Murdoch's The Sun Scolded For 'Nazi Salute' Story

LONDON (Reuters) - Buckingham Palace scolded Rupert Murdoch's top-selling Sun tabloid on Saturday for publishing a previously unknown film from 1933 that appears to show Britain's Queen Elizabeth performing a Nazi salute as a young girl.

The black-and-white film from the year Adolf Hitler came to power purports to show future British king Edward VIII instructing his nieces, the current monarch Elizabeth, aged about six or seven at the time, and her three-year-old sister, Princess Margaret, how to perform the Nazi salute.

The Sun published the story and the 17-second film on its website under the headline "Their Royal Heilnesses". Edward also raises his arm, as does his sister-in-law, the Queen Mother.

In an editorial, The Sun said the images did not reflect badly on the Queen and it had published the images to provide an insight into "the warped prejudices" of Edward, who would later abdicate after just under 11 months as monarch.

Edward renounced the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite. He was succeeded by his younger brother, George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth.

Edward, an opponent of Russia's Bolshevik rulers who killed Tsar Nicholas II in 1918, visited Germany in 1937 and met Hitler just months after the Luftwaffe bombed the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War and Jews had been banned from many professions in Germany.

"Edward and a clique of anti-Semitic aristocrats were terrified of a communist revolution stripping them of power and privilege with deadly force, as it had in Russia. Fascism seemed like an answer," the newspaper said.

Open the archives: Experts back the Sun and plead for more Royal records to be released http://t.co/veNfQhbE1f pic.twitter.com/Kcdr2T45LJ

— The Sun (@TheSun) July 19, 2015

A Buckingham Palace source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the image should be seen in the context of its time and that given her young age, she was "entirely innocent of attaching any meaning to these gestures.

"This is a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have seen from contemporary news reels," the source said. "No one at that time had any sense how it would evolve. To imply anything else is misleading and dishonest."