Buckingham Palace at rage as Footage has emerged of the Queen being taught a Nazi salute

                               

Buckingham Palace reacted with fury after a photograph of the Queen performing a Nazi salute as a young girl was published by The Sun last night. The shocking 1933 footage shows Edward VIII teaching the Queen and her sister Margaret how to do the Nazi salute, in the gardens of Balmoral. The publication of the 17-second film has outraged many across the nation who believe that the Queen cannot be held responsible for her actions as a girl playing with her family. Last night Buckingham Palace slammed The Sun, saying:
'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.' A Palace spokesman added, 'the Queen and her family's service and dedication to the welfare of this nation during the war, and the 63 years The Queen has spent building relations between nations and peoples speaks for itself.'

As the controversial footage spread on the internet, many reacted with horror, believing that its release was wholly inappropriate.

Barbara Keeley MP, a Labour politician representing Worsley and Eccles South, retweeted a message which said: 'Hey @TheSun, if you want to stir up some moral outrage about a misjudgement in history, look a bit closer to home.'

The tweet included an image of the Sun's controversial 1989 front page which criticised Liverpool fans during the Hillsborough disaster.

Angela Jariwala tweeted: 'Great! Enough b***** hatred in the world and you go and use this picture to incite more of it. Cheers.'

Josh Cook added: 'Horrible journalism. Pre-World War Two, before anybody knew anything about Nazi behaviour. Totally taken out of context.' 

Matt SW added: 'All this "Queen does the Nazi salute" thing is ridiculous. She was 7. Are we really judging people based on what they did when they were 7?'

The leaked footage is the only pictorial evidence of Edward VIII doing the Nazi gesture, but he is also known to have performed it at other times.  

Questions will be raised about exactly how the footage was obtained and leaked it to the media.

The Palace is expected to look into whether a crime has been committed in the leaking of the film, which belongs to the royal family.  

Edward VIII, faced numerous accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser, abdicated in 1936 less than a year after becoming King to marry Wallis Simpson.

He once gave a Nazi salute to Hitler and claimed he was 'not a bad chap'.