Posted on 01/13/2005 8:24:36 PM PST by jb6
LONDON (AFP) - Britain's Prince Harry sparked fury after being photographed in a Nazi military outfit, drawing calls at home and abroad for a public apology from the young royal with a track record of embarrassing public gaffes.
AFP Photo
The photograph, captured on the cover of the best-selling daily tabloid The Sun and picked up by media around the world, was published just a fortnight before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
Harry appears in the shot slouched in the khaki uniform of Rommel's Afrika Korps, complete with red swastika armband, as well as a drink and cigarette in hand.
The 20-year-old was snapped last weekend at a "colonials and natives" fancy dress party also attended by Harry's brother Prince William, 22, who opted for a less controversial self-tailored "lion and leopard outfit", The Sun said.
Reactions poured in from Jewish groups and politicians in Europe and Israel, while Clarence House, the office of Harry's father Prince Charles, insisted that an initial written apology made by the younger prince was sufficient.
"I am sorry if I cause any offence or embarrassment to anyone," said Harry in the statement released late Wednesday.
"It was a poor choice of costume and I apologise."
The terse apology failed to stem a wave of condemnation.
"With Holocaust Memorial Day coming up very shortly, a written apology is not enough," said Dicky Arbiter, a former Buckingham Palace spokesman.
"If he now wants to be considered an adult, he has got to behave like an adult," he said, "and he has got to apologise in person, through radio and television."
Michael Howard, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, added to calls for a public apology. "I think it might be appropriate for him to tell us himself just how contrite he now is," Howard, who is Jewish and had family members perish at Auschwitz, told BBC radio.
The US-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, one of the world's leading Jewish human rights organisations, called Harry's behaviour "a shameful act" and offensive to both Holocaust victims and soldiers who died fighting Hitler's armies.
Its founder Rabbi Marvin Hier said Harry ought to go to Auschwitz with his uncle Prince Edward, head of the British delegation, for the 60th anniversary commemorations.
The Jewish Chronicle, Britain's leading Jewish newspaper, attacked Harry's action as "mind-boggling".
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said it could not merely be written off as a mere show of poor judgment.
And the European Union (news - web sites)'s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said it was "not an appropriate thing to do".
But some, including Sarah Ferguson, former wife to Harry's uncle Prince Andrew, and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Charles Falconer, defended Harry, saying he had already apologised and deserved a break.
The photograph, two weeks before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Hitler's most notorious death camp in Poland in which a million Jews perished, prompted questions about Harry's plans to attend the elite Sandhurst military academy, which he is due to enter in May to train as a British Army officer.
"I don't think this young man is suitable for Sandhurst," said Doug Henderson, a former armed forces minister. "If it was anyone else, the application wouldn't be considered. It should be withdrawn immediately."
The Ministry of Defence, however, said the furore would not affect his place at Sandhurst -- even though he will be subject to military discipline once he arrives.
Blair himself stayed out of the controversy, with his official spokesman saying that while "an error was made" by Harry, any further action should be down to the royal family.
Unlike his studious older brother, Harry has the image of a fun-loving playboy, despite an attempt to reinvent himself as a humanitarian by spending time with young AIDS (news - web sites) victims in southern Africa.
He was exposed in the press for underage drinking and marijuana smoking, while last year he brawled with a photographer outside a London nightclub. One of his teachers at Eton also alleged she had come under pressure to help him pass his exams -- a claim rejected by royal spokesmen as "unfair".
But commentators have also claimed Harry has been unfairly treated by the press, especially with its unrelenting coverage of the death in 1997 of his mother, the late Princess Diana.
I dressed up as the devil for Halloween one year. The DEVIL has to be worse then wearing a swastika armband, but nobody flashed my picture across the world’s media. What does a poor peasant boy have to do to get soon press?
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
Just mentioning it though for others. The old socialistic government controlled Canadian T/V called the German army in Africa- The NAZI AFRIKA CORPS. Pretty convenient these phrases, being as NAZI was a political party.
I wonder what happened to the scream and cry about WMD? Ask Harry- LOL
Nay maybe Stalin or Pol Pot, or better as Muhammed the Mad.
He already apologized. He is probably embaressed. We need to move on.
Most of the Royals are useless twits anyway. The Monarchy will be gone within a generation and England will become just like any other Eurofascist country.
Pop quiz, where did the swastika come from? And before Germany what country used it on it's medals?
The kid's a royal, for God's sake. And he can stuff his "sorry". It's inexcusable, even for the House of Hanover.
I doubt that. It showed poor judgement on his part. If he had a brain he wouldn't have done in the first place.
CC
If it is true that his father likes to dress up in full mufti and hop around the castle like Larry of Arabia....
You can see where Harry gets it from...
Good thing he didn't do that or put on a grass skirt...paint himself black and put a bone in his nose...and tried to fry up anyone dressed as a missionary...
imo
True. However, How many 20 year olds do you kow exercise good judgement 100% of the time.
Young adults make mistakes. Unfortunatley for him, This is VERY public.
Fewer words and more actions. Any fool can "apologize".
It seems strange to me how myopic people are to history these days. That little turd showed very poor judgement.
Hopefully he can in the coming weeks.
Now that would be priceless. :)
Don't forget about the Brits and Americans who died fighting and killing Nazi scum. They have survivors also. We lost over 400,000 of our own. Both of my grandparents fought in WW2.
Granted. But it should have occured to him this was not a joke. He is twenty and should grow up. Or at least read history.
LOL!
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