The Drama Around Prince Harry's Nazi Costume Is Rehashed on 'The Crown'
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The final season of The Crown does not make it to present day, but it does grapple with some major royal moments (and scandals) of the early 2000s, including the time Prince Harry wore a Nazi costume to a birthday party.
In The Crown's final episode, Prince William and Kate Middleton are shown looking for costumes with Harry, and when he tries on the Nazi outfit, Harry (Luther Ford) goes, "Germany had an empire, didn't they? What about this?" Kate (Meg Bellamy) replies, "I don't know. Maybe cover the swastika?" William (Ed McVey) chimes in and says, "Oh, come on. Wearing the outfit doesn't make him a Nazi. Isn't that the joke?"
What really happened with Prince Harry's Nazi costume, and the ensuing fallout? What has Prince Harry said about the incident in the decades since? Here's everything you need to know.
What happened?
In January 2005, Prince Harry was invited to a birthday party of Prince William's friend. The theme was "Natives and colonials," and Prince Harry wore the "desert uniform of General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps," or more specifically, a Nazi costume. According to reporting at the time, Prince William wore a leopard outfit with black leggings, and their friend Guy dressed as Queen Elizabeth.
Harry later wrote in Spare that he got his costume the day of the party, and that William and Kate encouraged him to get it. He writes, "With time running out I narrowed my options to two. A British pilot’s uniform. And a sand-colored Nazi uniform. With a swastika armband. And a flat cap. I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said. I rented it, plus a silly mustache, and went back to the house. I tried it all on. They both howled. Worse than Willy’s leotard outfit! Way more ridiculous! Which, again, was the point."
Soon, a photo of Harry in the costume appeared in The Sun, and there was major outcry in the UK. "What on earth was Harry thinking of?" a guest told the tabloid. "A senior royal dressing up as a Nazi for a laugh? If that is his idea of a joke it went down like a lead balloon with many... The Nazis were responsible for the deaths of millions. To turn that into a jokey idea for a fancy dress is an absolute disgrace." The incident also resurfaced the links between the British royal family and the Nazi party.
"I am very sorry if I caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize," Harry said in a statement shared by Clarence House.
Prince Harry spoke about the incident in his Netflix docuseries.
"It was probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life," Harry said in his Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan. "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."
Harry also wrote about the "shame" of the moment in his memoir, Spare.
Spare
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In his memoir, Spare, he writes, "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. I was either a crypto Nazi or else a mental defective."
He also writes about his father's reaction. King Charles "didn’t gloss over the facts," Harry writes. "Darling boy, how could you be so foolish? My cheeks burned. I know, I know. But he quickly went on to say that it was the foolishness of youth, that he remembered being publicly vilified for youthful sins, and it wasn’t fair, because youth is the time when you’re, by definition, unfinished. You’re still growing, still becoming, still learning, he said. He didn’t specifically cite any of his youthful humiliations, but I knew. His most intimate conversations had been leaked, his most ill-conceived remarks had been trumpeted. Past girlfriends had been interrogated, their rating of his lovemaking spread across tabloids, even books. He knew all about humiliation. He promised that the fury about this would blow over, the shame would fade. I loved him for that promise, even though—or maybe because—I knew it to be false. The shame would never fade. Nor should it."
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