President refuses to apologise over reference to legendary journalist

President Miloš Zeman will not apologise for suggesting that Ferdinand Peroutka, regarded as one of the greatest ever Czech journalists, was an admirer of Nazism. The Ferdinand Peroutka Association published an open letter calling on the head of state to either apologise or retract a statement last week in which he said the writer, who died in 1978, had written an article entitled Hitler is a Gentleman. The association says the piece was written by a different author. Mr. Zeman’s spokesman said the president was an admirer of Peroutka’s and had merely highlighted his “short-term failure” in the run-up to WWII.

Author: Ian Willoughby