The Mirror says sorry to Ferry

Today's Mirror carries an apology to Bryan Ferry for not stressing carefully enough the distinction between his admiration of Nazi-era art and architecture, and the state which that art was in support of:

ON 16 April we reported on an interview given by Bryan Ferry to a German newspaper. Our article was headed "The Nazis were so amazing" and claimed that Mr Ferry had been "singing the praises of the Nazis". We now accept this was not true.

In fact, Mr Ferry had spoken only of his admiration from an artistic point of view for some aspects of German art, architecture and presentation which were associated with the Nazi regime. He made no mention of the Nazi regime nor did he use the word "Nazi". We accept that Mr Ferry abhors the Nazi regime and all it stood for.

We apologise to Mr Ferry for the offence caused by our report and are happy to set the record straight.

Interesting. The headline was an extrapolation way too far.

But also slightly curious - because in the original interview, still on the Welt Am Sonntag webistehe does. clearly, use the word "Nazi":

Da haben Sie mich ertappt. Normalerweise behaupte ich gegenüber deutschen Journalisten immer, ich würde mein Studio als mein "Hauptquartier" bezeichnen. Das ist weniger verfänglich. Aber die Art und Weise, wie sich die Nazis inszeniert und präsentiert haben, meine Herren! Ich spreche von den Filmen von Leni Riefenstahl und den Gebäuden von Albert Speer und den Massenaufmärschen und den Flaggen - einfach fantastisch. Wirklich schön.

It is noticeable, though, that when the interviewer attempts to lead him further down this line of thought - by raising Bowie's supposed admiration for Hitler's body language, Ferry refuses to be drawn.