Dear Indymedia,

Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to win the California gubernatorial election, handing over another major state to the Right. Everyone has focused on his sex and drugs past but no one has found a damning photograph: The young Austrian wearing proudly a Nazi cap.

The picture in question is *not* the tricked-up movie poster from Esquire (http://www.s-t.com/daily/12-96/12-25-96/c06ae100.htm), nor is it his nude photographs (http://radosh.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_radosh_archive.html#106065543775691489). It is also not his suspiciously “Sieg Heil” salute against the backdrop of the Alps (a picture available on the internet five days ago but since seems to have been taken down). Instead, it is a picture of the young patriot, before he came t o the United States and became involved with Hollywood.

This picture is fairly well-known in Europe but there has been no mention of it in the United States press, even though his other Nazi sympathies are discussed, such as his apologies for Kurt Waldheim (http://santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/5174/index.php ) and his father’s membership in the storm troopers (http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/08/1634628.php).

The picture was published in a German entertainment magazine called “TVmovie” (http://www.tvmovie.de/startseite/index.html ), around the year 1993. It was in one of their very first editions, and the magazine reproduced a picture of the young Schwarzenegger in Nazi regalia from a low-circulation, rather sleazy Austrian neo-Nazi publication. TVmovie published this photo along with a two-page discussion about the actor’s Nazi nostalgia.

In recent years, Schwarzenegger has made some half-hearted attempts to repudiate his fascism through high-publicity donations and photo-ops; indeed, for some, all that is needed is approval from a few influential groups and Arnold is forgiven.

Yet, we need not remind Indymedia that, like Reagan, it is the people behind Arnold with the decidedly reactionary agenda who intend to literally capitalize on the victory of their new face-man. Don’t misunderstand us: we are not supporters of the Democrats or of their recently anointed investment banker/general, but there are shades of difference even among vultures.

We do not have the resources to find this picture and hope that Indymedia has the contacts to acquire it, if not from the magazine’s archive (probably located in Hamburg), then from a public library or other archives that might contain this article. TVmovie does not have past issues online, so someone must physically acquire the edition with the Schwarzenegger article. It seems unlikely that even the wide publication of this picture will change the California election, but at least the Terminator’s governorship can be started with a nice welcome.

We very much want independent media to find and comment on this picture first, and at this stage we have only written to Indymedia, but if we do not hear from Indymedia by next Tuesday, we will send this information out to other independent media and eventually to mainstream media in the hope it will be published before the election.

Can you help?

Thanks,



J and M