Touchy subject of Brit's royal links with Nazi Germany

Associated with...related to...married to...behave like!

EXCLUSIV:
Wills must share blame
Wake-up call, lads
By ARTHUR EDWARDS
Royal Photographer

WHY, William, why did you not stop Harry wearing that offensive armband?

I suspect William probably tried to stop Harry, but knowing the younger prince's disregard for authority, he is likely to have ignored the advice.

William has tried to help Harry, but he is away at university, while Harry has been left to his own devices for two years.

Perhaps it is time that Prince Charles appointed an adviser to Harry until he starts at Sandhurst in May.

Harry will feel mortified that he has let himself, his father and the Queen become embroiled in this awful mess.

If ever a person got a wake-up call on life yesterday, it was Prince Charles's youngest son.

Harry, who I think is a charming young man, should face the music and say sorry.

I know he is a decent, kind person and will serve our country well. It would be sad if he was only remembered for a stupid error of judgment.

Say sorry, Harry, I'm sure the country will forgive you.

The Royals and the Nazis

Prince Harry was the latest of many to buy into the seductive glamour of a regime that brought hell to earth.
By Allan Massie
14 January 2005


It's almost inconceivable that anyone in the public eye - even a member of the Royal Family - could be so silly. That will be the response of most sensible people to the photograph of Prince Harry wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy-dress party. The fact that it was a private party makes, sadly, no difference, and not only because, the world being as it is, someone was bound to alert the press. The Prince may not be the brightest of young men, but he should surely have some common sense, and should realise that dressing up as a Nazi even in fun was going to give offence.

And even if he lacks such common sense, surely someone around him should have said, simply, "it won't do".

It is, again sadly, quite possible that Prince Harry knows next to nothing about the Nazis. If you think he couldn't be that ignorant, then you might recall that, according to a recent poll, a great many schoolchildren don't know what happened at Auschwitz. "It's ancient history, man."

Sixty years have passed since Hitler shot himself in his bunker as the Red Army tanks crashed through Berlin. In the weeks and months either side of that day, the full horror and evil of the Nazi regime became undeniable. We have no excuse for not knowing what the death camps were: in George Steiner's words, "the transference of Hell from below the earth to its surface ... the camp embodies, often down to minutiae, the images and chronicles of Hell in European art and thought from the 12th to the 18th centuries." That is the reality.

Yet, despite this reality, brought home to us time and again in photographs, the testimony of survivors, and countless books, films and plays, the Nazis retain a seedy glamour. It is to that glamour, one assumes, that Prince Harry responded, even as equally silly young members of rock groups have responded. There is Nazi chic and it is loathsomely kitsch. Shops selling Nazi memorabilia do a good trade.

That however is not all. It is not just the vulgar swagger of the uniforms, and the crude operatic effects of the Nuremberg rallies, that continue to operate on the imagination of the Western world. The Nazis, a lifetime after the destructive nihilism of their ideology was exposed, continue to be news. Books on Hitler proliferate; he has become, like Mary Queen of Scots, a safe bet for publishers: books on Hitler always sell.

There was some excuse for being a Nazi, or sympathetic towards the Nazis, in the 1930s before the evil of the regime was made apparent. Prince Harry's great-great-uncle, the Duke of Windsor, visited Germany after his abdication, and expressed admiration for what he saw there. While on the throne as Edward VIII, his political sympathies were, as the historian David Cannadine puts it, "certainly pro-German and perhaps pro-Nazi". On that visit to Germany, Windsor was photographed shaking hands with Hitler and apparently giving the Nazi salute, But then Britain's First World War Prime Minister, the Liberal leader David Lloyd George, had also shaken hands with the Nazi leader, and had even spoken admiringly of his achievement.

So Windsor wasn't unique. A lot of people in 1930s Britain thought well of Hitler, the poet Philip Larkin's father, for instance, kept a bust of the Führer on his mantlepiece. It wasn't only clever-silly girls like Diana and Unity Mitford who fell for him.

There were four reasons why some approved of him. First, Hitler presented himself as a bulwark against communism; with some reason for he had destroyed the German Communist Party. Many people in Britain - not only aristocrats but middle-class folk such as Larkin senior - were afraid of a communist revolution. That fear had in 1917-18 deterred George V from offering a refuge in Britain to his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II; he thought such an offer would be provocative. The vast majority of the British people then wanted to be neither communist nor fascist, but, forced to choose between the two faiths, a sizeable minority, here as in France, would have plumped for fascism.

Secondly, it could be persuasively argued, at least until 1938, that Hitler had done a good job for Germany. The Depression of the early 1930s had been even more severe in Germany than in Britain. When Hitler became Chancellor there were six million unemployed. He had put Germany back to work and restored the self-esteem of a great nation. For those, like Sir Oswald Mosley, impatient with parliamentary politics and scornful of what they saw as hesitation and indecisiveness on the part of the National Government of MacDonald, Baldwin and Chamberlain, the Nazis offered an energetic and successful model. When, as king, Edward, visited south Wales and declared himself shocked by the condition of the unemployed, and said (feebly) "something must be done", it is not surprising that he should have looked admiringly to Germany where, very evidently, that sort of something had been done.

Third, there was the terrible memory of the 1914-18 war, the formative experience of two generations - the one that fought, and the one that was too young to fight. Hitler had been in the trenches too, decorated for bravery and also wounded. There was a comradeship of the trenches; hands across the sea. The Duke of Windsor spoke of Hitler and himself as being both "old soldiers".

Moreover that war had been so ghastly that, for years, many were ready to accept Hitler's assurance that he had no desire for war, but wished merely to rectify injustices inflicted on Germany by the Versailles Treaty.

Finally there was, at first anyway, an idealistic element in Nazism which appealed to some here. This is caught excellently in the film Cabaret in the scene where the blond boy stands in the beer garden and sings "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". That his tomorrow would be so hellish was not apparent to all at the time.

We can see now - it is impossible not to see now - that all those who felt sympathy for the Nazi movement, or expressed approval of what Hitler was doing, were deluded - though no more deluded than their counterparts on the left who loved Stalin and spoke admiringly of the achievements of the Soviet Union. Both groups were in a minority even then; the majority in Britain would have said "a plague on both your houses". The glamour of the Nazi movement appealed only to a few. Orwell was right in remarking that the goose-step could never be introduced here because the profoundly anti-militaristic British would laugh.

And of course when war came we did treat Hitler as a figure of fun; as Sam Browne, the singer with Ambrose's Orchestra put it:

Adolf, you've bitten off

Much worse than you can chew.

Come on, hold your hand out,

We're all fed up with you,

Cor blimey.

We're sick of the muscle and the mess you've made.

You've gone and stuck your fingers in the marmalade.

So now you're going to get a big surprise.

You're nothing but a basket full of lies...

Adolf, just you toddle off,

And all your Nazis too,

Or you may get something to remind you

Of the old red white and blue.
This was an inadequate summing-up of the monster, though wonderful for wartime morale. But it is at least a human response, and wholly admirable in its refusal to be impressed by the brutal swagger of the Nazis, and it may again be the response we need to Nazism now.

For years we have dwelled on the evil of the Nazis, and it was necessary that we should do so. Yet in dwelling on their cruelty and even on the hell of Auschwitz and the other camps, we make them more interesting than they were. We may even make them attractive, for only the innocently naive do not recognise the seductive charm of evil. "Why," asked General Booth, the creator of the Salvation Army, "should the Devil have all the best tunes?"

Laughter is the best response to anyone who still finds the Nazis glamorous. As Bertie Wooster put it to the would-be dictator Roderick Spode: "Just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting 'Heil Spode!' and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: 'Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?"

And this is what someone needs to say to Prince Harry: "You looked a frightful prat in that Nazi outfit."

Ridicule. That's the answer. You can't beat it.

Adolf, just you toddle off,

And all your Nazis too.
We're all, as the song had it, fed up with you.

Whatever you do, don't mention the war. Oops!

Prince Harry joins a long list of miscreants responsible for anti-Germanic gaffes and other xenophobic clichés14 January 2005


BASIL FAWLTY

"The Germans", the sixth episode of the hit television series Fawlty Towers spawned a slow-drip of bad taste imitations- though it is considered a classic of British comedy.

The Monty Python veteran John Cleese played the inept and irritable Basil Fawlty dealing with German guests at his Torquay Hotel ("Oh, German! I thought there was something wrong with you") and telling staff: "Don't mention the war."

Fawlty proceeded to mention the war at every opportunity, mistakenly ordering "a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering and four Colditz salads" and goose-stepping around the dining room. When the Germans ask him to stop he reminds them they started it. "We did not start it," they protest, prompting the reply: "Yes you did, you invaded Poland!"

Cleese was recruited last year by Germany to dispel "outdated" stereotypes and foster understanding of their nation. "The whole purpose of writing that episode was to make fun of English Basil Fawltys who are buried in the past," Cleese said. "I worked in Germany last year and found the people wonderful."

PIERS MORGAN

As editor of the Daily Mirror, he had to apologise in 1996 when, during the European Football Championships, his paper greeted the England versus Germany semi-final with the headline, "Achtung! Surrender! For You Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over". An article headed "Mirror Declares Football War on Germany" was a take-off of Neville Chamberlain's announcement of war in 1939: "Last night the Daily Mirror's ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their team from Wembley, a state of soccer war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received."

Morgan was criticised for promoting jingoism - there was violence after the game, including a riot in Trafalgar Square. Morgan apologised.

England lost the match on penalties.

MARK BOSNICH

The goalkeeper was charged with misconduct by the Football Association after giving a Nazi salute to Tottenham fans while playing for Aston Villa at White Hart Lane in October 1996.

Bosnich had been jeered throughout the match by Spurs fans - many of them Jewish - who remembered how their striker Jürgen Klinsmann was carried off unconscious after a challenge by the keeper two seasons before.

He pleaded ignorance. "It was not until the end of the game that I was made aware of the fact that there is a strong Jewish contingent at Spurs," he said. The gesture nearly triggered a riot but the FA fined him just £1,000.

SILVIO BERLUSCONI

The Italian Prime Minister, newly president of the European Council, provoked uproar in the European Parliament in July 2003 by likening a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp commandant.

Berlusconi responded to the German socialist Martin Schulz's reference to his use of an immunity law to sidestep bribery claims with: "Mr Schulz, I know there is a producer in Italy who is making a film on the Nazi concentration camps. I will suggest you for the roleof commandant. You'd be perfect." His comments drew diplomatic protests from Berlin and criticism even from his own deputy prime minister. He refused to apologise.

RICHARD DESMOND

The newspaper proprietor overstepped the markwith his goose-stepping antics in April 2004. Desmond, who dropped out of the bidding for the Telegraph Group when the asking price rose, let his bile run while meeting with Telegraph executives about their jointly-owned print works. He greeted them with "guten morgen" and "sehr gut" in a bad German accent, and went on to ask them if they were looking forward to being "run by Nazis" (Berlin-based publishing company Axel Springer were in the running to buy them out).

Challenged by Telegraph chief executive Jeremy Deedes, he replied: "They're all ******* Nazis," and shouted: "Don't you tell me to sit down, you miserable piece of ****."

Desmond called the Telegraph contingent "crooks, cheats, liars" and disgraced chairman Lord Black a "fat crook". He then goose-stepped around holding his finger under his nose in imitation of a Hitler moustache.

PAOLO DI CANIO

The captain of Rome's Lazio football club reopened Italy's political wounds last week after making a fascist salute during the derby against Roma. The striker, 35, who scored the first goal in a 3-1 win, gave the gesture - known since Benito Mussolini's dictatorship as a "Roman salute" - after the match.

Encouraging fascism is a crime in Italy and the national football federation has opened an inquiry - despite Di Canio's protestations that it was "only to celebrate."

Lazio fans are renowned for neo-Fascism, while Di Canio wears a tattoo of Mussolini on his arm and has described him as "a very principled, ethical individual".

International criticism of 'stupid, insensitive' Prince grows louder
By Terry Kirby, Chief Reporter
14 January 2005


In one of the most embarrassing incidents to face the Royal Family, Prince Harry was under mounting pressure last night to make an unprecedented apology in person for wearing a Nazi uniform, complete with swastika armband, at a fancy-dress party.

Michael Howard, the Conservative Party leader, condemned his actions and said the two-sentence apology issued by Clarence House was insufficient recompense for the offence he caused.

The Prince's gaffe not only provoked widespread anger among politicians, anti-fascist groups and Jewish organisations, but also led to international criticism from Israel's Foreign Minister, Silvan Shalom, and the EU's external affairs chief, Javier Solana.

The timing for the Prince, 20, who is third in line to the throne, of being pictured in the uniform of Rommel's Afrika Corps on the front page of The Sun could not have been worse. Later this month, his grandmother, the Queen, is to meet Holocaust survivors to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In May, he is due to start a course at Sandhurst.

The issue is especially sensitive for the Royal Family, which is closely associated with the defence of Britain during the Second World War. Harry's father, Prince Charles, prides himself on his relationship with Jewish groups. It also serves as a reminder of the historical links between the Windsors, Germany and the Nazis, and the infamous meeting between the Duke of Windsor and Adolf Hitler.

The affair follows a series of incidents involving the party-loving Prince. Palace aides have tried to improve his image by stressing his charity work.

In a statement issued by Clarence House, the Prince said: "I am very sorry if I caused any offence or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologise." Clarence House said there were no plans for him to say anything further.

Mr Howard said many people would be offended by the photograph, adding that the Prince should "tell us himself how contrite he now is''.

Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, told the BBC that Prince Harry had "let himself down".

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, one of the largest international Jewish human rights groups, urged the Prince to visit Auschwitz, as his uncle, Prince Edward, will do on the anniversary. Rabbi Marvin Hier, the centre's founder, said: "This was a shameful act displaying insensitivity for the victims, not just for those soldiers who gave their lives to defeat Nazism, but to the victims of the Holocaust."

Lord Janner, a former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: "What Harry did was both stupid and evil. The time has come for him to make a public apology. I would send him in to the Army as fast as possible. I hope that would teach him not to behave like that."

Stephen Smith, the chair-designate of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said the incident served as a reminder of the importance of Holocaust education for the young. The Anti-Nazi League said the outfit was "grossly insensitive".

Doug Henderson, the Labour backbencher and former armed forces minister, argued that the incident demonstrated Harry was unfit to go to Sandhurst.

In Israel, Mr Shalom added that the use of Nazi symbols was "intolerable". He said: "Anybody who tries to pass it off as bad taste must be made aware this can encourage others to think perhaps that period was not as bad as we teach the young generation in the free world."

Mr Solana said: "It's not an appropriate thing to do."

German social democratic MP Ursula Mogg said: "From a German point of view, it is hard to understand that there can be any circumstance to wear that kind of uniform."

The photograph was taken in secret during a private party in Wiltshire at the weekend to celebrate the 22nd birthday of one of the Prince's friends, Harry Meade, son of Richard Meade, the Olympic medal-winning horseman. It was attended by many of the wealthy young people who formthe so-called Highgrove set.

The picture was sent to The Sun by a reader who alerted the newspaper to the sight of Prince William in a leopard-skin outfit. But staff decided that his brother's choice of costume was more newsworthy. It was reported last night that Prince William was present when his brother chose his costume.

WERE YOU OFFENDED BY HARRY WEARING THE ARMBAND?

Leon Greenman, 94, is author of 'An Englishman in Auschwitz'. His wife and children died in the concentration camp.
The swastika is an old symbol, but Hitler used it. Whenever survivors of the camps see that it gives a little shock thinking about a deeply painful past. I wish I could take [the Prince] to Auschwitz and show him what went on. If you start taking it lightly, there is always the chance it could happen again.

Simon Weston, Falklands veteran

I understand why the Jewish community should be offended. But people are being very, very pious because he is an easy target. He didn't set out to cause offence. He might not be the most thoughtful human being, but there aren't many people who haven't done something stupid at 20. The reaction of the press is over the top. He has already apologised.

Gisela Stuart, Labour MP for Edgbaston (German by birth)

It was very silly, but he is a particular position and ought to be more aware of the implications than any other lad his age. What it also shows is that the average 20-year-old does not understand what these uniforms stand for. But in his case, what you can't separate is who he is. I think in Germany there would have been more of an awareness, for very good reasons.

Lord Janner of Braunstone, former war crimes investigator and chairman of the Holocaust educational trust

It is utterly offensive to soldiers who fought the Nazis and people like myself whose family was killed by the Nazis. I hope that he would not have done this had he known the kind of offence this would have caused. He should come out as a man in public and apologise, not send a statement.

Anthony Beevor, historian

It was stupid, and obviously he's going to have to apologise. The whole thing should not be taken out of proportion. It was a private party, a photograph was taken secretly and then sold, and the media exploited the opportunity. Any comparison with the Duke of Windsor is preposterous. What is far more shocking is that 50 per cent of people in this country have never heard of Auschwitz.

Zeddy Lawrence, editor, 'Jewish News'

We're disappointed more than outraged. We think it's very sad. The Holocaust attacked Jewish people, so naturally we are more sensitive, but we should remember that it wasn't just Jews. We would invite him to join us on a trip to Auschwitz. It would be courteous and right of him to investigate further what happened to the Jews in the Second World War.

Nick Hornby, novelist

The main point about this is Prince Harry's stupidity. He is not in a position where he is allowed to be juvenile. If there is any point to having a Royal Family, it demands being more intelligent. I think some kind of public reaction is required. It would be pretty tragic if no one spoke out against public figures parading as Nazis. The swastika never meant anything other than evil, it cannot be reclaimed.

Katharine Hamnett, fashion designer

He is at an age when people make stupid mistakes. Unfortunately for the Royal Family, it turned out to be a huge mistake. People are still shocked by the swastika because of everything it represents. He is an idiot, but surely he has been chastised enough. He must be deeply sorry already, and you can't let this turn into a witchhunt.

In 1945 Princess Elizabeth convinced her father that she should be allowed to contribute directly to the war effort. She joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (the ATS) where she was known as No 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor, and was trained as a driver.