The newspaper has published the video online and carries stills on its front page today.
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The footage shows Elizabeth, at the apparent instigation of both her uncle and her mother, raising her right arm straight in salute to the camera.
Astonishing footage of the young Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother performing Nazi salutes has emerged.
They were apparently being encouraged by the queen’s uncle, the future king Edward VIII, who went on to meet Adolf Hitler and abdicated in 1936 over his desire to marry USA divorcee Wallis Simpson.
It was unclear last night how The Sun had obtained the footage, which it argued was part of a “hidden” archive of material relating to the Royal family which it said should now be released.
He said: “This is a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have seen from contemporary news reels”.
According to the source, nobody at that time knew how it (the situation in Germany, ed) would evolve. To imply anything else is misleading and dishonest.
“It is disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from Her Majesty’s personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner”, a Buckingham Palace spokesman told The Mirror.
A source close to the royal family speaking on condition of anonymity said that the future Queen would have been quite unable to give meaning to this gesture at such a young age.
The Sun defended publishing the footage, saying it was of great public importance and historical significance because of the involvement of the Edward.
The affection that many Britons still hold for the queen’s mother, who died in 2002, is based on the decision of her and her husband, King George VI, to stay in London during World War II and visit places bombed by the German aerial attacks known as the Blitz.
The then Prince of Wales faced numerous accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser and was photographed meeting Hitler in Munich in October 1937.
In June she made her first state visit to Germany, where she visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and met some of the survivors and liberators.
Military historian James Holland added: “They are all having a laugh, there are lots of smiles, so it’s all a big joke”.
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In February 1945, Princess Elizabeth backed the war effort and joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service working as a driver and mechanic.
