Hitler? He got things done.............

No wonder he and Mosley get along so well

"We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He was the only one who could control that country."

I agree with Bernie on that.

Sounds to me like Bernie is trying to create a media storm to divert attention away from something else which is due to come to light now or pretty shortly - wonder what that could be?

oops, it gets better.....longer version here including such prime Bernie-isms as:

Sir Oswald Mosley’s son would, Mr Ecclestone says, make an excellent Prime Minister. “I prefer strong leaders. Margaret Thatcher made decisions on the run and got the job done. She was the one who built this country up slowly. We’ve let it go down again.

“All these guys, Gordon and Tony, are trying to please everybody all the time . . . Max would do a super job, he’s a good leader. I don’t think his background would be a problem.”

He cannot bear the political correctness of modern life. Women, he says, just don’t make good racing drivers. “The G-force is so strong that your neck wouldn’t last one lap as a girl.”....... If it were possible, I would love to have a good lady race driver and preferably black and Jewish but they might take maternity leave.”

tosser.....

Maybe he's trying to get back on Max's good side.

I can only think that he's laying the ground for an 'insanity' defense in some upcoming court case.


Probably because you have to promise to give it back when you take it.

I just luuuurve the way that the reporter glosses over the $1.4bn loan that Ecclestone took out in 1999 secured on the future revenues of F1. If they don't class that as borrowing money then I'd sure like to know what is

I'm sick to death of every magazine, commentator and F1 insider simpering about what a genius Bernie is simply because he knows how to screw absolutely everyone out of the most amount of money they're prepared to pay whatever it is he's selling - which is, as far as I can tell his only talent - then ignores the fact that he's also clearly a man of megalomaniac delusions with a highly dubious sense of morality - if that, it sounds more often than not amorality at the altar of the last buck - and is completely divorced from modern society.

When those people high up in F1 look bewildered when asked if anyone else but Bernie can look after the commercial side of F1 do they really mean this Bernie or is it some other Bernie? Is it like a collective noun, i.e. Bernie plus 10 other people? It can't be this sodding lunatic can it? Or is it just that he's spent so long tying the whole thing up in an impossibly complex bundle of financial fiefdoms, loyalty obligations and deal making face-offs that nobody has the stomach to unravel it?

Is there anyone now who still feels sorry Slavica left the little...?

I think Mr. Ecclestone should do some reading into the effects of g-force on the body and then come back to this one

Ahh, but Bern had sold off control of FOM so, technically, he didn't take out the loan.

i have to say, we tend just to overlook much of what he says with little more than rolled eyes, but i was actually quite shocked to read the opening paragraph...i didnt read any further.
he may come to regret that interview.
He clearly needs to read up a little on adolf Hitler.
The stupidity of what he said is monumental

Wow that looks like PR suicide on the surface. Bernie's not half as daft as he looks. Interesting to see how this pans out.

Not so. It is true that on 6 February 1996 Bernie transferred his equity capital of 1,000 shares in Formula One Management to the Channel Islands-based company Petara which was ultimately owned by Valper Holdings in the British Virgin Islands (Valper was indirectly owned by his wife Slavica). However, the sale did not change Bernie's position as managing director of FOM which still stands to this day. So when the loan was given (to be precise, it was Formula One Administration which got the $1.4bn from Formula One Finance but Bernie was MD of the former company too) Bernie was in control. In short, it is absolutely false to say that he has never borrowed any money.

What a f'in idot. Bernie need to be put out to pasture

Oh dear.
Yet more proof that he's past retirement age.
We're the fans here........
boycott F1 until these dopes are sent home.

This may be seriously bad for F1. The headlines reading F1 boss praises hitler will not be pleasant reading all over the world and when you couple this with Max Mosley's association with Hitler, the SDM it might drive sponsors away from the sport. Businesses flee from anything kind of involvement that has even the remote smell of anti-semitism.
I trully hope we are not seeing the true begining of the end of F1 as we know it.

I am genuinely worried.

What a stupid thing to say. Terror and torture, that's how Saddam Hussein controlled the Iraq.

Sure Hitler got things done: he ordered for millions of jews to be killed.
Way to go Bernie.

This says a lot about the autocratic, out of touch, outdated style of leadership F1 has.

Dictatorships are only good if the dictator isnt a complete tosser. Both Hitler and Bernie are/were complete tossers.

It is a strange thing to say indeed, but unfortunately Saddam was the lesser of two evils. He was a dictator who persicuted a lot of people in his country but less died under him than are dying now, so ironically he was holding the country together. The invasion of Iraq was far too destructive. Other methods should have been used.

Funny, I thought it was .

Bernie Ecclestone in making outrageous statement for surprise effect shocker.

Imagine that actually, if she was leading the WDC and got pregnant.

Unfortunately, no one knows just how many died under his regime due to the secrecy. Remember the gassing of whole villages, the mass burial sites.

I wish the media would stop interviewing the old man and just let him pass his time.

I don't think a country should be held together by violence. Probably its better to divide such a country.

The original claim was that Saddam was the only one being able to control the Iraq. Thats nonsense; every ruthless dictator who does not shrink back from terror and torture can do that.




Depends on the true targets of the Iraq invasion.

Page 3 of The Times, full page with side commentary and three names in the byline!

As much as I hate to defend him, I think Bernie had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he made those comments.

Bernie's not a stupid man. We all know he's a very shrewd man indeed. I don't think for one second he meant any of that. He just likes being controversial. It was the 'black and Jewish' part that convinced me.

And it might be the reason why Bernie went to the press to tell all those terrible things. He basically says to the teams: sign the new Concorde agreement immediately and on my terms or I would do a lot of damage for your financial stability, for example by talking anti-semitic crap in public.

Bernie took over the role of crazy senile man from Mosley, because his own fight with the teams is continuing.

Mr 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.

What a tosser! That's the whole point - in a democracy if the leader gets "persuaded" to do things the electorate don't like - he gets the chop!

So saying stupid things is a token of being smart?

It doesn't matter if a dictator is a complete tosser or not. Even benevolent dictators eventually lose the plot " absolute power corrupts absolutely"

To F1 insiders and fans, this may well be the case, but judging by the reaction of the paper reviewer on Sky News this morning, his comments are being taken very seriously by everyone else. When journalists are calling into question the mental stability of those at the top of the sport, comparing Bernie's gaffe with Max's Chelsea flat romp, you have to wonder how much lower the public's perception of Formula 1 can get...

I go with BrendanMcF - for sure Bernie is making more and more provocative public statements out of mischief and a quirky sense of humour, and an innate desire to shock.

But this is going to be a public relations disaster for him. Max has been turning like a windvane in his recent public utterances, and now bernie is going to have everyone questioning his grasp on his mental capacity: professional managers and investors, let alone the media, are going to call into question the entire way that F1 is run. I think bernie has done himself - and the rest of us - a great disservice, spouting such crap, even if intended humorously.

I for one do not accept that "this was a tongue in the cheek sayings". I believe he meant every word and I still think (as I have done in an earlier post) these are going to hurt F1 as whole even if Bernie should retire. The brand is under daily damaging assaults, the strange thing is that these are not been carried out by external forces but by the very people that owns and runs the business so it cannot be anything but deliberate. They want to take the sport down with them and how best to do that than taking a public anti-semitic stance.

Mountain, molehill.

Mmmmm yes, is he really likening Max to Hitler and Saddam?

Ok we need an equivalent of a Winston Churchill in F1, to rid us of these pretended Nazis lol. An equivalent of Franklin D. Roosevelt wouldn't go astray as well!

Silly Bernie. Everyone knows that fully representative bourgeois democracy as practiced by Germany in 1932 is the only form of government befitting enlightened white men such as ourselves. I saw it on Star Trek and everything.

Exactly, just Bernie being his undiplomatic non-PC self

A good dictator knows when to hand over the reigns.

True, but does anyone else find his throw-away comments pretty boring?

This Brit, Bernie Ecclestone, couldn't have picked a better date to argue in favour of those who "get things done".

Why should he worry about a Yank celebration day?

Agree but at his age people often start repeating themselves

It was on CNN news where they also said Max Mosley attended nazi themed sex orgies.

From here, here's how Bernie would excuse the worst things Hitler was responsible for:Yeah, wiping out a large section of the population is OK if you donate £1 to Barnados ten times.

Then he goes on to suggest Mosley would make a good UK Prime Minister. So maybe Max is planning to "catch the mood" and take over as head of the BNP? Or is Bernie trying to get us to see what disasters might happen if Max finds himself twiddling his thumbs at home?

When it comes to Nazism it seems Bernie has been brainwashed by Mosley.

Does anyone else think that it is more than a little coincidental that he made these comments the week before the German Grand Prix. He must know that German manufacturers, BMW and Mercedes will have to respond to this in the strongest possible terms. What is he trying to stoke up? Any ideas?

I think you're right. Something's going on somewhere and he's diverting attention.