A grainy clip of Queen Elizabeth II giving a Nazi salute as a child has prompted calls to open Great Britain’s Royal Archives.
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Queen Elizabeth II, pictured at the Broadway Theatre on July 16 in Barking, England. The Royal Family’s dark historical ties to Nazi supporters are no secret.
LONDON – It’s just a snippet of a grainy, black-and-white home movie filmed more than 80 years ago, a mere 17 seconds long. But it still has the power to shock. Shot at Balmoral Castle in 1933 or ’34, it shows Queen Elizabeth II, at around age 7, and her younger sister Margaret, dancing and mugging for the camera alongside their mother, Elizabeth, then the Duchess of York, and their uncle, Prince Edward. Then, egged on by Edward, the young princess gives a Nazi salute, as do her mother and uncle.
Obtained and released by The Sun newspaper last week, the celluloid blast from the past caused a media uproar, with opponents of the clip’s publication saying that the queen shouldn’t be criticized for a silly gesture made as a child. That argument is as true as it is obvious. Nevertheless, the clip was a vivid reminder of just how linked by family and political attitudes Britain’s royal family was to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany during the prewar years of the 1930s.
It was probably accidentally released by the Royal Archives, which contain huge amounts of documents and correspondence involving the royal family throughout the 20th century and is a treasure trove of firsthand information about the royals. But for the most part, however, the palace has kept the archives under tight seal – particularly the material from the mid-war years of the ’30s. But the home movie’s leak has spurred historians, media outlets and politicians to call on the Windsors to stop censoring the collection.
“They are an integral part of British history and should be opened” to give Britons a better understanding of the attitudes and politics of the royal family during those years, says Matthew Worley, a professor of modern history at the University of Reading. Both the left-leaning Guardian newspaper and the right-of-center Times editorialized for the opening of the archives.
Fuelling the debate is a new book, “Go-Betweens for Hitler,” by Karina Urbach, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, which asserts that Edward’s dealings with Hitler were perhaps treasonous, and that Queen Elizabeth II’s parents – King George VI and Queen Elizabeth – remained supportive of Nazi Germany at least until Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in August 1939 and invaded Poland in early September, which instigated Britain’s declaration of war against Germany.
Read More – What Secrets Are the Royal Family Hiding? [Article From 23/7/15]
