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Tom Gross is a former Jerusalem correspondent for the (London) Sunday Telegraph and (New York) Daily News. He has also written for a broad range of other publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and National Review. He has appeared as a guest commentator on Mideast affairs on CNN, NPR, and other stations.
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By Tom Gross
August 8, 2003
Excerpts from an article originally published in The Jerusalem Post, 1997.
Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to be plagued by rumors that he is a Nazi sympathizer, partly due to his friendship with Kurt Waldheim, whom he invited to his wedding in Massachusetts in 1986. At the time, Waldheim, a former United Nations secretary-general, was running a successful campaign that would see him elected to the Austrian presidency, while conveniently "forgetting" his own central role in Nazi atrocities. A year later Waldheim was banned from entering America.
Schwarzenegger's supporters point to the fact that he has donated money to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and raised millions of dollars for the Holocaust Memorial Trust in Los Angeles. He also visited Israel in 1995, to promote the opening of the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Tel Aviv, of which he is part-owner. Among others, he met prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Tel Aviv Mayor Ronni Milo presented him with a golden key to the city.
In 1989, he successfully sued a British newspaper which had suggested he was an antisemite. Yet the rumors continued after Schwarzenegger was photographed last year with Jorg Haider, leader of Austria's extreme right-wing Freedom Party. Haider has praised Hitler's "sensible policies" and also been filmed at a secret SS reunion.
But Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, who has known Schwarzenegger for many years, came to a vigorous defense of the actor. "Arnold has every right to make the film," Hier told The Jerusalem Post. "The attacks on him are grossly unfair. This is guilt by association of the worst kind.
"Plenty of people, including many leading Jews, were happy to meet former German president Richard von Weizsäcker, even though his father Ernst von Weizsacker was a leading Nazi criminal sentenced at Nuremberg. Arnold's father, on the other hand, while a Nazi Party member, was never accused of any crimes, and worked as a postal inspector.
"Being a major movie star, Arnold is photographed with many thousands of people. He doesn't even know who 99 percent of them are. Haider contacted him in order to try and have his photo removed from our rogues' gallery [of contemporary extreme-Right figures, at the Simon Wiesenthal Center museum]. Arnold then called me to find out why Haider was included, and after hearing the explanation told Haider 'You're up there because you deserve to be.'"
"He wants no truck with Haider or Waldheim. His brief contact with them was an oversight which he strongly regrets," said Hier. "He probably did not have any clue as to the seriousness of the allegations against Waldheim at that time [in 1986]. To suggest that Arnold's an antisemite is preposterous. He's done more to further the cause of Holocaust awareness than almost any other Hollywood star.
"Not only does he regularly make substantial donations to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which he began helping in 1984, before the Waldheim accusations had even come to light, he has also hosted functions for us, including some in his private home," said Hier.
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