Prince Harry Says Wearing a Nazi Costume Was "One of the Biggest Mistakes of My Life"

In the third episode of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's docuseries, Harry & Meghan, the Duke of Sussex talks about wearing a Nazi uniform in 2005 to a costume party.

"It was probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life," he says. "I felt so ashamed afterwards."

Harry continues, "All I wanted to do was make it right. I sat down spoke to the Chief Rabbi in London, which had a profound impact on me. I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor. I could have just ignored it and gone on and made the same mistakes over and over again in my life. But I learned from that."

He later writes about this moment in his memoir, Spare, explaining, "When I saw those photos, I recognized immediately that my brain had been shut off, that perhaps it had been shut off for some time. I wanted to go around Britain knocking on doors, explaining to people: I wasn’t thinking. I meant no harm. But it wouldn’t have made any difference. Judgment was swift, harsh."

At the time, Harry said in a statement, "I am very sorry if I caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize."

In response, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, a spokesman for the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain said at the time, "The fact that the palace has issued an apology indicates that this was a mistake by the prince. But having being given, the apology should now be accepted."

In the Netflix docuseries, Harry's reflection on the costume comes amid a discussion about unconscious bias, and how he is constantly learning and unpacking his privilege. Prince Harry shares in Harry & Meghan, "in this family sometimes, you know, you’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias."

This is not his first time talking about the concept of "unconscious bias," but it is the first time he is linking it to his 2005 Nazi costume.

"Unconscious bias, from my understanding, you know, having had the upbringing and the education that I had, I had no idea what it was. I had no idea it existed," Prince Harry said in a discussion with Black Lives Matter activist Patrick Hutchinson in 2020. "And then, sad as it is to say, it took me many, many years to realize it, especially then living a day or a week in my wife’s shoes."

A year before, in a conversation with Jane Goodall, while he was still a working royal, Prince Harry said, "It’s the same as unconscious bias—something which so many people don’t understand, why they feel the way they do. Despite the fact that if you go up to someone and say 'what you’ve just said, or the way you’ve behaved, is racist'—they’ll turn around and say, 'I'm not a racist.'"

The Duke of Sussex continued, "'I'm not saying you’re a racist, I’m just saying that your unconscious bias is proving that because of the way that you’ve been brought up, the environment you’ve been brought up in, suggests that you have this point of view—unconscious point of view—where naturally you will look at someone in a different way. And that is the point at which people start to have to understand."

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