ACHTUNG! SIEG HEIL!: 'I Admired Hitler' - Schwarzenegger

excerpted from:

Arnold's New Battle
Schwarzenegger Apologizes for the Way He Treated Women in Past
By Linda Douglass
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Politics/arnold031002_past.html

'I Admired Hitler'

Yet even as he tried to put out that fire, another broke out.

ABCNEWS obtained a copy of an unpublished book proposal with quotes from a verbatim transcript of an interview Schwarzenegger gave in 1975 while making the film Pumping Iron.

Asked who his heroes are, he answered, "I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."

He is quoted as saying he wished he could have an experience, "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being total agreement whatever you say."

The author of the book proposal, Pumping Iron's director, George Butler, told ABCNEWS today that the quotes needed to be seen in context, and that Arnold never said anything anti-Semitic.

"I cannot remember any of these," Schwarzenegger told ABCNEWS. "All I can tell you is that I despise everything Hitler stood for. I despise everything the Nazis stood for, everything the Third Reich stood for."

In the final days of his campaign, Schwarzenegger may be battling yet another opponent: his own past.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Politics/arnold031002_past.html