Harry the Nazi: a defence of the idiot prince

So, Prince Harry, the nightmheir to the throne, has put his intellectually subnormal foot in it again. Prince William’s half-witted half-brother attended a fancy dress party held by Richard Meade, the triple Olympic gold medallist (1968 & 1972), and his fancy dress consisted of Rommel shirt with a bright red Nazi armband on the sleeve. Oh, and he had a fag on. A veritable tsunami of bad taste.

Harry has been drawing a lot of flack for this gaff. Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag, leader of spiritual leader of the Whitefield Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, described the photo of a swastika-adorned Prince as "a most unfortunate gift to neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers." Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative Party (a fringe British political group), who is himself Jewish, said "I think a lot of people will be disappointed to see that photograph and it will cause a lot of offense."

So far, not a single voice has been raised in support of the plonker's actions. However, we at the London News Review are staunch fans of Harry and are ready and willing to mount a clumsy defence:

1. Prince Harry is sensationally stupid. Seriously, the lad is practically retarded, so it’s appropriate to cut him some slack. It’s a small miracle every time he finds his mouth with his cigarette, so the fact that he would put on a Nazi armband and not think – at any point – that this might possibly be a really really wrong thing to do, is perfectly understandable. Questions must be asked of the people around him: his friends, his carers, his bodyguards. Did no one think to mention to the dribbling moron that maybe the pretty red armband with the funny black squiggle in the middle was maybe best left in the limo? Would you blame a coma victim for wetting the bed? No. So don’t be too harsh on Harry.

2. The theme of the fancy dress party, thrown by famous horseman and friend of Prince Charles, Richarde Meade, was – believe it or not – ‘Colonials and Natives’. Oh lordy. Colonials and Natives? What the **** are these people on? What century are they living in? Colonials and Natives? It beggars belief. Why not ‘Imperialists and Nig Nogs’? Or would that have been bad taste? So anyway, a fair share of the blame for Harry’s outfit must surely go to the imbecilic Richarde Meade and his appalling choice of party theme.*

3. Where did Harry get the armband? Presumably he went for advice to his grandfather, who delightedly threw open his closet doors to reveal rack upon rack of Gestapo jackets stormtrooper boots. Or maybe Prince Philip simply slipped off his dressing gown to reveal his own swastika armband, which he rolled off and pressed lovingly into Harry’s upturned palm. “Now off you go, you young scamp, and have fun.”

4. No one seems to have wondered: perhaps Prince Harry didn’t realize it was a fancy dress party? It’s possible he just came on from a meeting, and didn’t have time to change. In which case it is heartening to see that he has developed an interest in politics. An early brush with fascism didn’t do Ricky Tomlinson any harm, so let’s go easy on Harry: he may well grow out of it, and soften in his politics towards Stalinism instead.

5. Most crucially: this was a fancy dress costume. In this context, the Nazi uniform has become a novelty, a bit of fun. This is surely a good thing. It is wrong to be scared of it: if we let the taboo linger, if we draw an amazed breath when we see Harry sporting the emblem of the Nazi party, then the swastika still has its power. So much better for us to think of it as a daft (yet undeniably stylish) outfit in a fancy dress shop, hanging alongside a wizard’s garb, a policeman’s uniform and a fairy costume. To treat the swastika in this way is not in any way to deny the seriousness and horror of the holocaust, but to remove the last vestiges of power from the Nazis. Little does Harry realize it, but his wearing of the swastika is an important political statement: it is the militant trivialization and belittling of Nazism. Mel Brooks should think about finding a bit part for him in the Producers. I bet he throws a wonderful salute.

*Prince William went in a skin-tight leopard costume with tail and claws: a cleverly diplomatic outfit, although one has to ask what the heir to the throne was doing attending a party which had the theme 'Colonials and Natives'. Might it not have been more politically astute to have feigned a headache, stayed at home and watched a DVD of Zulu Dawn instead?

But I was always taught that the sort of terror bombing you cite was due to (a) night missions versus day missions, and (b) general license assumed after (accidental) German bombing of civilians in GB. .............norton

You are correct about the accidental bombing of some British citizens by Germans. The Germans did not intend to start a terror-bombing campaign against civilians. The Germans viewed the purposeful bombing of Berlin by the British as outrageous. After Dresden, Hitler wanted to escalate by using chemical weapons (gas) but even Keitel talked him out of that...........AMDG&BVMH

I wrote the folloewing summary about the origin of World War II terror bombing in the Western Theater for another thread a while back.

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The targeting of civilians as a strategic objective in the World War II Western European Theatre had a rather absurd and tragic beginning.

At the start of the war, both sides carefully avoided civilian centers although collateral damage was seen as an unfortunate consequence of aerial bombing. During the Battle of Britain, during the night of 23 August 1940, a dozen German bombers made a navigational error and dropped their bomb loads in the center of London rather than on the oil farms and factories that they were ordered to hit. The British believed that this attack was deliberate and, the next evening, 81 R.A.F. bombers targeted civilian targets in Berlin. After a few more such raids, the Germans retaliated with a massive night bombing raids on London. Ironically, the switch from R.A.F. targets to civilian targets took pressure off the R.A.F. and eventually lead to the Luftwaffe’s defeat in the Battle of Britain.

After this series of events, the genie was out of the bottle and each side, to the best of it’s ability, targeted each other’s civilian population centers with whatever means were available to it. The Allies firebombed cities. The Germans, never having developed adequate four engine bombers to match the Allied bomber capabilities, eventually resorted to the V-1 and V-2 terror weapons.

Each side truly believed that, by causing massive civilian casualties, the other side would surrender. In reality, conventional bombing never achieved that kind of shock value which was only achieved with the advent of the atomic bomb. More civilians died in one Tokyo fire-raid than at Hiroshima.

After the war, the morality of massive conventional bombing of civilians came into question. It is always easier to ponder such questions with 20/20 hindsight than during the passions of a World War. The British, it seems, did not feel very comfortable with what had occurred. While all other British senior military leaders were lionized, Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris of Bomber Command became somewhat of a quiet embarrassment just as Sir Douglas “Butcher” Haig had become after World War One. Both men were seen by many as having wrought much more death than was necessary to achieve victory.

Did the fire-bombings of the civilian populations of Dresden and Tokyo shorten the war by a single day? Most likely not.

Did the atomic bomb strikes end the war with Japan. Most certainly.

Massive conventional bombing of civilian populations of a determined enemy has been shown to be ineffective in achieving victory and most likely will not occur again. Nuclear strikes, however, are another matter. Hopefully, our progeny will never have to see that genie come out of it’s bottle.

Fortunately, the citizens of Coventry and Dresden are in recent decades in solidarity because of their mutual suffering, even agreeing not to count bodies to see which city suffered most. . .

A "purpose" I have also seen was to use Dresden to convince the Russians of what the Allies could do. By then, the thought was, the USSR could extend its march to threaten the West. Better to fry Dresden, to put the Ruskies on notice . . . [Personally, I don't buy that logic . . .]

In any event, the fire-bombing of Dresden was tragic beyond belief. Thousands of refugees fleeing the Soviet Army in the German east went to Dresden precisely because it was seen to be a "free" city. It's famed historic architecture and the city's decision not to militarize made it a logical refuge, which the Germans did not think the Allies would "sink" to bombing . . .

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