MOTÖRHEAD's LEMMY Talks About His World War II Fascination

March 10, 2005

MOTÖRHEAD mainman Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister recently spoke to Reuters about his fascination with World War II and his penchant for spending his money collecting Nazi memorabilia, which is piled high in his two-bedroom apartment off the Sunset Strip.

"I was born in '45, the year it all ended," Kilmister said. "It's not ancient history to me, and I don't see it as all the good English and Americans and all the bad Germans."

His most prized possession is a rare Damascus Luftwaffe sword, which could be worth at least $10,000, according to a dealer.

"It's my old-age pension," Kilmister said of his collection.

Coincidentally MOTÖRHEAD, which Kilmister founded 30 years ago, is biggest in Germany, and he never misses an opportunity to tour historic sites across Europe — though not the concentration camps.

"You've got to draw the line between what you like to collect and what they actually did," he said.

Hermann Goering is "the only one I admire at all," in part because the portly Luftwaffe chief set up the Gestapo, the Nazis' secret police, and took the blame when he went on trial at Nuremberg after the war. His suicide, hours before he was due to be hanged, was "fantastic," Kilmister said.

But he lumps Adolf Hitler, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Neville Chamberlain and Josef Stalin all in the same category "as lying, thieving, groveling bastards." Current U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair also annoys him. "Anybody that smiles that much, there must be something wrong with him."

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