Buckingham Palace has said it is
disappointed that footage from 1933 showing the Queen performing a Nazi
salute has been released.
The Sun has published the film which shows the Queen aged about seven, with her mother, sister and uncle.
The palace said it was "disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago... has been obtained and exploited".
The newspaper has refused to say how it got the footage but said it was an "important and interesting story".
'Misleading and dishonest'
The
black and white footage, which lasts about 17 seconds, shows the Queen
playing with a dog on the lawn in the gardens of Balmoral, the Sun says.
The
Queen Mother then raises her arm in the style of a Nazi salute and,
after glancing towards her mother, the Queen mimics the gesture. Prince
Edward, the future Edward VIII, is also seen raising his arm.
The
footage is thought to have been shot in 1933 or 1934, when Hitler was
rising to prominence as Fuhrer in Germany but the circumstances in which
it was shot are unclear.
The Queen recently made a state visit to Germany where she visited a former Nazi concentration camp
A Palace source said: "Most
people will see these pictures in their proper context and time. This is
a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have
seen from contemporary news reels.
"No one at that time had any sense how it would evolve. To imply anything else is misleading and dishonest."
'Fascinating insight'
The
source 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."
BBC
Royal correspondent Sarah Campbell said Buckingham Palace was not
denying the footage was authentic but that there were "questions over
how this video has been released".
Media captionThe Palace says the footage has been "exploited"
Dickie Arbiter, a former Buckingham Palace press secretary, said the Palace would be investigating.
"They'll
be wondering whether it was in fact something that was held in the
Royal Archives at Windsor, or whether it was being held by the Duke of
Windsor's estate," he said.
"And if it was the Duke of Windsor's estate, then somebody has clearly taken it from the estate and here it is, 82 years later.
"But a lot of questions have got to be asked and a lot of questions got to be answered."
Edward and his wife Wallis Simpson met Adolf Hitler two years before World War Two broke out
Sun managing editor Stig Abell said he did not accept Buckingham Palace's accusation that the footage has been "exploited".
He
said the newspaper had decided to publish the story because it was of
great public importance and the involvement of Prince Edward gave it
"historical significance".
The then Prince of Wales faced numerous
accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser and was photographed meeting
Hitler in Munich in October 1937.
Media captionRoyal Correspondent Peter Hunt: "Palace focusing on breach of privacy"
Analysis
BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt
It's an arresting, once private image on the front of a national newspaper.
Its
publication has prompted Palace officials to talk about a breach of
privacy and the Sun to argue it's acting in the national interest.
Apart
from the obvious anger on one side, it's striking how both sides have
talked of the need to put the home movie in its "proper context".
From
the Palace perspective this is a six-year-old princess who didn't
attach any meaning to the gesture. Such an explanation doesn't, of
course, explain the thinking of her mother.
Those around the royals are also keen to focus on the war record of the then King, Queen and their two daughters.
What they're less keen to focus on - and what the Queen would like not to be reminded of - is the behaviour of her uncle.
A man, who was briefly King, and whose fascination with Nazi Germany is well documented.
'Social history'
Mr
Abell said: "We are not using it to suggest any impropriety on behalf
of them. But it is an important and interesting issue, the extent to
which the British aristocracy - notably Edward VIII, in this case - in
the 1930s, were sympathetic towards fascism.
Media captionSun managing editor Stig Abell: Video 'should be shown'
"That
must be a matter of national and public interest to discuss. And I
think this video and this footage animates that very clearly."
Mr
Abell told the BBC the video was a piece of "social history" and said
the paper had set out the context of the time and explained that the
Queen and Queen Mother went on to become "heroes" of World War Two.
He denied the video had intruded into the royal family's privacy.
"I
think this is a piece of social history. One of the most significant
events in our country's history, the Second World War, the rise of
Nazism, one of the most pernicious movements in human history, and I
think one is entitled to have a look at some of the background to it."
He added: "We're very clear. We're of course not suggesting anything improper on behalf of the Queen or the Queen Mum."
The Queen was 13 when World War Two broke out and she later served in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service.
In
June she made a state visit to Germany where she visited the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and met some of the survivors and
liberators.
Researchers said they found German coins minted during World War Two in the ruins in northern Argentina.
The
researchers said that the buildings were probably never used by
fugitive Nazis, because they found they could live freely in Argentine
towns.
Nazis who fled to Argentina included Adolf Eichmann and Erich Priebke.
Mystery ruins
One of the coins found by archaeologists
The researchers from the
University of Buenos Aires said they decided to investigate the
buildings because of a local legend claiming they had been used as a
hide-out for Martin Bormann, a close aide to Adolf Hitler.
The overgrown ruins are located in Teyu Cuare park, near the town of San Ignacio in northern Misiones province.
Researcher
Daniel Schavelzon told Argentina's Clarin newspaper that the
architecture of the three buildings differed markedly from that of
others in the region and that their purpose in the middle of a remote
nature reserve was a mystery.
'Incredible scale'
He
said that a number of objects had been found that linked the buildings
to wartime Germany, such as coins minted in the late 1930s and early
1940s and a fragment of Meissen porcelain made in Germany.
However, none of the objects has so far been found to have any direct links to any Nazi officers.
Mr
Schavelzon told Clarin that his team thought previous theories, such as
that the building had been built by Jesuit priests, were "too
simplistic".
The walls are up to 3m thick in places
He also dismissed the local legend that Hitler's private secretary Martin Bormann had lived there.
Mr
Schavelzon pointed to DNA tests carried out in 1998 on a skeleton found
in Berlin that proved Bormann committed suicide in 1945 and did not
flee to South America as had long been rumoured.
The researcher insisted, though, that the buildings in Teyu Cuare park were very unusual.
He said the walls, some of which were 3m (9ft) thick, were "on an incredible scale".
He also said that their location was "completely inaccessible".
"You'd never be able to find them if you didn't know their exact location," he said.
He
said the theory the team was currently working on was that the
buildings were constructed as a hide-out by the Nazis in case they lost
World War Two.
But he said he did not think it was ever used, as the Nazis found they
could live in relative comfort in Argentine cities rather than have to
hide in a remote jungle fortress.
Hundreds of Nazis and fascists, some of them wanted war criminals,
were allowed to enter Argentina by the president at the time, Juan
Peron.
Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer who oversaw the logistics of
the Holocaust, famously lived in a suburb of Buenos Aires for years
before being captured by Israeli agents.
In 2000, then-president
Fernando de la Rua apologised for Argentina's role in providing a refuge
for Nazi war criminals after World War Two.
The
US government has paid dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals millions
of dollars in social security after forcing them to leave the US.
The payments were paid through a legal loophole, an Associated Press investigation uncovered.
The suspects were reportedly told by the US justice
department they could keep benefits if they left the US. Some are still
being paid.
Among them were troops said to have guarded Nazi labour camps.
"It's absolutely outrageous that Nazi war criminals are
continuing to receive Social Security benefits when they have been
outlawed from our country for many, many, many years," said
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
Getting paid:
Jakob Denzinger began serving in a Death's Head Unit in 1942, later settled in Ohio and became a plastic industry executive
Martin Hartmann volunteered for the SS in 1943, was stripped of his US citizenship and admitted to his Nazi past
Martin Bartesch was a guard at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, was working as a janitor when US authorities discovered past
Arthur Rudolph is accused of using slave labour at a Nazi rocket factory, brought to US after war due to technical prowess
John Avdzej was a Nazi-installed regional mayor in occupied Belorussia, claimed to have been a farmer when he immigrated to US
Wasyl Lytwyn served in a Nazi SS unit in the
Warsaw Ghetto, worked as a shipping clerk in Chicago and later admitted
concealing his SS service
Peter Mueller was a Nazi SS guard who came to the US in 1956 and resided in Illinois before voluntarily leaving for Germany
She said she plans to introduce legislation to close the legal loophole.
Four World War Two suspects are said to still be alive and
collecting benefits. One is former SS guard Martin Hartmann, another is
Auschwitz camp patroller Jakob Denzinger.
Mr Hartmann is said to have moved to Berlin from Arizona in
2007, while Mr Denzinger left Ohio for Germany in 1989. He currently
resides in Croatia.
More than six million Jews were exterminated during World War Two
Martin Hartmann returned to Germany in 2007
The arrangement reportedly allows the justice department's
Office of Special Investigations to avoid drawn-out deportation hearings
and expel more Nazis from the US.
At least 38 of 66 suspects who left the US kept their benefits, the Associated Press investigation found.
Jakob Denzinger now lives in Croatia
The entrance to Auschwirz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland
In a statement, justice department spokesman Peter Carr said
that in 1979, the US Congress ordered the removal of Nazi criminals "as
expeditiously as possible" to countries where they would face the
possibility of criminal prosecution.
"Under existing US law, all retirement benefits - Social
Security and Medicare - are terminated if someone is ordered by the
court to be removed from the US," he added.
"However, if an individual renounces their US citizenship and
voluntarily leaves the US, they might continue to receive Social
Security benefits."
