A UK tabloid newspaper has released archive footage of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth performing a Nazi salute as a child.

Apparently coached by her uncle, the future King Edward VIII, a known Nazi sympathiser, there is no suggestion that the young Elizabeth – now aged 89 – could have known what the gesture would come to represent.

Buckingham Palace reacted to the front page of ‘The Sun’ newspaper on Sunday, saying in a statement that it was ‘disappointing’ that the film had been ‘obtained and exploited’.

Buckingham Palace defends footage of Queen giving Nazi salute as a child http://t.co/kXhxVvXfGs— The Guardian (@guardian) 17 Juillet 2015