The fairy tale is over.

Until now, we've all only had a vague idea of ​​what's going on behind the Windsor's palace walls.

We knew the fictional dialogues of the Netflix series "The Crown", the half-true or completely made-up stories of the Yellow Press.

We've seen the royals shake hands, smile, do good things in public.

But none of them ever uttered a private word or gave glimpses of their everyday lives.

It was part of the monarchy's survival strategy not to reveal much about itself.

With his autobiography "Spare" (German title: "Reserve"), Prince Harry has now expressed himself so comprehensively about life behind the palace walls that the book corresponds to the explosive force of the 500-kilo bomb that he dropped as an officer during his mission had Afghanistan thrown off.

Anke Schipp

Editor in the "Life" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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There's a lot to criticize about Harry's memoirs.

They are disrespectful in many places and reveal intimate details that one would rather not have known about, such as the frozen penis after an arctic tour, the defloration behind a pub, the occasional drug use.

More remarkable than these scandalous passages, which caused a stir shortly before the book was published, is how determined Harry is in dismantling the Windsors, his own family, on the more than 500 pages.

Because the nice royals who do so much good for the people turn out to be not particularly sympathetic characters who critically eye each other, if you follow his explanations.

In order to make themselves look better, they scheme with the help of palace officials or, as Harry suggests in the case of the late Queen, are manipulated by them to marginalize others.

One of the book's biggest surprises is Harry's relationship with his brother William.

At least until his marriage to Meghan, the world assumed the two were close and supported each other after the mother's untimely death.

Instead, they were arch rivals.

According to Harry, William was careful early on to differentiate his position as heir to the throne from that of "substitute".

When Harry followed his brother to elite boarding school Eton, William is said to have instructed him to pretend not to know each other in public.

In later years, when Harry supported charitable projects in Africa, William reacted coldly, as the continent was his horse.

Harry paints a picture of a sensitive boy

Harry describes himself as a sensitive boy who did not want to believe his mother's death and for many years persisted in the idea that Diana was only hiding to avoid the paparazzi's hounding.

He had trouble concentrating, had regular panic attacks, and his academic performance left a lot to be desired.

Father Charles tried but, according to Harry, was not up to the challenge of being a single father.

When he broke the news of his mother's death to his son at Balmoral Castle, he put his hand on his son's knee, unable to hug him.

As a father, he has always seemed absent, writes Harry.

It was not uncommon for his sons to wake him up in the evenings when he had fallen asleep at his desk between mailbags and books.

In fact, Charles comes off comparatively well in the book.

Apparently he did take care of his son, whom he called "my darling boy" and who lived with him at the Highgrove estate until his mid-twenties.

In later years, too, he regularly had his cook send him food, comforted him when he appeared again in the press as Prince Imbecile, and finally hugged him when Harry returned from his foreign assignment in Afghanistan.

But there was one thing Harry didn't seem to forgive: that, contrary to his sons' requests not to marry Camilla, he did just that.