Kohl: I didn't deny Holocaust

Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl's chief assistant told WorldNetDaily the former German chancellor denies an Iranian newspaper's claim that he agreed with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's assertion the Holocaust was a myth.

Kohl "rejects firmly the insinuated quotes," said Lutz Stroppe in an e-mail.

"The quotations are completely fictitious and the story [is] without any basis."

Stroppe said he has not received a response from the government-owned Farsi-language paper, Jomhouri Islami.

The paper's story last week claimed that at a dinner gala with Iranian hoteliers and entrepreneurs, Kohl said he "heartily agreed" with Ahmadinejad's remarks about the Holocaust, according to a translation by Iran Focus.

"What Ahmadinejad said about the Holocaust was in our bosoms," the former German chancellor was quoted as saying. "For years we wanted to say this, but we did not have the courage to speak out."

Ahmadinejad prompted an international furor in November when he publicly declared the Holocaust a "myth" and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Then in December, he suggested European nations should give up some of their territory if they believed the World War II-era Holocaust took place, noting, "certain European countries would have the world go with their stand that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and have passed laws punishing anyone who says anything to the contrary."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"Granting without accepting that the Holocaust did occur, our question to the Europeans is: 'If innocent Jews were indeed butchered by Hitler, why should Palestinians be made to pay the cost in order to seek redress for the occupiers of Jerusalem?'"

Ahmadinejad continued: "If the killing of Jews in Europe is true and the Zionists are being supported because of this excuse, why should the Palestinian nation pay the price?"

"The Islamic world should give up its policy of passivity and deal with the Palestinian issue more actively," he said.

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