There were some sensible comments on BBC News' Have Your Say which deserve to be quoted:
I have been to many a fancy dress party, and have dressed up as Adolf Hitler, Stalin and Al Capone. Please can you tell these people who find this offensive to go get a life!
Paul Banks, Shropshire
All this fuss and outrage is preposterous. There should be no need for a formal apology. It was fancy dress party, plain and simple. Should Christians be offended if someone wore a Roman costume? After all, didn't the Romans feed them to lions? People need to stop being so precious. Let the kid have his fun.
James Castle, Llanelli, Wales
Shouldn't we be hearing an apology from whoever leaked these pictures to the newspapers? Wearing that outfit to a public function would have been unforgivable, but he wore it to a private party. If it wasn't for the so-called friend who saw fit to invade his privacy like this, no more than about twenty people would know about his bad choice of costume, and hardly anyone would be offended.
Kate Griffin, Oxford
If the Board of Deputies of British Jews has accepted the apology already issued then that should be the end of it. However, I suspect many other groups will not be content with a mere apology and will want to blow the issue out of all proportion.
Carl, West Midlands, UK
Harry may have been silly but he is young and entitled to have fun in his young years. It would be good to see his brand of humanity, sense of humour and zest for life copied in others.
Philip Garwood
Prince Harry may have made an unfortunate misjudgement, but what were the tabloid press doing at what was presumably a private party? I'm certain they weren't invited!
Gordon Lewis, Southampton, UK
Leave the guy alone. These stories are promoted to sell newspapers, not for any critical news worthiness. He is young and should be allowed to do things without half of the UK looking over his shoulder every minute. Don't the critics have anything more serious in their lives to worry about? Sad people!
John Turnbull, Abu Dhabi, UAE
The Sun should apologise for printing the picture. He's a young man at a party having fun. Let him live a normal life.
Glenn Johnson, Yapton
A storm in a teacup. Yet again, our over censorious media feeds us an anti-royalist story to upset the credulous tabloid-reading ninnies. Yes, this is foolish from Prince Harry but it is in the context of a private party (do all members of the Royal Family forsake a private life nowadays?) but hardly a war-crime. Please brighten up Britain and do not take everything so seriously.
Mark, Wakefield, England
If "The Producers" is acceptable entertainment on the West End stage (and I loved it although I did think my Mother would have been horrified to see Adolf Hitler singing and dancing after what she went through in London during the Blitz) then I think this Nazi fancy dress costume of Prince Harry's is being blown out of all proportion. Prince Harry is a young man, several generations removed from WWII and a joke is a joke. Leave him alone.
Keith Parker, London
My own additional comments: the people who are getting outraged over this don't seem to grasp the concept of a Costume Party. The whole point of such a party is that one dresses as something which has little or nothing to do with one's real life and may even be diametrically opposed to what one believes in. I had a friend in high school who dressed as Hitler for a Historical Figures party, and he had no sympathy for Nazism whatsoever. The second important point is that this was a PRIVATE PARTY; no photograph from it belongs in the press. It is not as if Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi at a public event. If it hadn't been for some anonymous snitch and The Sun, no one would no about this. Instead it's international Big News--yet another pathetic attempt by the gutter press to trash the royal family.
It's so nice to live in a free society and do what you want. But then again, we all know there is a growing list of words we can't say, subjects we can't breach in polite society and now, it seems, costumes we cannot wear. It would have better to go as Osama?
btw - and just for the record - the Nazi's were evil.
