Germans should stop feeling Holocaust guilt: Ahmadinejad

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN (Reuters) – Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
told Germans they should no longer allow themselves to be held
prisoner by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust and reiterated
doubts that the Holocaust even happened.

In an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine,
Ahmadinejad said he doubted Germans were allowed to write “the
truth” about the Holocaust and said he was still considering
traveling to Germany for the World Cup soccer tournament.

“I believe the German people are prisoners of the
Holocaust. More than 60 million were killed in World War Two
… The question is: Why is it that only Jews are at the center
of attention?,” he said in the interview published on Sunday.

“How long is this going to go on?” he added. “How long will
the German people be held hostage to the Zionists?… Why
should you feel obligated to the Zionists? You’ve paid
reparations for 60 years and will have to pay for another 100
years.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders have said
his previous remarks questioning whether the Holocaust happened
were unacceptable. Denying the Holocaust is a serious crime in
Germany punishable with a prison term of up to five years.

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies
in concentration camps.

In the rare interview with Western media, Ahmadinejad said
if the Holocaust really happened Jews should be moved from
Israel back to Europe.

“We say if the Holocaust happened, then the Europeans must
accept the consequences and the price should not be paid by
Palestine. If it did not happen, then the Jews must return to
where they came from.”

WORLD CUP

He said he was still considering going to Germany to
support Iran in the World Cup despite protest stirred by a
“worldwide network of Zionists.”

Iran’s first World Cup match is against Mexico in Nuremberg
on June 11 two days after the tournament starts and German
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says he would be welcome
to come because Germany wants to be a good host.

The invitation sparked protests from other political
leaders and groups who said his anti-Israeli comments were
unacceptable.

“My decision (on whether to go) depends on a lot of
different things,” said Ahmadinejad, a soccer fan. “Whether I
have time, whether I want to and some other things.”

He said he could not understand why his possible visit had
caused such debate but was not surprised by the row.

“I was not at all surprised because there is a very active
worldwide network of Zionists, also in Europe,” he said in the
rare interview with Western media that was published on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad’s latest comments were condemned by the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Rabbi Marvin Hier, a founder
and dean, called on Merkel to keep him out of Germany.

“On a day when the Pope is in Auschwitz to remind the world
of the horrors of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad questions it
again,” Hier said. “For him to be at the World Cup and sit in a
VIP seat would be a desecration of the memory of the
Holocaust.”

Asked by Der Spiegel, in its cover story entitled “The man
the world is afraid of,” whether he stood by his earlier view
the Holocaust was a myth, Ahmadinejad said: “I only accept
something as the truth if I am truly convinced of it.

“In Europe there are two opinions on it. One group of
researchers who are by and large politically motivated say the
Holocaust happened. There is another group of researchers who
have the opposite view and are by and large in prison for
that.”