LONDON - Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone has said that he preferred totalitarian regimes to democracies and praised Adolf Hitler for his ability to “get things done”.

In an outspoken interview with The Times, the 78-year-old billionaire chastised contemporary politicians for their weakness and extolled the virtues of strong leadership.
Ecclestone said: “In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done.”
“In the end he got lost, so he wasn’t a very good dictator because either he had all these things and knew what was going on and insisted, or he just went along with it . . . so either way he wasn’t a dictator,” Ecclestone added.

Ecclestone endorsed the concept of a government based on tyranny.

“Politicians are too worried about elections,” he said.

His latest comments could prove deeply damaging, says the paper.

His remarks have already drawn a strong reaction from Jewish groups and politicians.

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: “Mr. Ecclestone’s comments regarding Hitler, female, black and Jewish racing drivers, and dictatorships are quite bizarre. He says [in the interview], ‘Politics is not for me’, and we are inclined to agree.”
Stephen Pollard, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, said: “Mr. Ecclestone is either an idiot or morally repulsive. Either he has no idea how stupid and offensive his views are or he does and deserves to be held in contempt by all decent people.”

Denis MacShane, the Labour MP and chairman of the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism, and chairman of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism, condemned Ecclestone’s decision to align himself to a “growing” anti-democracy movement.

“If Mr. Ecclestone seriously thinks Hitler had to be persuaded to kill six million Jews, invade every European country and bomb London then he knows neither history and shows a complete lack of judgment,” MacShane added.
John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said: “These are extraordinary views and I’m appalled that anybody could hold them.” (ANI)