LONDON — Buckingham Palace expressed its disappointment 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 newspaper, 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 film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from Her Majesty’s personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner,” the palace said.
The images, posted on the newspaper’s website under the headline “Their Royal Heilnesses,” shows the young girls prancing on the grass. A dog runs underfoot. The girls jump up and down.