A video clip of Queen Elizabeth II giving a Nazi salute as a child caused an uproar after it was published by British tabloid The Sun over the weekend, but Buckingham Palace officials have condemned it and the royal’s defenders have declared the gesture to be severely out of context.
The 17-second video clip and still images published by The Sun shows an elementary school-aged Princess Elizabeth frolicking on the lawn of the Balmoral estate in Edinburgh with her sister, Margaret, her mother, and her Uncle Edward, who would later briefly reign as King Edward VIII. After looking towards her mother, Princess Elizabeth joined her in raising her right hand in the Nazi salute before her uncle joined in the gesture.
The Sun’s headline, which read, “Their Royal Heilnesses,” caused an outcry and backlash throughout the United Kingdom as supporters rallied around the Queen and condemned the tabloid.
“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,”
said a Buckingham Palace spokesman, according to CNN.
A royal source also told CNN that “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 video was believed to have been filmed in 1933, just around the time that Adolf Hitler was
rising to power in Germany, according to The Washington Post. The Queen, who would have been around 6 or 7 at the time, would have been too young to understand the significance of the time period and what that Nazi salute would come to symbolize. Although the royal family members portrayed in the clip were laughing and smiling, many believe that it is an important reminder of how many people viewed Hitler and Nazi Germany before WWII.
“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,” military historian James Holland told The Sun. “It just shows the Royal Family are as human as the next man.”
As an adult, Queen Elizabeth later proudly supported the United Kingdom during WWII, thus putting to rest any doubts concerning her personal perceptions of Nazi Germany, according to CNN.