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Arnold Schwarzenegger Recounts Experience As A Child After Capitol Riot

By Modupeoluwa Adekanye

16 January 2021   |   11:14 am

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Arnold Schwarzenegger has good reason to feel passionately about the invasion of Capitol Hill by Trump extremists, for him it is personal as reported by The Mirror. His accusation that the US President “sought a coup by misleading people with lies” came from the heart because his very own father was a signed-up member of…

Arnold Schwarzenegger Recounts Experience As A Child After Capitol Riot Image AFP

Arnold Schwarzenegger has good reason to feel passionately about the invasion of Capitol Hill by Trump extremists, for him it is personal as reported by The Mirror.

His accusation that the US President “sought a coup by misleading people with lies” came from the heart because his very own father was a signed-up member of the Nazi party.

In a seven-minute address, the Terminator star and former California Governor also likened last week’s riot to 1938’s infamous Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, where mobs rampaged against Jews.

Arnold was born in Thal, Austria, two years after the Second World War, and gained insight into the evils of fascism as he grew up. He said:

I was surrounded by broken men drinking away the guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history. I’ve never shared this so publicly because it is a painful memory. But my father would come home drunk once or twice a week and scream and hit us and scare my mother. I did not hold him totally responsible because our neighbour was doing the same thing to his family, and so was the next neighbour over. They were in physical pain from shrapnel and in emotional pain from what they saw or did. It all started with lies and lies and intolerance.

Arnold only learnt the full story after Gustav died of a heart attack in 1972 aged 65. Gustav never told his son what he did in the war, and Arnold knew little until the 1990s when he asked friend Rabbi Marvin Hier, of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center, to investigate.

Arnold’s views about things have always been staunchly opposed to his father’s.

Thanks to bodybuilding, he left Austria for America via London as a teen. He made his breakthrough as an actor in the Conan films and spent years estranged from Gustav while supporting Jewish organisations.