saying, "It is disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from (Her Majesty's) personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner," CNN reported.
"Most people will see these pictures in their proper context and time," a Palace source said, according to BBC News. "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."
Headlined "Their royal heilnesses," the 17-second clip shot at on the grounds of the royal retreat in Balmoral, Scotland, is thought to have been filmed within a year of Adolf Hitler's 1933 appointment as German chancellor.
"I think the justification is relatively evident - it's a matter of national historical significance to explore what was going on in the '30s ahead of the Second World War," Stig Abell, managing editor of the Sun, said in defense of the move, The Guardian reported. "We're very clear we're not, of course, suggesting anything improper on the part of the Queen or indeed the Queen Mum. It's very clear Edward VIII, who became a Nazi sympathiser, in '36 after he abdicated he headed off to Germany briefly. We've taken a great amount of trouble and care to demonstrate that context at great length in the paper today. This is a matter of historical significance from which we shouldn't shy away."
