The Crown depicts concern over Prince Harry’s Nazi costume being voiced by Kate Middleton
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The Princess of Wales is shown voicing concern over Prince Harry’s Nazi costume in The Crown, despite a contrary version of events revealed in his memoir, Spare.
The decision to wear the uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005, when he was 20, has dogged the Duke of Sussex for much of his adult life. Now, it is returning to haunt him as the incident is covered in the finale of the Netflix drama, with more than a touch of dramatic licence.
The 10th episode of the sixth and final series depicts the bitter family fallout and the anger of both Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II after Harry was photographed wearing the costume.
But the episode suggests that Kate Middleton, as she was then, questioned the decision, telling him: “I don’t know. Maybe cover the swastika?”
Prince William is portrayed as being less bothered, adding: “Oh, come on. Wearing the outfit doesn’t make him a Nazi. Isn’t that the joke?”
‘Nazi uniform, they said’
The reality, according to the Duke, is rather different. He hired the outfit from Maud’s Cotswold Costumes, which was close to his father’s Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, and a favourite haunt of young royals including Prince William and Zara Tindall.
The desert uniform of Rommel’s German Afrika Korps, it featured a swastika armband and a badge of the German Wehrmacht or defence force on his collar.
In Spare, the Duke described the moment he picked out the uniform to wear to a “native and colonial”-themed party thrown by Richard Meade, the Olympic showjumper, for his son Harry, 22, at the family’s Wiltshire home.
In real life, neither his brother nor Ms Middleton were in the shop with him but he blamed the couple for his decision to wear the controversial costume.
He said it was a toss-up between a pilot uniform or a Nazi uniform, writing: “I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said.”
When he tried it on and showed them “they both howled”.
‘An insensitive and tasteless act’
A photograph of the young prince clutching a cigarette and a drink while wearing the swastika armband was published on the front page of The Sun on January 13, 2005. It came just weeks before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Two weeks later, Harry’s uncle, Prince Edward, was due to represent the late Queen at a memorial ceremony held at the Nazi concentration camp where more than a million Jews were murdered.
Clarence House, forced into a damage limitation exercise, swiftly released a statement in which Harry said: “I am very sorry if I caused any offence or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologise.”
Jewish groups and politicians reacted with horror to what was described as “an insensitive and tasteless act.”
The episode stirred up memories of the Royal family’s links with the Nazi regime. Edward VIII, Harry’s great-great uncle, was regarded by some as a Nazi sympathiser, while Princess Michael of Kent’s father was a Nazi party member. In 1997, Prince Philip caused offence when he addressed Helmut Kohl, then the German Chancellor, by Hitler’s Nazi title, Reichskanzler.
Some even used the incident to raise concerns about Prince Charles’s ability to control his children while others suggested that Harry, who had already won a place at Sandhurst, should not be allowed to join the Army.
‘The crown jewel of the photos’
In the Harry & Meghan Netflix documentary series, released last December, the Duke admitted that the costume was “probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life”.
He added: “I felt so ashamed afterwards. All I wanted to do was make it right.”
Prince William was also at the party, but opted for a homemade lion and leopard outfit.
The Duke revealed in his memoir that no one took any notice of him at the party, with the “crown jewel of the photos” thought instead to be William in a leotard.
“What followed was a firestorm, which I thought at times would engulf me.” he wrote. “And I felt that I deserved to be engulfed. There were moments over the course of the next several weeks and months when I thought I might die of shame.”
William, he said “was sympathetic, but there wasn’t much to say” while his father questioned how he could have been so foolish but was otherwise surprisingly “serene.”
Charles sent him to the late Lord Sacks, the then Chief Rabbi, who made him feel a “bottomless self-loathing” but urged him to use the experience to make the world a better place.
Although he has admitted watching, and fact checking, previous series of The Crown, the Duke has opted not to watch the sixth and final series due to its depiction of the events surrounding his mother’s death.
Sources close to him said neither he nor his office had been consulted or forewarned about any element of the show.
Kensington Palace declined to comment.
