Why would you bring this story up 80 years on? Not you Swords, but the Sun. The Queen was what? About seven at the time! I don't understand it or agree with it. It's all rather strange and disrespectful.
Big news and quite funny as well. But Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize after that event and so was Stalin
If you want a sense of what Germany was like in 1933-34, and how pathetic the international response to the Nazis, already enthusiastically persecuting their 'enemies' and terrorising their own population, was, I highly recommend 'In the Garden of Beasts' by Erik Larson, the story of the American ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, and his daughter Martha, at the time. That the British Royal family were attracted to this scum at the time (a well documented fact) is hardly surprising, being as they were not very bright and fond of uniforms.
At last, someone is exposing these filthy beasts for what they are. Past and present politicians should be very worried.
I'm sure it will turn up somewhere pretty soon. Either on the internet or on British TV if anyone's got the balls to show it.
If the alternative is a Labour party moved further to the right by someone like Liz Kendall, then they may as well be in power that long. It will rather depend on just how nasty the 'nasty party' get. Don't forget they were only elected by 24% of the electorate - there is no popular mandate for Toryism. If Corbyn were to win, the Labour party would split, which would be a good thing in my opinion.
Good recommendation on Larson's book, and I'll read it. On the current issue of the Sun's expose of the the Royal family, I note that Dodd took up his position in Germany in July 1933. So what he saw, and what shocked him, came after that date (e.g. execution of Ernst Rohm and Hitler's annexation of the SA/Brownshirts). It's important not to view the latest royal video with the benefit of hindsight. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Before that day, much of what he offered was rhetoric - in speeches and Mein Kampf - and street fighting. But once he became Chancellor, he began the systematic purges, at this time of his political opponents i.e. Social Democrats and communists. Jewish people were affected, but mostly because they belonged to political parties opposing Hitler's National Socialists (there was a trend that Jewish people tended to be sympathetic to the left). Dachau was opened at this time, but it mostly housed political prisoners, and although the treatment of prisoners was horrific, it was possible to be incarcerated and released later. The other thing to bear in mind is that at this time, there was a titanic struggle in Europe between the far left (mostly Bolsheviks) and the far-right. Many decent, right-thinking members of society in 1933 saw far-right parties like the Nazis, Mussolini's fascists and Oswald Mosley's blackshirts, as an antidote to communism. And our royal family had every reason to hate the Bolsheviks after they murdered their relatives, the Romanovs in Russia in 1918 (including the killing of children, in an act so savage that ISIS would be proud of it). In 1933, there were relatively few signs in Germany or Italy of the terror that was to come. Indeed, both Hitler and Mussolini received wide international praise for sorting out their public sectors and getting people back to work.
Read the book mate, you may revise your views on the timelines a little. The Night of the Long Knives was in June 1934. By the time Dodd arrived in Berlin there were numerous examples of foreigners (i.e non German citizens, including Americans) being beaten up (and in some cases incarcerated) because they did not stop and give the straight arm salute when the SA marched by. Random attacks on Jews, and more organised ones, were routine - in the first six months of Hitler's government, which still had non Nazi members like Papen and a non Nazi president in Hindenburg, conservatives who thought they could control the Nazis. In fact it calmed down a little later on, but all of the western powers knew exactly what type of government they were dealing with very soon. The diplomats in Berlin seemed very frustrated that their warnings were not being listened to in London, Paris and Washington. I agree there was a significant amount of sympathy for the fascists from the socially conservative, just as there was for the Soviets from the left wing intelligentsia. For many ignorance is an acceptable excuse at this stage of things, but those at the top of government have no such get out in my view. It is a very good book indeed, like all of Larson's stuff very well written/readable, yet thorough - no quotes or opinions are attributed to anyone unless they have a proper primary source.
I meant morally right-thinking people, Strolls, that had seen the misery arising from communist revolution in Russia, did not believe the end justified the means, and thought the far right might be the solution. Most saw the error in this pretty quickly in the UK, evidenced by the fact that the high point in Mosley's career as a fascist politician was 1934.
All the Aristocracies of Europe supported the Nazis at the time. The Windor's had close relatives who were friends of Hitler's although I'm not sure if Hitler thought much of them. Its nothing surprising of course. Anyone who was shocked at the footage must live in a bubble. Queen Elizabeth were only a Lass at the time copying her madcap father so she's entirely innocent. Still, its no harm to see the Fail readers in a bit of a tizzy about Lizzy
George VI madcap? You sure you don't mean his brother Ted VIII, Swords, or one of the Hanoverian Georges?
The point I was trying to make was that using the term 'right-thinking' suggests that you are the arbiter of what is right. Just my dumb pedantry.
Yes, Uncle Edward was a disgrace - he'd get up to bad stuff like teaching his niece the Nazi salute and abdicating as king. Spent the war in exile in Bermuda where he couldn't do much harm
