Keep On Talking Trash: 'I did admire Hitler', Arnold Schwarzenegger now recalls

FTER publicly denying it for years, Arnold Schwarzenegger has now admitted he did once express admiration for Adolf Hitler. The latest revelation to emerge from his autobiography, Total Recall, is that the Terminator star did utter the comments more than 30 years ago, NYDailyNews.com reports. Schwarzenegger writes about a conversation he had with director George Butler during the making of the 1977 body building docudrama, Pumping Iron. "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," he writes. "I admired Hitler’s speaking ability, though not what he did with it." Schwarzenegger - whose father was a member of the Nazi party during World War II - had denied speaking out in favour of Hitler, a fellow Austrian, during his 2003 campaign for California governor. But a book proposal circulated by Butler six years ago, in which he produced a "verbatim transcript" of conversations he had had with the star, reveals otherwise. During the making of the docudrama, Butler claimed he asked the bodybuilder who his heroes were, and Schwarzenegger replied, “I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power.” Butler says he edited the actor's Nazi comments out of his film. Schwarzenegger writes in his book that he was only trying to pump up his personality on camera with the comments. "Coming up with outrageous things to say was easy because I was always thinking them to keep myself entertained," the 65-year-old writes.