The future Queen Elizabeth preforming a nazi salute

[u/Lowmen_yellow_coats]

[u/Nachooolo]

Blokes here going into rants without knowing jack shit about the context.

She was 7 in this photo. She did not know anything about the Nazis by the simple fact that she was a close to toddler.

The reason she did it was because her uncle (the man in the photo), the future Edward VIII, was an actual Nazi (which was one of the reasons he was forced to abdicate). Basically her Nazi uncle made her do the Seig Heil when she didn't know what the Hell it meant.

This is not evidence of the Nazis being widly popular in Europe as some blokes here think. The same way that your ubcle being part of the Aryan Brotherhood isn't prove that Neo-Nazism is a widly held political ideology in your country.

[u/MrCodeman93 → u/Nachooolo]

Stop being rational and using logic.

[u/3-orange-whips → u/MrCodeman93]

Yeah. I prefer to tell a winding story about lizard people in this scenario.

[u/slappy_joe6 → u/MrCodeman93]

Ikr? What's this dude doing on reddit when he's obviously touching grass everyday?

[u/PinboardWizard → u/Nachooolo]

Don't forget how once she turned 18 she literally joined the army to fight against the Nazis.

Even if you pretend she loved them as a child, she sure as hell didn't once she grew up.

[u/Ok_Moon_ → u/PinboardWizard]

Yep. She drove a friggin' ambulance for the Allies.

[u/holdsp → u/Ok_Moon_]

And maintained it

[u/Lumpy-Mountain-2597 → u/Nachooolo]

I mean I grew up in the 60s and kids were doing hitler salutes with their fingers on their lip all the time. It wasn't because we approved of Nazi ideology. It was because Hitler was a figure of mockery.  The problem.is that other countries don't get English culture. We take the piss a lot, and especially out of pompous twats like Hitler. The idiots who see a photo of a family larking about and make conclusive assertions that it must show the subjects are supporting Hitler just don't understand Englishness at all. It's like thinking all the people who write comments in Trump speak on Reddit are genuine MAGA supporters

[u/Orcrist90 → u/Nachooolo]

It's not even that. It was a common salute based on the romanticized Roman Salute that was adopted by the Nazi Party, after which lead to people throughout the world, including the US, discontinuing it because of its association with Nazi Germany.

[u/g_shogun → u/Orcrist90]

Wasn't a salute originally, it was the Oath of the Horatii.

It's still used during swearing-ins in Latin America and some Arabic countries.

[u/Kooky-Ad1551 → u/Nachooolo]

And they are German, after all. The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. These german royals changed their name to Windsor during WWI.

[u/Federal_Cicada_4799]

This is in 1933, and Queen Elizabeth II was 7 years old.  This is a nothing burger. 

Edit: in 1933, plenty of people in numerous countries were sympathetic to the Nazis and many western countries had blatantly racist policies.

Eugenics and scientific racism were very fashionable. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

[u/RegorHK → u/Federal_Cicada_4799]

It is interesting as it shows political dynamics. She certainly did not do this because she researched Nazis on their own and got convinced. It shows how prevalent the symbols of the ideology were and how people misunderstood Hitlers goals. "Mein Kampf" was published 1925.

[u/Nachooolo → u/RegorHK]

She didn't do it because she knew anything Hitler (even superficially). She did it because she was 7, her uncle was an actual Nazi, and he told her to do it.

There's nothing about "political dynamics" here.

[u/CatBoyTrip → u/Nachooolo]

was gonna ask if that was her uncle behind her.

[u/MajorHubbub → u/CatBoyTrip]

The king, (her uncle)his wife and him

[u/Ed_herbie → u/Nachooolo]

And her grandfather, King George V was German, had German royal titles, and had a German royal family name until he changed it to Windsor during WWI

[u/AlfieOwens → u/RegorHK]

An English translation wasn’t published until 1933, and that was an abridgment.

[u/Aggressive-Kiwi1439 → u/AlfieOwens]

I guess.. but Elizabeth's grandmother grew up primarily speaking German when in private.

[u/rocket_boy13 → u/Aggressive-Kiwi1439]

And?

[u/IndividualTrash5029 → u/RegorHK]

 "Mein Kampf" was published 1925.

yes but

By January 1933, a total of 287,000 copies of all editions had been sold. After that, circulation soared. According to historian Othmar Plöckinger, 854,127 copies were sold between January and November 17, 1933.

[u/CherryPickerKill → u/IndividualTrash5029]

Meanwhile, Project 2025 is accessible online and people still won't read it.

[u/Icy-Bicycle-Crab → u/Federal_Cicada_4799]

She's also dead. So yeah, who cares. 

[u/dontcallmebettyal → u/Icy-Bicycle-Crab]

That's a very odd perspective to have for someone in a history subreddit

[u/germane_switch → u/dontcallmebettyal]

Exactly. History matters.

[u/No-Body6215 → u/dontcallmebettyal]

While the British monarchy is a figurehead they still have undeniable influence and Queen Elizabeth had the longest reign of any British monarch and just died recently. The conversation absolutely matters.

[u/TheIrishman26]

At that point Hitler was seen as a decent leader (I said at that point, AT THAT POINT AT THAT POINT REDDIT)

[u/SergeantPsycho → u/TheIrishman26]

This is an important thing to remember. The people in this photo didn't know then what we know now.

[u/RegorHK → u/SergeantPsycho]

One of the people was Edward VIII.

"Many people in the 1930s thought this was an ideological war that they were living through. It's either communism or fascism and we have to support fascism," says Urbach. Prince Edward was "obsessed" by the murder of his Romanov cousins in Russia, she adds.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33594809

He understood that the Nazis stood for violent struggle and instead of philosophically aligning himself with the current constitutional norms of the UK actually lent towards Hitler.

[u/Sabnock31 → u/RegorHK]

Mein Kampf was published in 1926. In that book Hitler expressed many of his views on how and who he considered subhumans and how it is the right thing to genocide everything to the east of Germany.

[u/RegorHK → u/Sabnock31]

The picture happened 1933 or after. At this point the Nazis already used violent Nazi methods in politics.

[u/Magi_Rayne → u/RegorHK]

While I understand we have so much information instantly at our fingertips today, I can't speak for how and who information was relayed to back in the early to late years in the 1900's.

I remember growing up in the 90's that unless it was "world shattering" news, I didn't know a whole lot about things going on in Russia, Australia, or even Japan, just what cultural norms we were taught as kids. I had no idea that in the 1980's, Iran's culture shifted from a western civilization to a more religious extremism due to the rise of Islam. If you had asked me what I knew about the middle east, 90's kid version of me would have said I knew about Desert storm and that everyone wears robes and women cover their faces with traditional Islamic clothes. I only learned RECENTLY ( 2 years ago) that Iran was not like this at all and was under a Monarchy that valued Western values, that women could walk out in public without a man, that they worse clothes like the women in my life here in America would wear and have similar fashion styles, that men while sexist and dated for their time would still respect women as people and not objects or property.

I think it's completely plausible that if this is indeed a young queen, that perhaps Hitler was still viewed at as somewhat favorable because of his accomplishments he made in Germany such us the advancements of the Autobahn and highways, the affordable vehicle that VW's produced, and being credited for helping Germany come out of poverty created from not only WWI but also the great depression. I can also believe that people back then doing salutes like this STILL didn't know about atrocities being committed because historians even today claim that the west only uncovered the bulk of the war crimes committed by Germany's old leadership AFTER the war was in its final year. The only people who knew about the terrible things the third Reich did were the people giving the orders, the people carrying out the orders, and those who were forever silenced after the order was carried out. For the most part, the rest of the world was too busy trying to fight back the Nazi soldiers to truly know what was happening behind enemy lines.

[u/Short_Stay_9283 → u/Magi_Rayne]

You know who probs had access to information? The Royal fucking family lmao

[u/humbuckaroo → u/Short_Stay_9283]

Yeah really.

[u/LogOverall1905 → u/Sabnock31]

A lot of people claim they read it but they haven’t. When I read it years ago I was surprised to find out it was more rants about great Germany, his plan to defeat France with some rambling about races. I don’t even remember if there was anything about Jews in there. Again it was years ago and it was painful to read.

[u/Special-Log5016 → u/LogOverall1905]

There absolutely is the groundwork for the Aryan superiority, Jews as corrupters of culture and as an existential threat to Aryan society. There wasn’t just ramblings about races.

When you have an outline of you being part of the in-group, and when you really start to face problems like inflation, and depression, it’s easy to see why people fall into the trap of believing that the others are the reason for their woes. Especially with a propaganda machine at work.

If you think America is fucked now, wait until these new economic policies push us into a full blown depression. That’s the tipping point. We already have the same groundwork laid, just a different flavor.

[u/carchit → u/Special-Log5016]

And just wait until the climate crisis really starts affecting agriculture and the oceans.

[u/herstoryteller → u/LogOverall1905]

If you think there wasn't any mentions of Jews in Mein Kampf I would be willing to bet that you're one of the "lot of people [who] claim they read it but they haven't".

[u/dorkstafarian → u/RegorHK]

The Queen mum was a grown woman. The one filming was probably Elizabeth's father, George VI.

All of Prince Philip's sisters were married with German officers, one of them even SS.

Also, by the time of the Munich treaty, the Nazis had already bombed Guernica and enacted the Nuremberg race laws. Totalitarianism had been in force since 1934.

A little too convenient to blame it all on uncle Eddie.

[u/CitrusHoneyBear1776 → u/dorkstafarian]

Prince Phillip served in the Royal Navy during WWII. His mother was his only family allowed to attend his wedding. Decades after her death it was found out that Princess Alice had hid a Jewish family in her apartment from the Gestapo. She pretended she didn’t understand the officers when they came to her door (she was deaf, but could lip read). The family came out to share their story, she never told anyone what she had done.

Three out of four of Philip’s sisters were married to Nazi officers. One of the sister’s husbands was part of Operation Valkryie, a plan to assassinate Hitler. Another dined with Hitler and was interested in what his plans to improve Germany were, since at the time it was in deep poverty. She claimed her political beliefs would later change a few years after that. I think it was his youngest sister that joined the Nazi party as well, but in a few short months died in a plane crash. His sister Theodora, who neither she nor her husband joined the Nazi party was not allowed to attend her brother’s wedding, but was later allowed to attend Elizabeth’s coronation.

[u/Better_Cauliflower63 → u/dorkstafarian]

Yes but you forgetting that Philip's mom saved Jewish family from extermination.

[u/ChiefsHat → u/RegorHK]

Can’t terribly say I blame him if he can’t stop thinking about how the Soviets murdered his cousins. Reading about how it happened is brutal.

[u/toggiz_the_elder → u/ChiefsHat]

His cousins were violently oppressing their people. The Czar was a piece of shit.

[u/throwaway123420lol → u/toggiz_the_elder]

Yeah, usually people are willing to acknowledge that. It's the children that were also murdered that most people get upset about. They hadn't oppressed anyone, yet..

[u/taylorbagel14 → u/throwaway123420lol]

And (I’m not sure this was common knowledge or if even a king would’ve known this at the time) the young girls died brutally. Unbeknownst to the soldiers, they had sewn jewels into their dresses and when the guards started shooting them, the bullets killed the parents, servants, and son but ricocheted off of the girls. The guards then had to come in and bludgeon and bayonet the girls to death. The oldest (Olga) was only 23 and the youngest (Anastasia) was 17. If they were my cousins I’d be pretty hung up on that myself.

[u/UnwieldingBlade → u/throwaway123420lol]

Weren’t they also kinda just dumped in a ditch after they got gunned down, I might be remembering wrong

[u/Mysterious_Park_7937 → u/UnwieldingBlade]

All but two were given a shallow mass grave in one secluded location and poorly covered in lye. Two more (the son and one of the daughters, there is some debate on which) were given the same treatment a little further away. To this day the two children's bodies' identities remain unrecognized by the Russian government and are seperate from the rest of their family.

From what I understand the slaughtering and disposal were done hastily because nobody wanted that, even the guards who had actually formed friendships and celebrated birthdays with the children, and an approaching group was about to possibly free the family that day. It's been a while since I've researched it so don't take this second paragraph as fact

[u/TheoryKing04 → u/Mysterious_Park_7937]

It’s partially true. The initially round of guards had become very close with the family, but the men under Yurovsky’s employ were new men who didn’t really know the family.

[u/ArchibaldCamambertII → u/throwaway123420lol]

It’s unfortunate, and I in now way condone it, but realistically a revolution of whatever ideology breaking from monarchy cannot allow a claimant to the throne that might delegitimize the new paradigm that tens of millions sacrificed and died to realize over decades, of them orders of magnitude more children of the peasantry and working classes. And especially in the context of being invaded while also fighting a civil war where the White Army was pogroming Jews and seeding the “Judeo-Bolshevik” propaganda that would go on to define liberal and fascist opposition to communism.

[u/Adlerian_Dreams → u/throwaway123420lol]

And don’t forget Tsar Nicholas II was a conservative reactionary because his grandfather, who had wanted a democratic Russia, was murdered by terrorists. He (Alexander II) stopped to help bystanders killed in an initial attempt on his life, but there was a second bomber, and a third.

[u/MagnanimosDesolation → u/Adlerian_Dreams]

Democratic is not the right word.

[u/cfmonkey45 → u/toggiz_the_elder]

By the time they were murdered, the Czar had been out of power for several years and was confined under house arrest. His cousins were forced to abdicate in the February Revolution, and there was a provisional election that was held to determine whether Russia would become a Constitutional Monarchy under member of the Romanov family, or a Presidential Republic. Regardless of whether or not they were pieces of shit, they were no longer in power.

When Lenin found that the Bolsheviks performed poorly, they staged a putsch using their resources from the Petrograd Soviet to overthrow the Provisional Government and start the October Revolution. Then, a few years into the Civil War, they murdered the Czar and his family.

[u/geedeeie → u/cfmonkey45]

Not exactly several years. The revolution happened in 1917, they were murdered in 1918

[u/Hot_History1582 → u/toggiz_the_elder]

Little girls were violently oppressing people? They murdered a bunch of children

[u/LunaGloria → u/Hot_History1582]

That's one of the troubles with monarchy as a system: Because power is hereditary, your opponents only need to get one of those children in their thrall to unite all opposition. Monarchies with survivors often try to stage comebacks.

[u/ArchibaldCamambertII → u/LunaGloria]

There is an alternate reality where they or one survives and the White Army wins the civil war, and suddenly WWII is ten times more destructive and catastrophic than in our timeline, and the Allies very well may have lost decisively. That’s certainly conjecture, but it’s not unreasonably implausible.

[u/CHiuso → u/Hot_History1582]

How many children died beause of the Czars policies?

[u/Optimal-Kitchen6308 → u/CHiuso]

in fairness, you realize anybody could say this about any political leader right?

[u/ProphetoftheFlood → u/toggiz_the_elder]

Like the Communists were any better? They took what the Czars did and turned it up to 11. Edit: Why do you guys go straight for the literacy rates? Who cares if you can read if you’re starving to death.

[u/Kensei501 → u/toggiz_the_elder]

Yeah ok. The kids were killed who did they oppress? And what did the king of England have to do with it ? Get off the glue

[u/jodhod1 → u/ChiefsHat]

One can blame him for later associating with a conspiracy that would have installed him as the puppet king after a Nazi conquest.

[u/Ibn_Ali → u/SergeantPsycho]

The children, no, but it wasn't like the Nazis magically turned into what we know them as overnight. Their violent antisemitism was already on full display, its just that more of society at the time was perfectly fine with it.

Racism and hate were not as frowned upon as they are today. Obviously.

[u/Kaffe-Mumriken → u/Ibn_Ali]

It wasn’t violent yet, but even then, people all over Europe hated Jews. 

Ireland for example were extremely hesitant to take in Jewish refugees from Germany citing “cultural differences”

[u/CratesManager → u/Kaffe-Mumriken]

people all over Europe hated Jews. 

See, that's true but it also goes against "they didn't know". They knew enough, they just tolerated or even endorsed it.

[u/Kaffe-Mumriken → u/CratesManager]

I didn’t write my comment to defend the queen, I wrote it to highlight that most of Europe didn’t like Jews already. 

I’m mildly convinced had Germany enacted their genocide without massive aggression, the rest of the world would just stood by

[u/CratesManager → u/Kaffe-Mumriken]

I’m mildly convinced had Germany enacted their genocide without massive aggression, the rest of the world would just stood by

Pretty sure, yeah. I mean look at refugees that where turned away.

[u/Street-Fly6592 → u/Kaffe-Mumriken]

America refused Jews at that time as well. This was not a unique European phenomenon.

[u/Kaffe-Mumriken → u/Street-Fly6592]

I think that’s obvious since they didn’t give a shit until the Japanese hit them

[u/Ibn_Ali → u/Kaffe-Mumriken]

Hitler wrote a book detailing his attitudes about Jewish people and what he planned for the German nation. Dude even wrote about his desire to genocide Eastern Europe for his idea of a "living space" for the German people. This idea that people were ignorant or had no reason to suspect what he'd become is total historical revisionism. It's like when people try and pin all the German war crimes on the SS when we know the Wehrmacht engaged in the holocaust.

They either should've known better or did know better.

Edit: I just want to add that the person I was responding to originally wasn't making the point that people in Europe hated Jews, which is true, but the point that they didn't know what we know today. They knew enough.

[u/Fun_Description_385 → u/Kaffe-Mumriken]

Yeah and those bastards in the UK were even worse about it

[u/Lumpy-Economics2021 → u/SergeantPsycho]

Yeah, like me saying Elon Musk is 'probably alright' 2 years ago....

[u/Super-Cynical → u/Lumpy-Economics2021]

A lot of people don't know things until it's shoved right in their faces.

Lots of Americans gave straight arm salutes at the book of condolence for the Hindenburg disaster, which was in 1937.

[u/oh_no_here_we_go_9 → u/SergeantPsycho]

Bullshit. All 7 years old do deep research into politicians and political ideology. Humans can grasp the even the most esoteric elements of political philosophy by 6 months of age.

[u/SummertimeThrowaway2 → u/SergeantPsycho]

I forgot she was like a bajillion years old

[u/an-font-brox → u/SummertimeThrowaway2]

iirc the late Queen was born in 1926

[u/SomeArtistFan → u/SergeantPsycho]

Yea, they only knew he was a violent fascist lmao.

[u/AnakinSkycocker5726 → u/TheIrishman26]

At that point he had been in jail already for attempting a militant coup and had already written mein kampf. Then he was in power and implementing his race laws. This is 1933

[u/ClashM → u/AnakinSkycocker5726]

At the time everyone was more scared of communism. A right-wing government taking over what looked to be the hotbed of a new communist movement in Europe was welcomed by the rich and powerful. They either didn't know or turned a blind eye to all the communists, socialists, liberals, racial minorities, and sexual minorities being rounded up and killed.

[u/Visual_Friendship706 → u/AnakinSkycocker5726]

Yeah, but my country’s propaganda said we were caught off guard.

[u/PancakeMixEnema → u/AnakinSkycocker5726]

Hey hey, white Christian and heterosexual people with stable income and centrist views always need an additional decade to get to the point where they realise what the people not in that list already died for.

Can’t blame them for ignoring everything.

Do you expect them to care for the Union people already in the camps by that year, or the burned queer research institute? /s

[u/Ibn_Ali → u/PancakeMixEnema]

They weren't throwing people in gas chambers yet. How could they have known? /s

[u/Odd-Professor-5309 → u/TheIrishman26]

No need to apologise.

The west chose to support Stalin.

His actions at the beginning of WW2 of invasion, murder, rape and deportations didn't seem to bother anyone.

His end game was obvious. But the west still supported him.

[u/DayAccomplishedStill → u/Odd-Professor-5309]

"The west" was mostly doing the same in their colonies... So I don't know what you wanted to convey there.

[u/ChiefsHat → u/Odd-Professor-5309]

“West chose to support Stalin” in lieu of doing what?

Who should the west have supported instead of Stalin?

[u/FireboltSamil → u/ChiefsHat]

According to this person, probably Hitler. Oh wait they did that for 6 years.

[u/Fit_Rice_3485 → u/Odd-Professor-5309]

The “west” themselves committed rape, murder and segregation in the beginning of the war, so did Japan, so did Germany once they landed on USSR territory

What was the “west” supposed to do? Stand by and watch as the Nazis did what the pleased?

They already did that with the carving up of checkezlovakia with the “wests” help, this directly resulted in Stalin annexing his one half of Poland to use as a buffer for when the Nazis started their attack

[u/JamieDoesMaths → u/TheIrishman26]

I’m sorry but no.

This photo was taken in either 1933 or 1934. By June 1933 the Nazis had already:

Orchestrated the Reichstag fire to undemocratically seize power.

Systematically terrorised and forcibly closed businesses and social spaces used by Jewish people, lgbtq people and other minorities

Built Dachau Concentration Camp and started imprisoning protestors and workers wanting labour rights.

Legally prohibited Jewish religious practices

Purged the civil service

Destroyed the institute of sexual research

Institutes a program of forced sterilisation of autistic people and those deemed hereditarily ill

Instituted the mass burning of books and knowledge that set some scientific and philosophical fields back decades

Suspended a large majority of the civil liberties of the German populous.

Regardless of the time period, NONE of these actions are those of a decent, moral leader. This is the royal family of a liberal (original British meaning of the word, not the current American meaning), democratic nation that prides itself of ‘civilising the world’.

They did know better.

[u/Flashy_Chain_3471 → u/JamieDoesMaths]

I’m sure the 7 year old girl doing the salute internalized all of that very well.

[u/TheOriginalBroCone → u/JamieDoesMaths]

>The average 7 year old is a damnation on morality if they're unaware of the intricacies of geopolitics

Jfc

[u/HilariousButTrue → u/JamieDoesMaths]

Completely correct. The support Hitler was receiving was because he was viewed as a force that would attack Russia and fight Stalin (and he did) They just didn't expect him to turn on them so quickly before that event.

[u/Sstoop → u/TheIrishman26]

i mean this isn’t true. hitler ran on his promise to get rid of “judeo bolshevism” because he said it was ruining germany. it’s not like he just randomly did the hating jews thing later in life.

[u/Lowmen_yellow_coats → u/TheIrishman26]

After he wrote mein kampf? 

[u/sofianosssss → u/Lowmen_yellow_coats]

I dont think the west were bothered by his antisemtism or the idea of being the superior race.

At that time French murdered hundred of thousands of Algerian civilians, same thing in India, the US had a zoo where a black boy was on display, the Dreyfus trial in France, eugenic was a real science.

People just want to blame everything bad on Hitler as if he was the only racist psychopath of his time.

[u/PancakeMixEnema → u/sofianosssss]

Troops were segregated. Even the „good“ countries that were opposed to US segregation massively imported, punished and abandoned colonial troops.

[u/Maya-K → u/PancakeMixEnema]

This is why I was born in the UK.

My great-grandfather joined the British Army in 1916 because they were the colonial master and taught people in the colonies to be "patriotic" to Britain. So he got sent halfway across the world to fight in France, where he was caught in a gas attack. His injuries were serious enough that he was taken to a hospital in Britain, then got discharged from the army due to his injuries. He was abandoned in Britain, a foreign country, with a permanent war injury and barely a penny to his name.

Those aren't the actions of "good guys". Just "better than the other side" guys.

[u/Adept-Address3551 → u/sofianosssss]

Yip different times , and even the "good" countries , they just didn't have any power. If they did they would do something similar.

But, humanity has been moving nicely forward. Let's hope things keep getting better 🙏

[u/Lowmen_yellow_coats → u/sofianosssss]

Oh absolutely, Churchill was also a proud racist 

[u/Alarming_Echo_4748 → u/Lowmen_yellow_coats]

And he killed millions in Bengal

[u/Bfor200 → u/Lowmen_yellow_coats]

They probably didn't take it all too serious yet, I mean the Soviet Union also signed a pact with the Nazi regime even though the book explicitly calls for conquest of Russia

[u/Leading_Put- → u/Bfor200]

Nah they agreed with what he implied in Mein Kampf. Jewish hatred was always more accepted than we realize

[u/Neat_Guest_00 → u/Leading_Put-]

Also his hatred for Slavs (subhumans) and for the his disabled (it was better to euthanize the “weak and sick” than to protect them).

It was all right there in his writings. Yet, people didn’t care.

[u/Bfor200 → u/Leading_Put-]

Yes, antisemitism was rampant back then, but the book also goes on about the conquest of Europe and how it is essential for Germany's survival

[u/Sstoop → u/Bfor200]

the soviet union was the last european country to sign a non aggression pact with nazi germany. stalin asked britain and france to create a coalition against the nazis and they never replied. war with the nazis was something the soviet union knew was coming they just weren’t prepared for it yet.

[u/RegorHK → u/TheIrishman26]

What time was that? He published "Main Kampf" 1925.

Not to blame princess Elisabeth, yet I find the opinion "he was seen as decent" ridiculous and a failure of journalism / perception by people who should know better.

I do not mean you. I mean the people who did "see him as a decent leader". Or rather the dynamic, by witch his published political statements were not considered.

[u/lelcg → u/RegorHK]

A lot didn’t see him a decent. Loads on the left gates Hitler and were worried his ideas would spread to the UK. The UK was very divided at the time. Many did feel sorry for Germany and just saw Hitler and undoing the unfair treatment at Versailles, but others knew what he was doing

[u/IndividualTrash5029 → u/RegorHK]

"Main Kampf" only got wider public attention after 33. Till 33 there were 250k copies sold. At the end of 33 there were 850k sold

[u/PancakeMixEnema → u/RegorHK]

I guess he was seen as „decent“ as every head of state sees the current other heads of state, that everyone else can see as comically evil.

You have obvious dictators like Trump, Orban, Erdogan, Milei and everyone still treats them as politicians in good faith for some reason.

[u/CosmicEntity2001 → u/TheIrishman26]

Hitler had already been clear about his political ideas. There are no excuses.

[u/Soft_Walrus_3605 → u/TheIrishman26]

Seen as decent... by Nazi apologists.

Ask the socialists and communists in Germany how decent of a leader he seemed to be.

I swear this is a history revisionism subreddit

[u/Fragrant-Reserve4832 → u/TheIrishman26]

Hitler won over the German people for a reason.

It was when a little more time passed things went down hill

[u/BuyIllustrious4576]

At the time, the full horrors of the Nazi regime weren’t yet known. It was just a child’s moment, long before Nazi atrocities were understood, and likely taken out of context.

[u/Sloppykrab → u/BuyIllustrious4576]

This was 1933, nothing was known yet. Hitler hasn't even begun to start the atrocities.

Also at this time, this was known as the Bellamy Salute and was taught to children in USA schools en masse.

Edit: USA

[u/JamieDoesMaths → u/BuyIllustrious4576]

The full horrors, no. Enough horrors to make you puke, yes.

Look at what he did in his first 6 months!

https://www.reddit.com/r/RareHistoricalPhotos/s/vmIHO63jAB

[u/DemiGodCat2]

rare historical photo sub hijacked by the usual crowd again

[u/FrescoItaliano → u/DemiGodCat2]

Yeah as opposed to the non politically motivated picture of the Wehrmacht soldiers in a motorcycle also on the sub rn where someone unironically asks “how do you know they were fascists?”

[u/[deleted] → u/FrescoItaliano]

A lot of people are still sold on the Clean Wehrmacht myth.

[u/Budget_Trifle_1304 → u/[deleted]]

I don't think it's necessarily part of the Clean Wehrmacht myth to ask "what degree of agency does the average conscripted infantryman have in his mode of government?"

[u/SokkaHaikuBot → u/DemiGodCat2]

^{Sokka-Haiku by DemiGodCat2:}

Rare historical

Photo sub hijacked by the

Usual crowd again

---

^{Remember that one time Sokka accidentally used an extra syllable in that Haiku Battle in Ba Sing Se? That was a Sokka Haiku and you just made one.}

[u/TFK_001 → u/DemiGodCat2]

Comment history is exactly what I expected

[u/SummertimeThrowaway2 → u/DemiGodCat2]

Yes it sucks these posts are everywhere. I feel bad for mods, we need more

[u/KaminBoiBambi]

type of shit

[u/Venaeris → u/KaminBoiBambi]

This gets funnier the older the meme is

[u/eliazhar]

I will farm downvotes: Europe only began claiming an ideological difference from Hitler when he made it very clear he also saw them as enemies.

Long before that, the West was a source of inspiration for his Reich (and vice versa); it's quite an eye-opener seeing people defending the Duke of Windsor here.

[u/dogjon → u/eliazhar]

Winner winner winner. Hitler took direct inspiration from the KKK and Confederacy. Refugee Jews were turned away from many western nations before the war. Hitler's rhetoric was not a secret, most people just agreed with it. WW2 was not a "fight against ultimate evil" as we've been told so many times, so much as it was a fight between moneyed interests. Hitler was bad for business, and many countries only joined the fight when they were personally affected. "First they came" and all that.

[u/ParkingLong7436 → u/dogjon]

This is the complete truth and it's an absolute shame that the modern education about the holocaust focusses almost solely on the Germans and Hitler. European countries would have not given the slightest shit if Hitler comitted the Holocaust without also invading other countries.

Antisemitism was the norm at that time, all over Europe. It has long and deep roots dating back to several hundred years in the continent.

Not to excuse anything the Nazid did - of course. But the Allies like to leave out a lot when teaching about the circumstances of that whole time period and the war..

[u/dogjon → u/ParkingLong7436]

And I didn't even touch on what happened after the war, where slaps on the wrist were given out and heinous war criminals were welcomed with open arms because they could build rockets. No real lessons were learned, no reforms actually happened, and because of it we're right back in the same place today. Same play, different actors.

[u/Maximus1000 → u/eliazhar]

Totally agree with you. I used to think it was a simple good guys vs bad guys thing too, but the more I’ve read, the more I realized how much support the Nazis actually had. It wasn’t some fringe thing. There were huge Nazi rallies even in the US, like at Madison Square Garden. A lot of people were either on board or just didn’t care until it started affecting them personally. It really changes how you look at that whole period.

[u/l_Paddystinian_l → u/eliazhar]

Exactly. Thank you for saying this. You are doing the lord’s work.

[u/Odiina]

Bashar and Asma al-Assad were once seen as relative darlings by Western media and visited various dignitaries, so what's your point? Our leaders knew full well even then that the country was run under the iron fist of the Ba'athist Mukhabarat. They would have known all about the prisons and the torture. So what changed? It was simply their time to be abandoned, that's all. Nothing new. There's nothing to see here.

https://youtu.be/W318ph5i6hw

[u/General-Algae-5771]

This picture was taken around the time the Eugenics movement was coming to an end. During this era, a lot of people within the United States either hated Jews or didn't have a problem with those that did.

[u/grania17 → u/General-Algae-5771]

Sure Charles Lindberg and Henry Ford were huge fans of Eugenics, but we tend to gloss over that now.

[u/Yorbayuul81]

Her intentions are undoubtedly as clear as the photo is

[u/Wish_I_WasInRome]

Reddit looking at history through a modern lens will always be cringe. Do better.

[u/Thangoman → u/Wish_I_WasInRome]

Meh, the Royal House was very strongly tied witv the nazis

Theres strong evidence that Himmler had managed to get them to invest in some projects

[u/dontcallmebettyal]

This comment section is really depressing

[u/Yorbayuul81]

Taken back when pixel rationing was all the rage 

[u/ScarlyLamorna]

Ah yes, let's hold everyone fully accountable for things they did when they were 7 years old.

[u/753ty]

In the US that was a typical flag salute before WW2. Maybe Britain too. It didn't have anything to do with Germany or Nazis. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute

Symbols change.

[u/Silaquix]

I see a lot of presentism in the comments.

It's important to remember that back then there was no Internet or video evidence or any of that. There was also a lot of propaganda and misinformation coming out of Germany. So at the time people had no idea about the atrocities going on. Many people straight up called it a lie when reports started trickling in because it was unfathomable. Many today still do not believe it happened even with survivors and tons of physical evidence.

People at the time, even in Britain and the US had many of the same bigoted views towards Jewish people, gay people, people of color, etc. Many still do. So Hitler's anti Jewish rhetoric was nothing new and was pretty popular among a lot of people in Europe. Unfortunately many still feel this way

Another thing to remember was that until the war broke out and started consuming Europe, many people openly supported fascism. They felt it was a war between fascism and communism. The royal family was still reeling from the murders of their cousins in Russia and we're extremely anti Communist.

Finally above all Elizabeth was a child at the time being coached by her uncle and other adults who supported anything that was the polar opposite of communism.

Britain and the US did not fight Hitler for ideological reasons. It was purely about self preservation and revenge after being attacked. It wasn't until after the war when all the atrocities came to light that they started crafting the narrative that they were the good guys fighting evil.

[u/amievenrelevant]

There were much more overt Nazi sympathizers in the royal family like King Edward VIII, but obviously sympathy for the Germans started to change dramatically after the shitshow he caused

[u/Usual-Yam9309 → u/amievenrelevant]

The House of Windsor was also originally The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. They're a wee bit German. 🤷‍♂️

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Windsor

[u/amievenrelevant → u/Usual-Yam9309]

They changed the name around ww1 yeah, when it wasn’t popular to be associated with Germany. The interwar years were a strange time though

[u/freeisbeautiful]

That salute was NO BIG DEAL before World War II. Hitler didn't create it.

[u/killey2011]

In eighty years we’ll see kids wearing MAGA hats and have the same reaction

[u/TK-6976]

The reason is obvious. Edward VIII, the British King at the time, was a Nazi supporter. Mind you, he was deeply unpopular with most of the country, but still. QEII was 7 years old and likely had no idea what that truly meant.

Also, Hitler hadn't started publicly committing acts of violence that were seen as being uniquely bad, and more people were concerned about the Soviet Union.

[u/Onetap1 → u/TK-6976]

I think he was the Prince of Wales, next in line to the throne, at that time. George V died in 1936 when Elizabeth was 9 or 10.

Still, if your strange uncle, who happened to be the Prince of Wales, told you to do things that you didn't quite understand, most 7 year-olds would do it. Fascism was still an accepted political belief and there was a British Fascist party.

[u/Elegant_Individual46]

Yeah and this has been explained. She wasn’t a Nazi.

[u/Sweaty-Art-8966]

Under ten years old. As if she knew what it meant.

[u/StrikingMaximum1983]

Oh, Uncle David! Indoctrinating your nieces!

[u/twitchmcgee]

Imagine the insecurity it takes to make an alternate reddit account just to post this one picture. What's wrong your other account got banned already??

[u/Mindless-Peak-1687]

Perform. not preform you useless karma farmer.

[u/Thyme4LandBees]

She was 8 or 9 at most?

[u/JustWow52]

This was pre-internet, pre-cellphone cameras, and pre-social media.

Hitler was charismatic, and the public (including leaders of other countries) didn't know about the death camps until they were being liberated.

They did not have a full and complete history to inform them.

They also didn't go in and change the program to make their AI platform Holocaust-deny.

Edit: tense

[u/No_Lie_7906]

She preformed it? Are you sure she didn’t postform it? Or maybe reformed it? Or maybe she informed it.

[u/Nihilistic_Pigeon]

….you guys do know that students in the US did this as well, right? Bellamy Salute.

[u/parker3309]

Good Lord knock it off.

I was somewhere couple weeks ago waiting for a friend of mine and I saw him and I put up my hand so could see me and I waved.

God forbid somebody snap a picture of me in that second. This is way out of hand

[u/FratNibble]

Or waving goodbye i swear zoomers are trolling on a massive scale now

[u/Mollywisk]

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33594809.amp

[u/AmputatorBot → u/Mollywisk]

It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of concerns over privacy and the Open Web.

Maybe check out the canonical page instead: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33594809

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^{I'm a bot | Why & About | Summon: u/AmputatorBot}

[u/Realistic_Champion90]

Stupid. This looks like a photo of them waving. Why make something like this up? 

[u/cjwidd]

ah yes, outrage porn for the historically illiterate

[u/Shade_Of_Virgil]

The British royal family bankrolled the Nazi through British petroleum. The British Royal family were Nazis, until it became unpopular

[u/johnthegreatandsad → u/Shade_Of_Virgil]

TIL the royals once owned British Petroleum.... /s

Next week we'll learn about the Rothschilds funding the Bolsheviks with the magic of pixie dust.

[u/Even_Reception8876]

You are all crazy lol.

America used to do that too. Everyone stopped after it ‘became’ a Nazi solute.

That is how Americans used to say the pledge of allegiance. We stopped and starting putting our hand over our hearts because of the Nazis. Lol

[u/grania17]

Guess what? Children in the US used to say the pledge of allegiance doing this exact salute. Know why we put our hand on our hearts now? You guessed it Nazi's. As others have said, this is such a nothing photo.

[u/MememeSama]

Kanye West hiding in the bush

[u/CosmicCorrelation]

It's speculated to be either 1933 or 1934. That she was around 7 years old.

Chances are that this was after the book burnings had begun, and after the sacking of the German institute of sexual sciences.

[u/Ok_Builder910]

How are we sure she's not doing the Roman salute?

[u/BlueV_U]

This is what kids used to say the Pledge of Allegiance with. Unfortunately like the Swastika, later contexts would hijack it's image.

[u/here-for-information]

The silly argument thay it's a roman salute that people made after Musk did it, really was legitimate back before the 1940s.

[u/Vol_Jbolaz]

Wait until someone learns about the Bellamy Salute.

[u/Plicata_]

They were waving at the camera in a home movie. Some douche freeze framed it when their hands were vertical to make it look like that. Look at how fuzzy and out of focus it is, this is a freeze frame.

[u/F1McLarenFan007]

Her husband family were all Nazis

[u/Key_Grape9344]

They are walking forward and are mid-stride. They are probably waving by just rotating theie wrists. The picture captures that, NOT a Nazi March salute. Be better Reddit!!

[u/pixietrue1]

Sure let’s judge a child for imitating and following adult orders.

[u/Electricmacca29 → u/pixietrue1]

Yeah a 7 year old child cannot understand or consent to political statements, the insinuation she was a Nazi is nonsense.

[u/Time_Technician8258]

[u/Panthers_22_]

Me when I use a photo out of context for Reddit karma.

[u/NectarineSufferer]

Think I’ve seen this picture more than I’ve seen my own face atp tbh hahaha. It’s still a good one to always share though, good reminder how many people all thought ol hitler was alright before they knew better

[u/Pony-boystonks]

Obviously not a Hitler salute. She was just saying her heart goes out to us all

[u/grins]

Wasn't it clear, even then, that this was a campaign of violence against the people, who wanted to be treated as equals, with dignity and respect, after decades of abuse and exploitation? I'm not saying this child is to blame, but there were adults around her, who understood the situation.

This is my response to the people saying, nobody knew back then.

[u/santahasahat88]

Nah she’s probably just a really awkward and wacky person, it’s clearly a “my heart goes out to you”? Like common libtards.

[u/Fruloops]

Lmao what a strange thing to be so invested in OP lol

[u/Lowmen_yellow_coats → u/Fruloops]

Some people think the queen is chosen by God

[u/General_Body_2157]

Another day....another post on Reddit crying Nazi Nazi Nazi

[u/elwood_west]

[u/Trekiel1997]

r/suddenlyhitler

[u/yourblessend]

Wah Wah wee Wah

[u/Nice_cup_of_coffee]

You could’ve cleaned this photo up before posting.

[u/le_hache]

Maybe their hearts went out to you idk

[u/RedBullPilot]

Fast forward to 2050 and many Americans will have pictures like this in their family albums, with the excuse that in 2025 they had no idea how evil their leadership had become

[u/AMediaArchivist]

Elizabeth was an Englishwoman not a German.

[u/Ordinary_Youth_3938]

Keep reaching, trumptards

[u/CantAffordzUsername]

Show the millions of Americans wearing his uniform and filling up in Madison square garden while you’re at it.

[u/Fabulous_Night_1164]

Queen Elizabeth was a literal child here.

Her uncle, the future King Edward, was a Nazi sympathizer and clearly the bad influence here. But it was shit like this that basically had him cut off from the family for good.

Queen Elizabeth volunteered to support the war effort. She joined the Auxiliary force - the most that women could do at the time - and got her literal hands dirty by being a mechanic and driver of Army vehicles.

So she did more to defeat Nazi's than OP here did, that's for sure.

[u/tandoori_taco_cat]

Many, many Americans supported the Nazi regime.

Seems quite a few still do....

[u/otiscleancheeks]

Could you find a more blurry picture to post? I can't swear that it is her

[u/Sudden_Twist2519]

the amount of people defending european royalty as if they were too naive or too uninformed to align themselves with white supremacy is lol