Bryan Ferry's Nazi gaffe

My God, the Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight... Leni Riefenstahl's movies, Albert Speer's buildings, the mass parades and the flags - just amazing. Really beautiful

Bryan Ferry in 'Welt Am Sonntag'

When Marks & Spencer recruited singer Bryan Ferry to be the face of its menswear collection, it believed his reputation as rock's "king of cool" would help them to boost sales.

But customers and management of the retailer, founded by Russian-Jewish refugees, will be alarmed to learn that the elegant singer has admitted he draws inspiration from the aesthetics of Nazi Germany.

Ferry, the lead singer of Roxy Music, has caused outrage at home and abroad for remarks he made to a German newspaper about his admiration for the work of Leni Riefenstahl, notorious for her Nazi propaganda films, and the architecture of Albert Speer.

In an interview withWelt am Sonntag, the 61-year-old also acknowledged that he calls his studio in west London his "Führerbunker". "My God, the Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves," he said. "Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags - just amazing. Really beautiful."

One German correspondent on the website of Freundin, a German women's magazine, writes: "This can't be called intellectual humour and it tests even my tolerance when you hear such stupid, crazy and dangerous waffling."

The Labour peer and former war crimes investigator Greville Janner said: "It is deeply offensive when people think they can joke about the Nazis. Riefenstahl was part of the Nazi movement and the Nazis were murderers. And the mass parades he refers to make me vomit. Marks & Spencer should have a serious rethink about employing him."

Nick Viner, chief executive of the Jewish Community Centre for London, said that Ferry's remarks were "ill-conceived" and "left a bad taste in the mouth".

"Riefenstahl was responsible for sending people to their deaths. There is a fine line between people going about their business and people colluding in truly terrible behaviour."

Ferry's manager dismissed the protests as "absurd". "To take offence here is to confuse the aesthetic with the ideological," Steven Howard said. "To suggest that a certain appreciation of art and architecture that happens to be associated with the Nazi regime means condoning the actions of that regime is illogical."

The singer is a supporter of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance. Anti-bloodsport campaigners called for the alliance to disown him. "Mr Ferry appears to be a man with very little sense of conscience," said Douglas Batchelor of the League Against Cruel Sports. "We would be interested to see if the alliance does the decent thing and disowns him."

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