Royals and NAZI salutes

No one knows who suggested they did that for the camera , it looks like a family having fun, nothing more, perhaps Edward did encourage the family , perhaps the QM thought it fun and Edward helped the little one to do as her mother was doing, perhaps the person behind the camera - it was said it was their father - suggested they did it, no one knows , pity a family having fun has been turned into something nasty, how painful for the queen to have a private family film stolen then printed in the press and shown on tv followed by experts! giving their opinions. Perhaps that day was a very happy day with lots of happy memories , now tarnished , I think it vile , not in the public interest more in the interest of some of the public

The current queen was seven - too young to have any sympathies with any political parties, let alone Nazis. The then Prince of Wales wasn't known for his attention to his future job, more for his zeal in eating, drinking, gambling and chasing skirt. At a reception in his honour in Brighton in the thirties, he went missing and could not be found - the event could not continue without him. He was eventually discovered in his hotel suite with the wife of one of the town councillors. My parents lived in Brighton, where he was well known and not very highly regarded. He got more than he bargained for in Wallace Simpson.

The QM was well-known for her impersonations and her sense of humour - Hitler would have been a gift to send up, and her daughter would have joined in the fun. Wouldn't our children join in laughing at a take-off of a modern self-important politician?

I too wonder where the Sun dug this bit of amateur family photgraphy up and why they felt they must present it as important history.

In the Guardian, Kathryn Hughes says "In the case of the young cavorting Queen, it is not apparent what had been going on that day. But assuming this film was taken in the summer of 1933, then her Uncle Edward was months away from consummating his affair with Wallis Simpson, the one that would bring the monarchy to the brink of extinction and propel Elizabeth to the throne.

When you know this, then Edward’s tasteless attempt to get his little niece to do a Nazi salute takes on a whole new resonance. Far from being an unconvincing revelation about the political sympathies of a seven-year-old child, those 17 seconds of juddery home movie become an exhilarating reminder that history does sometimes turn out well. Edward’s moral torpor, his inability to consult anything but his own tawdry vanities, is sharply on display in this pastoral scene gone wrong. What we are left with – but only if we read the image in its full context – is a profound sense of relieved thanks that the little girl in the kilt was eventually given the chance to put things right."

Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson were Nazi sympathisers before, during and after the war. To be fair it wasn't unusual before the war but it was once the war started and certainly afterwards.

A lot of people, probably including the current queen and her parents, were sympathetic before the war but came to realise what Nazism really meant and turned against it.

granjura - tin hat on again - after the death of the queen more will be written by historians on the vendetta against Edward led by the QM, hell hath no fury etc. And the fears in Westminster of a king who would not play a take salutes, cut ribbons , sign papers etc game . The fears of a British public who supported Edward both for sentimental and political reasons.

See the Sunday Times (all the same company but pretends not to know Sun) is being deeply hypocritical and plastered offending picture on front page with a story pretending to see the feature as a breach of privacy. I don't know which is worse...Sun featuring it or Times going all faked shocked!!!

I wondered about that as well, granjura. We all know Edward was worryingly interested in Nazi ideals but he was also a fun loving uncle to the princesses so I don't think the QM would have seen anything sinister in larking about in front of the camera.

All that was to come later.

The future queen was only a child at the time but rather disturbing to see the adult future queen mother in a Nazi salute!

anniebach- what do you mean about Edward and being seen in future in a different light?

Exactly- nobody knew in 1933 what was going to happen ... my mother was studying at Munich universita that year, and she did go home early after she saw some Jewish shops smashed - but NOBODY had any inkling of the future.

Gutter Press desperate for sales trying to drum up sales/ controversy.
Sick and pathetic excuses/explanation by ?editor on news first thing - he only succeeded in making himself look a complete a..e

I wonder just how they got the story/evidence and he didn't deny that there was more.

Nelliemoser Surely Princess Elizabeth would have been in line for the throne in 1933. The Prince of Wales was the Heir Apparent but had no children, so the next in line would have been his brother the Duke of York, and his elder daughter Princess Elizabeth would have been third in line of succession. Of course, the expectation was that the Prince of Wales would marry and that his children would shunt his brothers and his brothers' families further down the line to the point of irrelevance.

It's a huge fuss about nothing, and typical of that newspaper.... if it can call itself a newspaper. I hate that rag and never read it.

I am sure I heard about the existence of this piece of film a good few years ago.

I did not see the point in publishing this. Edward was known for being an odd ball and the black sheep of eth family.
As Anno says Princess Elizabeth was not even in line for the throne at the time.

Given the loyalty and tencacity shown by George V1 and his family during the war and their decision to stay in England during the war no one can possibly say they were not fully loyal, it must also have been a very good morale booster.
It was all before my time but I can see why George and the QM were so popular. You would have probably had to have been there at the time to understand how important that action was to the beleaguered Brits.

The Sun is gutter press - that is all.

Ricky Gervaise is saying on facebook that all the Queen did was a Nazi salute when, at seven years old, he actually looked like Hitler!

History will show Edward in a different light

Just shows how lucky we were having George VI for a king and not his childish eldest brother.

As jbf says, HM was SIX. The Sun is a disgusting rag.
Maybe the country was lucky that dodgy Uncle David found Wallis Simpson more important than ruling us.

OMG! And then Harry goes and dresses up as a Nazi for that party! There's no hope for them!

It looked to me as though they were fooling around, taking the mick, for a private film, not giving a serious Nazi salute. Perhaps the QM was joking with whoever was filming (her husband?) about her brother-in-law's interest in the party? They were all walking in a row, which could have triggered someone to say "You look like Germans"? She was always said to have a sharp sense of humour.

Trust the Sun to dig it up and use it to sell papers.

Of course, you can't blame the 6/7 year old Queen.

I think it's weird. I don't like it at all. It could show the Queen Mother up as a shallow and silly individual. Perhaps that is really what all the Windsors are.

Apparently it makes a difference whether the video was shot in '33 or '34. By '34 people had a good idea what the Nazis were about. (so I heard on Today)

The idiot from the Sun defended the publication of this picture (and where on earth did they get it from?) by stating unironically that it was of 'historical importance'....I was screaming at the TV.....just ask him 'on what grounds?'. Its a private picture.....from another lifetime ago....you need to very carefully justify such a statement before you use it. Any historian would have torn his to shreds on simply academic grounds that the argument does not stand up!

Any road up.....before I waste any time and effort on this idiotic so called newspaper....we should have a thread....'Daft things I did aged 6'....and (irony symbol required here) what is really means about me!!!!

I have overheard kids calling me Hitler a few times when I was a teacher. Never caught them doing the salute, though.
I used to tell them I had the same birthday as Hitler, and some of them even used the library to find out.

I confess , after the war when we knew of the horrors which had taken place, my sisters and I use to stand in a row - four of us - and give that salute after a lecture on the state of our bedrooms given us by our mother, it was a joke ,one sister was three years old when she joined us three older one's , this was the fifties.