VIENNA (AFP) - Eighty-nine year-old Reinhard Spitzy is undertaking a possibly unprecedented historical project: writing a book about the funny side of the Third Reich. And he is more qualified than most for the job: six decades ago Spitzy was secretary to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister. But first he wants to clear up one thing. "The Third Reich wasn't so bad as they now declare it," he told AFP from his family estate outside Salzburg, where he has lived since returning from Argentina after World War II. "Stalin's Russia was much worse. If you count the number of people killed by the Third Reich it might have been three, four, five, six million or something. But with Stalin it was 80 million. Spitzy, an engaging and sharp-witted polyglot octagenarian whose pet hate is political correctness, is equally forthright about other, more recent political developments in Austria. He is an unrepentant fan of far-right leader Joerg Haider, himself the son of a former Nazi, who has shoved his homeland into the spotlight recently by striking a controversial power-sharing deal in Viena. "I believe in Haider because he is a genius and intellectually interesting. .. If you speak personally with Haider you will find that he is very sensible," he says. But the current state of Austrian politics isn't the former Nazi diplomat's main concern at the moment. For now his book is everything. "It's called 'Tragecomedies of the Third Reich' and I hope to publish it in about two years' time," said Spitzy of his book, which follows his 1999 first volume of memoirs, "How We Squandered the Reich." Unlike that book, this one is aiming to be a sidesplitter. His tale of the fly on Hitler's nose is typical. "During the war, Hitler was reading a map on big wooden table, when suddenly a fly landed on his nose. Hitler got so furious .. and he ordered an aide to swat it off. "But the officer thought it below his dignity. He flapped his hands about but didn't take it seriously. Hitler exploded, and said listen, we have men in submarines sinking ships, and you can't get rid of a fly." The aide was not seen in Hitler's entourage again. Or when Hitler, spying a pretty young girl during an outing, decided to have his picture taken with her and made into 60,000 postcards. Only then did someone realize the girl was a Jew. "They wanted to destroy all the postcards, but Hitler said no. He was not so anti-Semitic when I knew him at that time," he said. Spitzy says he left the Nazi party in 1939, shortly before the war, when he realized that Hitler was going to risk everything and invade neighbouring Czechoslovakia and Poland. "Hitler was a drug addict, he was sick," he argues, saying that the turning point was the 1938 Munich conference when Neville Chamberlain famously declared "peace in our time" even as war loomed. "I thought the Munich conference was marvellous ..I was a convinced Nazi, but when I found out that Hitler was a gambler and would ruin everything then I joined the resistance movement," he said. The ex-Nazi's first book of memoirs was popular despite some criticism that it was not critical enough of Hitler. He predicts similar success for his book of anecdotes. "I can choose my publisher because it will be such a hit." But, unusually, he is writing his latest book in English, working with an editor in Britain who he says is a senior member of the Labour Party. Again, political correctness is behind it. "The Germans are so afraid of publishing it, they are so politically correct, so idiotic," he laments. "Once I wrote a book and an editor asked me to change 150 things. Political correctness is such rubbish." Above all Spitzy has no fear of controversy. On last year's EU sanctions against Austria, imposed after Haider's party joined a national coalition, he is typically robust. He notably blasts the French EU presidency which spearheaded the embargo. "I detest Mr. Chirac .. I studied to be a diplomat in France, and I adore the country and my best friends live there. But France is the true homeland of anti-Semitism," he said. Argument, he concludes, is a fundamentally good thing. "I hate political correctness. I hope I'm politically incorrect. I want to provoke, because discussion is interesting. Just following like sheep is ridiculous."



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