The Queen and the Nazis

This may be the only time in my entire life I refer to a piece from The Sun, or agree with its editors on anything. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/queens-nazi-salute-footage-historical-significance-sun

If the footage shown denotes Edward VIII, Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the young Princess Elizabeth playing at nazi salutes - and I think it does, because the Palace would have denied it out of hand otherwise, not just plea for time and context - it is historically both important and interesting. What it doesn't do is cast the Queen in a bad light. I am not a monarchist, never have been never will be; but she's just a little girl imitating her elders. That's what children do. It does, however, materially affect the world's view of the Windsors. We have no reason to believe that the Queen is or ever was some secret nazi, but the influences upon her inferred from the footage are very questionable. But is it any more than inference?

I've read some pretty daft indignation, the silliest being that the footage occurred in 1933, before Hitler became any kind of bother to us. Mein Kampf, in which Hitler makes his ideas about Germany, the Jews, etc quite clear, was published in the 1920s. It's hard to imagine that Cookie and Eddie didn't read it. Cookie was a strange one. People have plenty to say about the Queen Mother during the war - 'She could have left Buckingham Palace, but she didn't,' they say. Well no. If this footage is anything to go by, she was one of the safest people in Britain. Goose-steppers in the Palace would have been delighted at this little home video.

Many historians have discussed Hitler's hopes for using the Royal Family in his conquest of Britain; he may have been basing such hopes on sympathies far more real than we want to contemplate. History books describe Hitler as this moody obsessive who could not brook disagreement, a man of mediocre artistic abilities, bourgouis tastes and obvious unpleasant aspirations, exemplifying only the fury of a people smarting from military humiliation and economic ruin. But how on earth did he become so popular among the ruling classes of Europe? A carefully managed stage performer I can see. Popular analysis does not point to him as a personally charismatic man. And yet he must have been...but how? How could they like him?

Edward VIII's nazi sympathies have been widely discussed. What an odious prick this man seems to have been; racist, anti-semitic, terrified that the Bolsheviks were going to take his fortune, of which he had not earned a single penny...I was shocked to read of his fury at the US for getting involved in the war. Seriously, this man cared not tuppence for the lives and deaths of the people who might have been his subjects.

I think therein lies the issue. The footage wouldn't be so shocking if we didn't idolise the royal family and imbue them with qualities they just may not have. Adoration is expensive. We pay them to be totems of eternal Britishness, to exemplify the nation's ideals if such things exist, and we assume that being brought up to the job will imbue them with the ability to do it. Edward VIII disproved that theory once and for all; we were very lucky that he was not our monarch by 1940. And as for the family? Well, apparently the Palace is going nuts trying to find out how the footage ended up with the press. That's a dumb report to put about - makes it look as though they are panicking in case there's other stuff they would prefer to keep hidden. They'd do better to pretend to forget. It may not be prudent to draw more attention to how interesting they were, once upon a time.