By Mark Sage, PA News, in New York
Action hero turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger has told how he suffered what “would now be called child abuse” at the hands of his father.
In a candid interview the Terminator star said he was beaten by his father Gustav – a wartime Nazi party official – to make him “conform”.
But he rebelled against the beatings and dreamed of escaping his home to become rich and famous.
He made a name for himself as a body builder after he arrived in America at the age of 21. After a career in acting he is now the Governor of California.
Describing his upbringing to Fortune magazine, Schwarzenegger said: “My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door, and so was the kid next door.
“It was just the way it was. Many of the children I’ve seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality.
“Break the will. They didn’t want to create an individual. It was all about conforming.” But he went on: “I was one who did not conform and whose will could not be broken.
“Therefore I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, ’you can’t do this,’ I said, ’this is not going to be for much longer, because I’m going to move out of here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody’.”
Republican Schwarzenegger was elected as Governor of California – the world’s fifth largest economy – at the end of the last year when Californians, sick of economic mismanagement, ousted Gray Davis.
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