Buckingham Palace is fuming after a British newspaper released footage of an adolescent Queen Elizabeth II giving a Nazi salute with her family back in 1933, the year Hitler rose to power.
The queen, believed to be seven at the time, can be seen giving the controversial salute in a short video clip, filmed at her family's home in Balmoral. The footage was obtained by The Sun and was published online, with stills appearing in the tabloid's print edition.
"Egging on her sister Princess Margaret, three, is their uncle Prince Edward, Prince of Wales. He was a sympathizer towards Hitler's Nazi Germany and became King Edward VIII," read the story penned by Tom Morgan and Jonathan Reilly.
The tabloid further alleged that Edward once "heiled" Hilter with the salute and remarked that the genocidal sociopath was "not a bad chap."
The unearthing of the shocking images and the saucy words that accompanied them were enough to draw an official response from Buckingham Palace.
"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," stated the Palace.
Karina Urbach, a member of London's Institute of Historical Research, told The Sun that the video clip was "pretty shocking."
"The Queen has a proud Second World War record and sense of duty to her country," said Urbach, "and no one would ever suggest she was sympathetic to Nazi Germany. She was a child when this film was shot, long before the atrocities of the Nazis became widely known."
At that point, in 1933, Edward was extending a welcome to the Nazi regime, according to Urbach. "He could well be teaching the Queen and Princess Margaret how to do the salute."
While Buckingham Palace said the film was exploited, Stig Abell, The Sun's managing editor, said the article and the way it portrays the Queen was "not a criticism of the queen or the Queen Mum."
