WITNESSarchive

W–037 · Documentary photograph and sources

A Family Film from Balmoral

On a lawn at Balmoral, Elizabeth, about seven years old, imitates her mother’s Nazi salute. Beside them are her younger sister Margaret, about three, and their uncle Edward, the Prince of Wales. It is 1933 or 1934; the girls’ mother is still Duchess of York, and Elizabeth is not yet queen. Eight decades later, these seventeen seconds of home movie would become front-page news. The person behind the camera has never been identified with certainty.

1. Processed film still

Processed film still of Elizabeth and Margaret with their mother and uncle Edward on the Balmoral lawn
A still from the Balmoral family film. The supplied copy had its publisher marks removed by an unknown method. Subsequent digital enhancement used no AI.Camera operator unknown · modern digital processing, 2026
Provenance and sources for frame 1

File and rights
A 1328 × 800 still supplied by the WITNESS owner after removal of The Sun marks; the removal method is unknown. Noise smoothing, tonal adjustment and sharpening were then applied without generative AI. This is a modern derivative, not an archival original. The film retaining its publisher marks is the second item; the earlier marked reproduction is linked below. No free licence has been established.

Publication of the source stillEarlier reproduction bearing The Sun marksProcessed file · 1328 × 800

The Sun published the clip in July 2015. Buckingham Palace expressed disappointment at the way the newspaper had obtained and used a film made eighty years earlier. A palace spokesperson said it apparently came from the Queen’s private family archive. The palace objected to the treatment of a private recording; it did not call the film a forgery.

ITV reported a further explanation from an unnamed palace source, who described a family game, an imitation of a gesture seen in newsreels of the day, and urged readers to consider the period. That was the account given by ITV’s palace source. The film itself cannot tell us what any of the people on the lawn thought or intended.

Stig Abell, The Sun’s managing editor, maintained that the footage had been obtained lawfully and was historically significant. The paper, he said, was not accusing the Queen or her mother; its principal interest was Edward. After abdicating, he visited Nazi Germany and met Hitler in 1937, several years after the Balmoral film was made.

On social media, the childhood gesture continued to be offered as a political charge against the adult Elizabeth. Full Fact confirmed the footage was genuine and recalled her wartime service: in 1945, the princess joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army. Seventeen seconds of film cannot, on their own, establish her adult convictions.

2. The seventeen-second film

Archival film of Elizabeth, Margaret, their mother and Edward on the Balmoral lawn. Published by The Sun with its publisher’s mark retained. Camera operator unknown; 1933 or 1934.
Provenance and sources for frame 2

The actual family footage, made in 1933 or 1934 and published by The Sun in July 2015. The site owner supplied a copy of the selected clip, YouTube ID OB0YAVF-eOI. The file retains The Sun’s marking and was saved without re-encoding, cropping or retouching. Camera operator unknown. Displayed file: 640 × 358 pixels. No free licence has been established for this file. Full image record in Russian.

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