Posted on 03/25/2006 3:11:13 PM PST by freedom44
Prince Philip has broken a 60-year public silence about his family's links with the Nazis.
In a frank interview, he said they found Hitler's attempts to restore Germany's power and prestige 'attractive' and admitted they had 'inhibitions about the Jews'.
The revelations come in a book about German royalty kowtowing to the Nazis, which features photographs never published in the UK.
They include one of Philip aged 16 at the 1937 funeral of his elder sister Cecile, flanked by relatives in SS and Brownshirt uniforms.
One row back in the cortege in Darmstadt, western Germany, was his uncle, Lord Mountbatten, wearing a Royal Navy bicorn hat.
Another picture shows his youngest sister, Sophia, sitting opposite Hitler at the wedding of Hermann and Emmy Goering.
Explaining the attraction of the Nazis, 84-year-old Prince Philip told an American academic: "There was a great improvement in things like trains running on time and building. There was a sense of hope after the depressing chaos of the Weimar Republic.
"I can understand people latching on to something or somebody who appeared to be appealing to their patriotism and trying to get things going. You can understand how attractive it was."
The revelations are in the book Royals and the Reich
He added that there was 'a lot of enthusiasm for the Nazis at the time, the economy was good, we were anti-Communist and who knew what was going to happen to the regime?'
Philip stressed that he was never 'conscious of anybody in the family actually expressing anti-Semitic views'. But he went on to say there were 'inhibitions about the Jews' and 'jealousy of their success'.
Philip was born Prince of Greece and Denmark on Corfu in 1921, the youngest of five children and the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. All four of his sisters married German princes and three - Sophie, Cecile and Margarita - became members of the Nazi party.
Sophia's husband, Prince Christoph of Hesse, became chief of Goering's secret intelligence service and they were frequent guests at Nazi functions.
Philip went on to fight with distinction for the Allies in the Second World War before marrying the young Princess Elizabeth in 1947, five years before she became Queen. He served with the Royal Navy where, by 1945, he had risen to the rank of first lieutenant on a destroyer and was mentioned in despatches.
All of his sisters and brothers-inlaw are now dead but he keeps in contact with his German relatives.
His comments on the family's Nazi connections appear in Royals and the Reich, by Jonathan Petropoulos, to be published in Britain in May.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
Thanks. I was not aware of all that information about his family.
Hitler probably believed that England would be an ally in the war. The abdication of the king probably had more to do with his Nazi ties than his wife's history as a prostitute.
--Churchill, et al, had to cover up his near-treason and ship him off to the Bahamas in exile to save the reputation of the "royal" family--
Am I the only one who doesn't see why this is news worthy?
This is reaching to say the least. Were Prince Phillip of Greece and Lord Louis Mountbatten (to give them their titles at the time) not supposed to attend the funeral of their sister and niece?
In 1937 WW II as two years away. Diplomatic protocol required people at funerals to be there with odious people from other countries.
Maybe reading Mein Kampf might have given the Prince an idea where Hitler was headed.
Neville Chamberlain played ball with the Nazis too.
"Peace in out time"...
European royals b*tching about successful Jews. Geez...
They should also mention that his mother, Princess Alice hid Jews in Greece during the war and is officially listed in Israel as one of the Righteous Gentiles. Also, after 1933, Philip left Germany for good and attended Gordonstoun in Scotland, which was founded by a virulent Hitler-hating headmaster.
They were supposed to tell people what to wear. </sarcasm/off>
There were many people here in the US with far worse opinions of the jews and far more admiration for the nazi's.
For all its faults, Kitty Kelly's book, The Royals, does a fairly good job in explaining the Windsor's German roots and the Masterpiece Theatre "Bertie and Elizabeth" does a nice job of portraying English royalty during WWII.
Prince Phillip bore arms and risked his life in battle for Crown and country. That is all you need to know or understand, the rest does not mean a damn thing.
This British hanged "Lord" Haw Haw after WWII whereas there is considerable belief that the US would have let him live if we had tried him on treason (he was an American born immigrant to England who became an English language Nazi propaganda broadcaster in Germany).
As if one needed another reason to despise the Kennedys.
L
Joe Kennedy didn't like the English, but Jack loved them. Go figure. Jack I guess was more assimilated.
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