Should Prince Harry apologise?

[DillyDally]

or not? Discuss

Is anyone else also shocked by the fact that it's easy to hire a nazi costume? I just assumed it wouldn't be but according to The Graun today it is.

According to the Sun he "almost hired" an SS officer's uniform but the woman in the shop doesn't actually say that so I guess they're embroidering as usual.

Doesn't Harry come from a long line of people capable of putting their feet in it!? His Grandfather has certainly come out with some classics over the years. In fact the whole family have been quite impressive in this area.

Just goes to show what a good education seems to buy these days, and make no mistake he will have had the best. Still, they're all ordinary, normal people just like the rest of us etc blah blah..

Apparently Nazi uniforms are very popular for fancy dress

I read that in The Guardian, franch. The place where Harry hired the costume (it wasn't home made) said Nazi costumes are very popular. Someone else in the interview (can't remember who and am too lazy to go downstairs and get the newspaper) said he had gone to a "Sound of Music" themed party in a restaurant. Several of the guests turned up in Nazi uniforms. It turned out there was a Bar Mitzvah celebration going on at the same time and, after several complaints, the Sound of Music lot were asked to leave.

I can't imagine any half rational, intelligent adult thinking it's acceptable to dress as a Nazi - it seems utterly bizarre behaviour to me. And why did no-one say to Harry before the party "hey, Harry - perhaps that's not such a good idea."? He has advisors, his brother was at the party, Prince Charles was apparently around -didn't any of them say anything to him? I can't quite believe that they didn't - and I think maybe he wore it knowing it would cause a bit of a furore (though possibly not on this scale). I really think it's that upper class, Hooray Henry, don't give a damn attitude and he has it in spades.

And my 7 year old knows about the Holocaust....they've talked about it in school on Holocaust Memorial Day.

I'm obviously going to the wrong fancy dress parties.

I'm amazed that Nazi outfits are popular for fancy dress parties. Is this normal?

In some ways, I suppose there might be an argument that if you dress up and arse around in it, it loses its significance and power to evoke and offend. I'm thinking of the Madonna video with the Ku Klux Klan outfits which caused such a furore and that portrait of Myra Hindley formed out of children's hands that was in the Tate a while ago. I suppose the more taboo you make something, the more power it has.

But I still think there's something almost puzzling in its unsavouriness, about this particular prince of the realm arsing about in a nazi costume. Let's face it, there's somthing not right about that family.

That is the problem with these Yah-yahs - too much money and not a brain cell amongst them. Shows what an excellent education Eton must give, hmmm?

And it isn't just the Jewish, gypsy, Russian communities that are effected and offended when someone who is supposed to be "Royal" shows a complete lack of any tact or sense. Anyone who fought in the war against the evil machine that was Nazism must look on this and wonder why they bothered if people now think it funny.

I guess I am having a complete sense of humour failure over this and I have quite a dark sense of humour. Or it could be that I think that bunch of slackers (the young royals) need to start earning their money, I mean our money!

Haven't read the whole thread BUT these are my thoughts

1. it was a PRIVATE party - not a public one.

2. If he'd gone as any other 'notorious' leader or 'group' (Saddam Hussain or KKK anyone??) surely there would be the same type of fuss.

3. He already apologised

4. It was a FANCY DRESS party for goodness sake - Jack the Rippers, and lots of other very 'unfunny' and 'unsavoury' costumes are also available.

5. How many other people in the UK with NO sympathies to the Nazi movement whatsoever has also gone dressed up with a Swastika?

6. If ANYONE is to apologise surely the shop the has these costumes in stock (which was incidently a costume hire shop) should be apologising for having that type of thing available

7. As already pointed out - what do we do about all of the 'comedies' on TV over the years who have 'joked' about the Nazis???

8. I don't honestly think he's the brightest spark in the box - he probably didn't even realise the offence that would be caused especially going back to point 1.

9. Is this the ONLY thing that the press can find to talk about at the moment in the world???

moo, PC wasn't there - I have been looking for this piece again all day and just stumbled across it while looking for something else.

There was nobody there to tell Harry he was being a twat, sadly.

Did anyone see Fergie defending him on the news tonight? What has that woman done to her face? She looks like the Bride of Wildenstein. Bad, bad lip job.

It's a bit of a storm in a teacup, imo. Give the lad a break.

there's tons of uniforms for hire in our local fancy dress shops - including loads of nazi ones. Not that I've worn one - but I did once go to an allo allo party where plenty did.

imho it was just a costume nothing more nothing less people go to partys dressed as jack the ripper and sort now if he come out with a line like he agreed with hittler yes big problem but the war however bad it was for those poor souls was a long time ago it was just that a long time ago people do need to move on from that
what i didnt like was it said in the sun that will got it in the neck as well because he was in the shop with him and didnt stop him buying fgs he a grown man with a mind of his own he chose the costume for whatever reason its not up to anyone else to tell him how to dress i think it was realy just blown out of proportion inho anyway

i do too - he's 20 FGS. I can understand the problem if he went to an official engagement dressed like that but he was at a private party.

Heard today that Prince Charles will not let him go abroad for a few months - so is that him being grounded then?!!

And the girlfriend is going to dump him, supposedly, because he was pictured smothered in other women.

Not a good night for him all round really!

Back to what is taught at school re WW2- I did O level history back in 1979 & the syllabus was WW2. Sorry to say, that (because it was my father's pet subject) I found it very boring & did very badly in the exam. I was also taken to a large number of battlesites, wargraves & so on as a child/teenager which had the effect of turning off any interest I might have had in the subject. (Except Anne Franks house, which inspired me to read her book).

DS2 studied WW2 in Y5 at a private school. After this he was desperate to go to Arnhem & see the bridge, & this year a trip came up in the local paper. He is now 15. We went to Arnhem & the site of the parachute landings & the cemetary at Oosterbeek, for the 60th anniversary. He was fascinated.

DS1 did GCSE history last year & also did WW2. They had a speaker come to school who had been in the camps and told the kids about his experience. They were taken to the Imperial War Museum and shown the Auschwitz exhibition (I took him again later & it was horrible). He is passionately interested in the subject & filled with determination that it won't happen again.

There must be other areas of the country with a similar syllabus, so if my 2 are representative of the young people of this country then we are on the right tracks.

He was a twat. As are probably all of the other public school, privilidged, rich oiks he hangs around with. He is just another easily influenced young man trying to be cool, and forgetting he is different from those other twats he hangs around with - cause they can be as biggoted and stupid as they like, without hitting the front pages.

I just keep laughing at imagining the queens face when she saw those pictures!!! I bet Price Philip was saying "Oh - give it a rest dear, after all, I have (instert the million faux pas he's been responsible for) poor chap"...

yes it was a joke..and at a fancy dress party we could all get away with it maybe. but he knows that someone will take a photo, he knows its going to cause uproar...i dont think anyone can say he didnt know..look at his education..the boy is not stupid! how could he possibly think this wouldnt offend people? we all make mistakes, some of us rebel but its a bit different when you are in the public eye. ive no time for our royal family anyway so perhaps im biasd.

Um, I think he is stupid, actually! Not that this is much of an excuse.

Oh yes, definitely thick as the proverbial, but no excuse there.

The girlfriend who has dumped him (alledgedly) was the one he said the following about:

Nor has Harry's romance with Chelsy Davy, the 19-year old daughter of a controversial Zimbabwean businessman, helped his public image. When asked about her origins, he is said to have replied that she was "not black or anything".

Harry does seem extremely stupid, it has to be said. But actually, I think I find the fact of a colonials and natives party theme even more disturbing than the spectacle of an eejit dressed up as a Nazi. I would be absolutely disgusted to see my children attending such a thing, frankly. It just shows what chasms of educational neglect occur even within extortionately expensive public schools- I find it astonishing that these rich, white, powerful people seem happy to celebrate the colonial evils that their ancestors perpetrated in Africa and Asia. Utterly depressing, IMO.