LONDON, Jan 13 (AFP) - Britain's Prince Harry came under intense pressure Thursday to make a public apology after being pictured in Nazi military outfit just a fortnight before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
"Harry the Nazi" cried The Sun, the nation's top selling tabloid, alongside an exclusive front-page photo of a slouching Harry, 20, cigarette and beer in hand, dressed in a clearly recognisable khaki uniform of Rommel's Afrika Korps complete with red swastika armband.
The photo was snapped last weekend at a "native and colonial" fancy dress party also attended by Harry's brother Prince William, 22, who opted for a less controversial self-tailored "lion and leopard outfit", The Sun said.
Spokesmen for the royal family immediately went into damage-control mode, issuing a statement in which Harry -- younger son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, and third in line to the throne -- apologised.
"I am sorry if I cause any offence or embarrassment to anyone," said Harry, who has previously attracted a string of headlines because of his party-going habits.
"It was a poor choice of costume and I apologise."
The photograph, two weeks before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Hitler's most notorious death camp in Poland in which a million Jews perished, prompted a flood of condemnation.
"With Holocaust Memorial Day coming up very shortly, a written apology is not enough," said Dicky Arbiter, a former Buckingham Palace spokesman.
"If he now wants to be considered an adult, he has got to behave like an adult," he said, "and he has got to apologise in person, through radio and television."
"It is just not good enough to behave like that. We all know history, and at 20 there is no excuse."
Michael Howard, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, added to calls for a public apology. "I think it might be appropriate for him to tell us himself just how contrite he now is," Howard, who is Jewish, told BBC radio.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, one of the world's leading Jewish human rights organisations, called Harry's behaviour "a shameful act" and offensive to both Holocaust victims and soldiers who died fighting Hitler's armies.
Its founder Rabbi Marvin Hier said Harry ought to go to Auschwitz with his uncle Prince Edward, head of the British delegation, for the 60th anniversary commemorations.
The Jewish Chronicle, Britain's leading Jewish newspaper, attacked Harry's action as "mind-boggling".
There was no immediate comment from Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, but it was unlikely he would get a sympathetic ear from her husband, Prince Philip, who served as a Royal Navy officer during World War II, seeing action in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Harry's party getup also called into question his plans to attend the elite Sandhurst military academy, which he is due to enter in May to train as a British Army officer.
"I don't think this young man is suitable for Sandhurst," said Doug Henderson, a former armed forces minister. "If it was anyone else, the application wouldn't be considered. It should be withdrawn immediately."
The Ministry of Defence, however, said the furore would not affect his place at Sandhurst -- even though he will be subject to military discipline once he arrives.
Blair himself stayed out of the controversy, with his official spokesman saying that while "an error was made" by Harry, any further action should be down to the royal family.
Unlike his studious older brother, Harry has the image of a fun-loving playboy, despite an attempt to reinvent himself as a humanitarian by spending time with young AIDS victims in southern Africa.
Last year he brawled with a photographer outside a hip London nightspot, while one of his teachers at Eton alleged she had come under pressure to help him pass his exams -- a claim rejected by royal spokesmen as "unfair".
01/13/2005 15:41 GMT - AFP