I admire Hitler’s speaking abilities: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Action star Arnold Schwarzenegger has clarified that he did make admiring comments about Adolf Hitler but only for his speaking abilities during the shooting of a 1977 documentary.

The 60-year-old actor’s controversial comments about Hitler occurred during a discussion with George Butler about three decades ago while filming scenes for the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, reported Daily Mail.

In his autobiography Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, Schwarzenegger revisits the episode: “I philosophised that only a few men are born to lead, while the rest of humanity is born to follow, and went from that into discussing history’s great conquerors and dictators. I admired Hitler’s speaking ability, though not what he did with it.”

Schwarzenegger’s Hitler comment never made it into the final cut of George Butler’s film, but his words taken from the transcript of his interview with the director surfaced when ABC News and the New York Times received copies of an unpublished book proposal.

In the original interview, he had said, “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.”