Formula One chief says praise of Hitler was 'misunderstood'

The director of the Formula One racing organization has apologized for remarks he made last week praising Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler. "Those who don't know me think I support Hitler's atrocities; those who do know me have told me how unwise I was to articulate my points so badly that it should have been so widely misunderstood," Bernie Ecclestone told British newspaper on Tuesday. "I'm just sorry I was an idiot. I sincerely, genuinely apologize," he said. The World Jewish Congress had called on Ecclestone to resign or announce his own suspension after the Formula One chief praised Adolf Hitler for his ability to "get things done" in an outspoken interview with London's The Times. He was quoted as saying that democracy "hasn't done a lot of good for many countries - including this one [The United Kingdom]." "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," Ecclestone was quoted as saying. "In the end he got lost, so he wasn't a very good dictator." Ecclestone also told The Times that Saddam Hussein, the executed former dictator of Iraq, "was the only one who could control that country." He was quoted as saying that democracy "hasn't done a lot of good for many countries - including this one." "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," Ecclestone was quoted as saying. "In the end he got lost, so he wasn't a very good dictator." Ecclestone, 78, first apologized in an interview with the German daily Bild Zeitung on Monday, saying his remarks had been taken out of context