Footage of Queen Elizabeth performing Nazi salute outrages people across UK

LONDON, JULY 18, ARMENPRESS. The Buckingham Palace expressed disappointment in regard to publishing a 1933 footage where Queen Elizabeth is pictured performing a Nazi salute as a young girl. Buckingham Palace last night slammed The Sun for the publication of the footage, from the family's private archive, saying it was 'disappointing' that the film had been 'obtained and exploited in this manner'. As Armenpress reports, citing BBC, the footage was published by the British “Sun.” The shocking film from 1933 shows Edward VIII teaching his nieces the seven-year-old future Queen and her three-year-old sister Princess Margaret how to do the salute in the gardens at Balmoral. As Armenpress reports citing “Daily Mail,” the publication of the 17-second film has outraged thousands across the nation who believe that the Queen cannot be held responsible for her actions as a girl playing with her family.Scores of Twitter users vented their anger this morning, saying The Sun had 'sunk to a new low' and calling for the newspaper's owner Rupert Murdoch to be banned from the UK.Buckingham Palace said last night said the seven-year-old Queen was simply 'playing' with her family in the archive video.

A Palace source stated:“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 Queen is around six years of age at the time and entirely innocent of attaching any meaning to these gestures.The Queen and her family's service and dedication to the welfare of this nation during the war, and the 63 years The Queen has spent building relations between nations and peoples speaks for itself.”

As Armenpress informs citing “Sun,” the astonishing clip lay hidden for eight decades. The grainy home movie is thought to have been shot in 1933 or 1934, as Hitler rose to supreme power in Germany. The Queen, in tartan kilt or skirt, is aged around seven while Margaret is three. The clip opens with a playful Elizabeth grabbing one of the royal corgis and pushing the dog across the lawn. Facing the camera, she raises her arm in a Nazi salute. Margaret lifts a hand — her left, in a playful wave. Elizabeth performs a Scottish jig then raises her right arm again, joining in with the Queen Mum as they both stand bolt upright with right arms hoisted.Encouraged by Uncle Edward, Margaret raises her arms again before the clip ends with the Queen Mum and Edward saluting with their right arms. The grainy black-and-white photograph was taken just as Hitler was rising to power in Germany, seven years before the outbreak of the Second World War and before the atrocities of the Third Reich terrorised Europe.At the age of seven, the Queen is unlikely to have understood the full the implications of making a Nazi salute.

As Armenpress reports citing “Daily Mail,” royal commentator and the Queen's former press secretary Dickie Arbiter said there would be great interest in royal circles in finding out how the footage - from the monarch's private archives - was made public. He said: 'I would like to think it was released inadvertently as a bit of harmless 1933 footage without anybody really knowing what was on it.I think what they (Buckingham Palace) would probably like to know is where it came from and who gave it to The Sun.' The Palace is expected to look into whether a crime has been committed in the leaking of the film, which belongs to the royal family.But The Sun defended its use of the footage, saying the photographs 'provide a fascinating insight in the warped prejudices of Edward VIII and his friends in that bleak, paranoid, tumultuous decade'. It added that the footage casts 'important new light on the Royal Family's attitudes towards Germany in the 1930s – and the influence of Nazi-loving Edward'. The newspaper’s managing editor Stig Abell said the footage was obtained by the newspaper 'in a legitimate fashion' and that its publication was 'not a criticism of the Queen or the Queen Mum'.

'It is a historical document that really sheds some insight in to the behaviour of Edward VIII,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme and added 'I understand that they (Buckingham Palace) don't like this coming out but I also feel, on a relatively purist basis, that the role of journalists and the media is to bring to light things that happened. What we have done is just brought to light an historical document and we have sought to present it in a contextual fashion around Edward VIII and have made the point relatively clearly I hope that we recognise, of course, that the Queen and the Queen Mum went on to become heroes of the Second World War and there are no aspersions being cast upon them by the Sun.'

The Nazi salute became a symbol of fear across Europe after the rise of Hitler, but in the years leading up to the Second World War it did not have the universally recognised connotations that it has today. Respected military historian James Holland told The Sun: 'They are all having a laugh, there are lots of smiles, so it's all a big joke.

'I don't think there was a child in Britain in the 1930s or 40s who has not performed a mock Nazi salute as a bit of a lark. It just shows the Royal Family are as human as the next man.' The historian added that while it was no secret that Edward VIII met Hitler and was known to have been sympathetic to Nazism, the same cannot be said about the Queen Mother or King George VI. He continued that both the Queen Mother and King George were 'completely steadfast from start to finish' in their opposition to the Nazis, in the 'fight against that tyranny'.

Members of the Royal Family were not the only British citizens to perform the salute in the pre-war period. In 1938, the English football team did so in unison before the start of a friendly game against Germany in Berlin's Olympic Stadium. The footballers’ action was met with derision, because by then Hitler had annexed Austria and his anti-Jewish measures were already advanced.

The leaked footage is the only pictorial evidence of Edward VIII doing the Nazi gesture, but he is also known to have performed it at other times.Edward VIII, faced numerous accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser, abdicated in 1936 less than a year after becoming King to marry Wallis Simpson. He once gave a Nazi salute to Hitler and claimed he was 'not a bad chap'.Edward was photographed meeting Hitler in Munich in October 1937, less than two years before the Second World War broke out.n January 1933, the year the footage was filmed, Hitler became chancellor of Germany and by August 1934, he had declared himself Führer, the leader of Germany.The Sun quotes prominent German historian Dr Karina Urbach, a top Nazi expert, who described the film as 'remarkable'.

'Edward was already welcoming the regime as Prince of Wales in 1933 and remained pro-Nazi after war broke out in 1939. Hitler's movement had been growing fast since 1929 and many German relatives of the Royal Family were attracted to it.'

The University of London academic added that the royals could have ‘seen the salute on newsreels’ and that they were copying it. She said the ‘issue of Edward’s politics and their impact upon his generation within the Royal Family’ should be ‘brought into the open’ for serious research. Dr Karina Urbach has previously claimed that Edward VIII wanted Britain to be bombed into an alliance with the Third Reich and blamed 'Jews and Reds' for World War II.The black-and-white footage, which lasts around 17 seconds, shows the family playing with one of the two royal corgis, named Dookie and Jane, on the lawn.Margaret waves excitedly with both hands before Elizabeth breaks into a Scottish jig. The Queen Mother can then be seen performing a Nazi salute, and Princess Elizabeth follows suit, both standing straight-backed holding their right arm aloft. Prince Edward joins in before the clip cuts to a close up of the faces of the two princesses.Juliet Gardiner, former editor of History Today and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, said: ‘It’s an insight into British attitudes towards Germany at that time in 1933, long before everyone really realised Hitler’s designs on Europe. It is absolutely right that the public sees it.’

The last scandal linking the royals to Nazi Germany involved Prince Harry being photographed in 2005 wearing a Nazi uniform to a friend’s fancy dress party in Wiltshire. The Prince, 20 years old at the time, was shown holding a drink and a cigarette and dressed in a shirt altered to look like a German uniform by the addition of collar flashes and an eagle insignia on the chest. He was forced to apologise for the incident after it made headlines around the world. The furore was met with calls for the Prince to be stripped of his place as an officer cadet at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.

TheSun abstains from giving explanations as to how they managed to get the footage. It is also unclear in what conditions the film was shot.