Should Newspapers Print Pictures Of The Queen Giving Nazis Salute?

[Gromit]

Some down market newspapers today have printed photographs of the Queen, aged 7 years old, practising the Nazi salute, in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/11748024/Buckingham-Palace-disappointed-at-1933-footage-released-by-The-Sun.html

Is there a public interest justification for printing the pictures?

Or is it disrespectful to her majesty?

[murraymints]

think there will be a few choice words issued from press office to the editor..quite quite wrong and downright nasty and thoughtless of them..she was a child for goodness sake !

[jim360]

Depends on the point they are trying to make, I guess. With all respect to Her Majesty, this did happen and perhaps the media in the 1930s got things wrong by being as deferential as they were. For example the Wallis Simpson story (apparently) took ages to break over here, as the newspapers decided to gag themselves over it. Which was, perhaps, a bit silly given that newspapers and media everywhere else (mainly the US) were full of the story.

My understanding is that this was quite typical of the British in the 1930s anyway. A fair number of people at all levels of society supported Hitler, or at least sympathised with his views, in the run up to WWII. I'm not quite sure when the turning point was. Possibly when he broke the terms of the Munich Agreement?

[-Talbot-]

Of course...why not?

[douglas9401]

Down market newspapers? Surely arbiters of taste and a barometer on the nation.

Anyhoo, children, even cossetted sponging children either act up for the camera or do as directed by adults.
Not much to be done about it now but yes, it happened so why not publish?

[mikey4444]

It is reported that Buck House is "disappointed" that the papers have reported this, but no sign of any "disappointment" that they did the Nazi salutes in the first place !

[murraymints]

twas before the Nazi "problem" Mike..before Hitler marched through Europe and slaughter began !

[EDDIE51]

Our Royal family were German by origin. Changed name from Saxe Coburg Gotha to Windsor just before WW1.

[murraymints]

genau !

[Zacs-Master]

The Queen, her sister Princess Margaret, their mother Queen Elizabeth and their uncle the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, all make Nazi salutes in what appears to be mockery of Adolf Hitler.

No one at that time had any sense how it would evolve. To imply anything else is misleading and dishonest.

Storm in a teacup.

[Peter Pedant]

Mikey mikey
the essence of historical comment is that

one should look at the actions in the context of the time and not the context now...

so we know now what they didnt - when the Duke of W visited Germany he was lionised and he was NOT shown concentration camps and so on - let alone - "oh look in five years these buildings will be called death camps"

nor even - " luk! concentratie-lager - a hoot invention by you britisher pig-dog schwein-hunden "

[chanel5]

I suppose if the pictures exist there is no reason why the newspapers should not print them. But it would be wrong for the newspapers to try to make something negative out of it in terms of any kind of claim that the queen supports nazism. She was a child of 7 when the photographs were taken. Nazi salutes loomed large in the British psyche at the time, and children will copy what they see and hear. No importance should be attached to it. I would bet there are thousands of adults alive today who, at some time in their childhood, thought for one reason or another it would be funny or clever to do a nazi salute.

[Peter Pedant]

no one has yet commented that the Queen Mum - adult and mother was giving a salute with some enthusiam

The Duke of Edinburgh was educated partially in Germany ( before Gordonstoun which he loved and his son hated ) and " could not give a Nazi salute without bursting out laughing " - his mother was mad by the way as well -and all his sisters married SS officers

[Zacs-Master]

Freddie Starr made a career out of it!

[Sqad]

" In the public interest?"

I suppose that people with left wing Political leanings or anti Royalists will claim that the pictures ARE in the public interest, but I can't see and other good reason.

In the 30's and 40's all kids did the " Nazi Salute" and shout " Heil Hitler."
It was a game....good guys and bad guys, cowboys and Indians, I was at some time a Spitfire Pilot and another day a Stuka pilot in the Luftwaffe.

Not a big deal and can't really see the point of printing them.

[Old_Geezer]

Surely one isn't asking the citizens to be kept in the dark as an elite censors what they are allowed to know ?

[-Talbot-]

The Queen, her sister Princess Margaret, their mother Queen Elizabeth and their uncle the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, all make Nazi salutes in what appears to be mockery of Adolf Hitler.


?

[Gromit]

Edward VIII'A Nazi sympathies have been well known for decades.
So the interpretation that this was mockery of Hitler is somewhat kind.
I doubt it was mockery.

[Peter Pedant]

eddie: The House of Windsor is the royal house of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V by royal proclamation on 17 July 1917, when he changed the name of the British Royal Family from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (a branch of the House of Wettin) to the English Windsor,

i e long after the Gt War started - they say proclamation but I thought it was letters patent. Anti German sentiment got worse during WW1 and not better. First Lord of Admiralty lost his job as he had the wrong kind of name ( er German that is but he wasnt a bad first lord ) . I think people were un-gartered ( o! I say ! ) - and the Duke of Brunswick and a few others were told to go back to being Herr Bally-German.

[-Talbot-]

Worth a watch when you have time.
.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHgtUNVlFJc

[naomi24]

//Is there a public interest justification for printing the pictures? //

Can't think of one. A fuss over nothing.