The Sun Newspaper's "Nazi Salute" Publication (and Response): July 2015


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The Sun had published this video anyway, but is there really someone who believes that they would have gone with that font page if the Queen / Princess Elizabeth had not been in it.
 
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The Sun's story is insulting to The Queen, but even more so I feel like it's incredibly disrespectful to the memory of the victims of the Holocost and all of Hitler's purges. There isn't any inherent value to these images - they were taken out of context and published for their shock value alone. It trivializes and cheapens one of the great tragedies of modern times.
 
i do hope the Sun gets sued following a full investigation of how this footage came to be in their hands. How can it have legitimately been theirs to publish and exploit for their own reasons?

Did the Queen or any member of the royal family offer the film to them? Of course not! Therefore it must have come into the Sun's hands by some illegitimate means.

The few seconds on the reel has either been copied from the archives by someone at Buckingham Palace IMO, or the reel itself was lent to an organisation like the BBC and then copied.

The bottom line is, this piece of film is the Queen's private property. It's not the Sun's in any way, shape or form. Therefore it's up to the Sun to provide an explanation of how they got it, if they can!

The Sun's editorial staff are complete hypocrites! 'The Queen, the Queen Mother, Margaret are in no way to blame, it was Edward we were aiming for' they squeal. Well, in that case why were the Queen and her mother and sister featured on the front page, with blaring headlines?

Wasn't it a Sun editor in the 1980's who boasted about never letting the facts get in the way of a good story?
 
I feel so horribly for the Queen. It seems to me this has been coming on all week-first Phillip's comments, which are no surprise at any given time (he's a harmless old man with a wicked sense of sarcastic humor) but the media brought attention to it this last week.
Then this.
A part of me feels that with the coming of this September, when the Queen will become the longest reigning monarch, some would like no better than to kill her with a heart attack before that can happen....ruin and humiliate her. It makes me very angry.
I hope those responsible pay a heavy price.


I really don't think anyone is trying to kill her by making her have a heart attack !!! Let's wait and see the who where and when of the Sun getting it


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Given the furor over the "Nazi" story, I think Rupert Murdoch is going to look at the long term danger to the bottom line and throw someone under the bus, namely the reporter who wrote the story and the editor who signed off on it.

Murdoch is such a shameless sleaze, I doubt he'll do anything about it unless he's legally required to do so. His media holdings are so vast that I doubt this story will make much of an impact (though, oh, how I'd love to be proven wrong!). Murdoch also cozies up to politicians of most major political parties, so he's very carefully built a powerful news empire that would be hard to dismantle. Given that that the phone hacking scandal and resulting investigations (which affected a heck of a lot of people, including politicians) really didn't end up damaging him/his empire too much, I don't think a story about the Queen is going to slow him down much. It's all so very unfortunate on so many levels.
 
i do hope the Sun gets sued following a full investigation of how this footage came to be in their hands. How can it have legitimately been theirs to publish and exploit for their own reasons?

Did the Queen or any member of the royal family offer the film to them? Of course not! Therefore it must have come into the Sun's hands by some illegitimate means.

The few seconds on the reel has either been copied from the archives by someone at Buckingham Palace IMO, or the reel itself was lent to an organisation like the BBC and then copied.

The bottom line is, this piece of film is the Queen's private property. It's not the Sun's in any way, shape or form. Therefore it's up to the Sun to provide an explanation of how they got it, if they can!

The Sun's editorial staff are complete hypocrites! 'The Queen, the Queen Mother, Margaret are in no way to blame, it was Edward we were aiming for' they squeal. Well, in that case why were the Queen and her mother and sister featured on the front page, with blaring headlines?

Wasn't it a Sun editor in the 1980's who boasted about never letting the facts get in the way of a good story?
Excellent points Curryong. Like everyone has pointed out I'd like to know who was able to get their hands on HM's personal property?
 
Thanks for that, Royal Norway. I had a memory spasm! Anyway, those headlines are just typical of the Sun. If the Daily Fail is like a dippy old great aunt who forgets facts, the Sun resembles an aggressive and loud neighbour from hell.
 
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Well, the palace is launching an investigation, so they'll get to the bottom of things.
 
Perhaps some royal household employee stole the film decades ago. It's only 17 seconds- perhaps the rest of the film would have revealed that something else was going on- exercise, dance, performance of some sort. It really doesn't look very much like a nazi salute.
 
It does not look like a salute of any kind. The Queen raises her straight up and then bends it. The Queen Mother is waving.

Raising an arm as a greeting is done by everyone including several POTUS.
It is just a form of 'hello'.

The Queen's hand is just raised and instantly dropped it is not salute.

The video shows the Queen playing with her dog. Clearly someone comes and she gets up and waves. Princess Margaret waves with one hand then two hands and then jumps up and down waving with both hands with Edward tickling her while her helping her wave.

The Queen Mother continues to wave. Then they raise their hands as if someone said 'Who wants ice cream?'
 
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The movie is supposed to be from 1933 or 1934, i.e shortly after Hitler came to power. Saying, however, that people at that time could not foresee what nazism would become is NOT a valid excuse. While I acknowledge no one at the time could have predicted the scale for example of the Holocaust, it is also true that Nazi ideology and methods were well-known by the time Hitler rose to power (Mein Kampf was written in the 1920s and stormtroopers and intimidatiion were standard Nazi practices before the party was in government).

Besides, fascism itself was an authoritarian and undemocratic form of state organization. Mussolini had been a dictator for over 10 years in Italy by 1933 and, after the Enabling Act in Germany, Hitler had banned all other political parties and turned parliament into a symbolic rubber-stamper. There is NO WAY an educated person with genuine liberal convictions ( in the Anglo-Saxon tradition) would mistake fascism just as a movement for " order and discipline" .

Yes, communism was probably the biggest fear of the Western elites in the 1930s, but what sets Britain, the US, Scandinavia or tbe Benelux countries apart from Germany, Italy, Spain or others is precisely that, instead of turning to fascism as a response to the Depression and the threat of communism, they stuck to their own liberal democratic values. Much has been said about Fascist movements in Britain in the 30s, but the historic fact is that fascism, às a political movement, never enjoyed great electoral success in the UK. Personally, I'm glad though that Edward VIII was not the King in the course of WWii. Although he probably could not have prevented Britain from going into war in 1939, he could have been a factor in pushing for an armistice in 1940.

That's an interesting view you present.

I'm afraid I have a less positive of how deeply rooted the democracies really were around WWII. In fact most of the democracies back then were only about two or three generations old. And if we consider women's right to vote as well as the poor, the democracies were on average only true democracies for less than a generation.
In fact I can easily imagine Britain becoming more totalitarian after a peace in 1940 or even 1941 - or just as bad becoming Communist.
It was the chaos and the political mess, reinforced by the fear of Communism that allowed the Nazis to come into power in Germany as well as Italy before that, and later Spain. Poland was on the verge of becoming outright fascist.

It is interesting to speculate whether Adolf Hitler and his party would have survived politically for long had Hindenburg lived just a few years longer. Hindenburg had almost saintly status and in a way he was a substitute Kaizer. From all accounts he loathed Hitler. Wonder if Hindenburg could have blocked Hitler, had he lived just a little longer?

As for the Scandinavian countries. Well, they had become Social Democrat and that suited the tribal mentality there well. In fact we are basically still social democrat societies regardless of what political constellation is in power. But Scandinavia would nevertheless IMO have had very good reason to fear a Communist takeover.

As for USA, well, there are IMO at least two, perhaps three occasions where USA could have become more or less totalitarian.
After the Revolution, where it was considered to appoint a kind of king and where the situation, politically and economically was unstable.
After the end of the US Civil War, where general Lee spoke against the south fighting on in a kind of guerrilla war, that would have required brutal means to suppress. (Remember that the Union was perfectly capable and willing to be very brutal. See Sherman's march to Atlanta).
And perhaps during the late 1950's if McCarty had been more bright and had a wider public appeal, perhaps reinforced by the troubles during the 1960's. The atmosphere was certainly ripe for a "strong hand" to take charge.

So the risk of extremists taking over is very real! Everywhere. - Right now it happens in the Muslim countries.
 
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I'm afraid it does look like a Nazi salute to me, involving the two adults and young Elizabeth. However, I don't believe for one second they are being serious. They're parodying a gesture that many Britons in 1933 thought was ridiculous. In other words they are having a bit of fun.
 
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The video shows the Queen playing with her dog. Clearly someone comes and she gets up and waves. Princess Margaret waves with one hand then two hands and then jumps up and down waving with both hands with Edward tickling her while her helping her wave.

The Queen Mother continues to wave. Then they raise their hands as if someone said 'Who wants ice cream?'


It is the Nazi salute pretending it's not doesn't help the situation. We can see it plainly the Queen Mother starts it and encourages the others. The question is where it's come from and is there more to come.

The movie is supposed to be from 1933 or 1934, i.e shortly after Hitler came to power. Saying, however, that people at that time could not foresee what nazism would become is NOT a valid excuse. While I acknowledge no one at the time could have predicted the scale for example of the Holocaust, it is also true that Nazi ideology and methods were well-known by the time Hitler rose to power (Mein Kampf was written in the 1920s and stormtroopers and intimidatiion were standard Nazi practices before the party was in government).

Besides, fascism itself was an authoritarian and undemocratic form of state organization. Mussolini had been a dictator for over 10 years in Italy by 1933 and, after the Enabling Act in Germany, Hitler had banned all other political parties and turned parliament into a symbolic rubber-stamper. There is NO WAY an educated person with genuine liberal convictions ( in the Anglo-Saxon tradition) would mistake fascism just as a movement for " order and discipline" .

Yes, communism was probably the biggest fear of the Western elites in the 1930s, but what sets Britain, the US, Scandinavia or tbe Benelux countries apart from Germany, Italy, Spain or others is precisely that, instead of turning to fascism as a response to the Depression and the threat of communism, they stuck to their own liberal democratic values. Much has been said about Fascist movements in Britain in the 30s, but the historic fact is that fascism, às a political movement, never enjoyed great electoral success in the UK. Personally, I'm glad though that Edward VIII was not the King in the course of WWii. Although he probably could not have prevented Britain from going into war in 1939, he could have been a factor in pushing for an armistice in 1940.


Excellent post
 
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It doesn't mean that the Queen Mother was any kind of Nazi sympathiser however. As I've said, I think they were parodying the salute. If the royal family was filmed performing the Heil Hitler salute in 1940 or 1943 it would be a different matter. Nobody can question the Queen Mother's patriotism and commitment to Britain and its people during the war years.
 
I really don't think anyone is trying to kill her by making her have a heart attack !!! Let's wait and see the who where and when of the Sun getting it


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Isn't it still legally treason to envision /talk about the death of HM THE QUEEN ? Ijs


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If its one thing Politicians are afraid of its PUBLIC OPINION. So I do wish the Public are behind HM all the way with this. I would like to see the Downfall of Murdoch once and for all.
 
Isn't it still legally treason to envision /talk about the death of HM THE QUEEN ? Ijs


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I don't know why you quote me it wasn't me who was suggesting it


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Far from being a Hitler Sieg Heil, the gesture she was actually making was a playful royal wave.

Stills from the 17-second silent film, made in 1933, show Prince Edward, the Queen Mother, the six-year-old future Queen and her three-year-old sister, Princess Margaret, playing in the gardens at Balmoral.

An expert lip reader has examined the footage and has been able to recount the exact words used, which completely vindicate the Royals.

“This film is definitely not about Nazi salutes,” said Jessica Rees.

“The Queen Mother and Prince Edward are encouraging the children to wave – the Queen then encourages her sister, Margaret, to wave.”

On the film Princess Margaret says, “Oh la la la la la la,” as she sings and dances around.

Her mother says: “Oh look darlings, there she is!” referring to someone out of shot.

Prince Edward says: “Yes, yes, come on, come on, give her a wave.”

Princess Elizabeth shouts to Princess Margaret: “Wave! Wave! Hellooooo.”
More: The truth is uncovered on the Queen's 'Nazi salute' as a child | UK | News | Daily Express
 
I was talking this over with my Mother [who was born in 1930]

She recalls that , at school EVERYONE, goosestepped, 'heil hitlered' and made 'moustaches' on their faces with two fingers.. It was part of play, and is a very characteristic British trait [to ridicule the self important, and thus defuse their power].

40 years after the war we schoolboys were STILL singing 'Hitler has only got one ball... the other is at the Albert Hall' etc, etc., to the tune of 'Colonel Bogey's March'.

The Sun has done itself NO favours in this affair, and the public here are [rightly] repelled by their conduct.
 
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^Perhaps then, the editors at the Sun could consult this lady themselves and then publicly apologise to the Queen for that headline.

Will never happen. The Sun has got everyone's panties in a twist and made money out of publishing this crap and are now cackling with glee.
 
Queen breaks cover for the first time since Nazi salute pictures in The Sun | Daily Mail Online

Was THAT Nazi salute filmed by the Queen's own father? | Daily Mail Online

THIS is the image of our Queen in wartime that will outlive her Nazi salute | Daily Mail Online

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/07/19/00/2AA89B4B00000578-3166768-image-a-54_1437263459934.jpg

It is a quite compelling image. A smiling Queen Mother, her right arm raised in the Nazi salute. Behind, three-year-old Princess Margaret is held by a grinning Edward, Prince of Wales.

It is 1933, the year of Nuremberg, when Hitler seized power as Chancellor of the Third Reich and the Nazi greeting became infamous round the world.

Yet it is the sharp Hitler salute from the girl at the centre of the frame, seven-year-old Princess Elizabeth, now Her Majesty the Queen, that makes the pictures published yesterday seem so truly shocking. The worldwide attention they have received is understandable.

For all that, I do not believe there will be any lasting resonance, however sensational they might seem now – and this is because the darker message some claim for them has been so comprehensively outshone by the decades of hard work carried out by that earnest young girl.

For three-quarters of a century, Elizabeth II has been an embodiment of the respect, duty and determination that helped this country through the dark decades of the 1930s and 40s.

Her reputation, already extraordinary, can surely not be tainted by an 80-year-old picture taken when she was a child.

Other, more appropriate, photographs come to mind: the famous portrait of her as an 18-year-old in the uniform of the wartime ambulance service – hard working, utterly dedicated. It is in its own way iconic.

Then there is the recent picture of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, heads bowed, on a pilgrimage to the former Nazi concentration camp at Belsen, an important counterpoint.

It is not that pictures or images of this sort should be suppressed, nor that there is any true risk that the furore will dim the bright star of the Queen and her reputation. But it is, perhaps, an unkind way to treat a woman in her ninth decade.
 
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I sincerely hope Her Majesty has been told about the support been receiving worldwide! And her serene smile might be a proof of that!
 
I saw that photo in the news. What is anyone supposed to think? Personally as silly as it is to say, it is a tabloid, no one takes them very seriously. My days as a child I heard stories about WW2, no details mind you, just that there was a war and how America was during those days. How the Great Depression was so horrible. Dare I say what side was chosen in the family or mention any affiliations, but, I learned that people did what they had to to survive during those times, they fought for who they had to whatever side they found themselves in. They weren't the bad guys. Come on now, see how easy prejudice can form even just reading a sentence with little information. Of course later as the history unfolded in class I learned just how horrible the war itself was. The poor Jews and how they suffered horribly, later Hitler's book was something that was discussed and he was really kind of unhinged in the mind to say the least. What a miserable time for so many, very sad. Sure, I see the picture of the Sun's and I wonder, exactly, what was that about? Sure I am confused as to why she is doing that, but it might not be a Nazi salute. Perhaps she is raising her hand to ask a question as school children were taught to do. From what I have seen in the news about it, the child was just learning and trying to build positive world relations . Then the news goes on about the prejudices Edward had, but, really, those were the days when things were quite different. How can anyone not in their 90's be expected to understand it even? It is a bit of history not explained in full context therefore not exactly educational, but instead something that can be understood as not condoned by the palace.
 
I was talking this over with my Mother [who was born in 1930]

She recalls that , at school EVERYONE, goosestepped, 'heil hitlered' and made 'moustaches' on their faces with two fingers.. It was part of play, and is a very characteristic British trait [to ridicule the self important, and thus defuse their power].

40 years after the war we schoolboys were STILL singing 'Hitler has only got one ball... the other is at the Albert Hall' etc, etc., to the tune of 'Colonel Bogey's March'.

The Sun has done itself NO favours in this affair, and the public here are [rightly] repelled by their conduct.

lol. Almost everyone joked about hitler who was in their 60's with their 40ish offspring in my family or so when I was a child. Me, I never understood it and thought it was such a bigot thing to do, always wanting to go outside and play, doing just that when I got a chance, basically unsupervised catching small scaled and sometimes feathered woodland creatures and strange bugs, running around the neighborhood petting strange stray animals. Those members of the family who played like they were hitler are gone now of course and I look back at those days and still blame the alcohol they drank to talk about the war and old times they shared thankful I didn't get rabies or in trouble for picking strange flowers. They never explained to me what that mimic hitler and hitler's nazi over a drink thing was while talking about the days when the war was happening and those in the family I'd never met, just explaining to me I was too young to understand. I guess it's kind of an alice in wonderland kind of a theme going. The preying mantis and anole lizards made more sense and literal baseball games with the neighborhood boys throwing, catching and hitting the baseball. Now, I understand that it was a very old thing pretending the hitler nonsense. Madness.. Absolute madness. lol.
 
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