Buckingham Palace expressed disappointment on Saturday with a tabloid newspaper for publishing images of a young Queen Elizabeth II performing a Nazi salute with her family in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler came to power.
The palace took the unusual step of commenting on the report in The Sun, which shows the queen — then about 7 years old — at the family home in Balmoral, with her uncle Edward, mother and sister. The grainy footage also shows Elizabeth’s mother making the salute as the family laughs.
It is disappointing that a film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from Her Majesty’s personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner.
— Buckingham Palace.
The images, posted on the newspaper’s website with the headline “Their Royal Heilnesses,” shows the young girls prancing on grass, as a dog runs around them.
Military historian James Holland told The Sun that the royals were joking.
The Sun’s managing editor, Stig Abell, said the footage was obtained legitimately. He told the BBC that the story was “not a criticism of the queen or the Queen Mum.”
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