Steven Spielberg demanded Megan Fox be fired from Transformers, says Bay

The actor was reportedly forced to leave the franchise for her remarks likening director Michael Bay to Adolf Hitler

• Catherine Shoard
• guardian.co.uk

Before the fallout ... Megan Fox in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009). Photograph: PR

As Lars von Trier knows, comparing a film director to Hitler – even if it's yourself – is rarely wise. And it's now been confirmed by Michael Bay that it was Megan Fox's remarks likening Bay to the German dictator that led to her being dismissed from the Transformers franchise.

1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
2. Country: USA
3. Directors: Michael Bay
4. Cast: Hugo Weaving, John Malkovich, Josh Duhamel, Patrick Dempsey, Shia LaBeouf
5. More on this film

Speaking ahead of the 4 July premiere of Transformers 3, in which British model Rosie Huntingdon-Whitley replaced Fox as the female lead, Bay has revealed it was the film's executive producer, Steven Spielberg, who demanded Fox's dismissal. Bay said: "You know the Hitler thing? Steven (Spielberg) said, fire her right now."

Fox, 25, made the offending remarks to British magazine Wonderland shortly before production was scheduled to begin on the third instalment of the franchise. "He's like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous madman reputation," she said of Bay. "He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he's a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he's not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he's so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it's endearing to watch him. He's vulnerable and fragile in real life and then on set he's a tyrant. Shia [Labeouf] and I almost die when we make a Transformers movie. He has you do some really insane things that insurance would never let you do."

At the time, Fox's departure was credited to her desire to pursue other acting opportunities.

Bay's appointment of Fox was not universally popular. In an open letter posted on Michael Bay's website, a Transformers crew member disparaged Bay's decision to cast her over more experienced actors. "He told everyone around to just trust him on his choice … she became one of the most Googled and [ogled] women on earth. She was famous! She was the next Angelina Jolie, hooray! Wait a minute, two of us worked with Angelina. Second thought: she's no Angelina. You see, Angelina is a professional. We know this quite intimately because we've had the tedious experience of working with the dumb-as-a-rock Megan Fox on both Transformers movies."

Recording of Nazi officers who found Hitler's body released

A tape recording of Nazi officers describing the moment they found Adolf Hitler's body in his Berlin bunker has been discovered.

 

By Allan Hall in Berlin

Adolf Hitler Photo: PA

The remains of Hitler's bunker in Berlin Photo: AP

The skull fragment that is believd to belong to Adolf Hitler Photo: EPA

The recording was made on October 25 1956 in a courtroom in Berchtesgaden, site of the Fuehrer's mountaintop home in Bavaria. The court was convened to officially declare the former leader of Nazi Germany dead so that his fortune and rights to his book "Mein Kampf" could be seized by the state government.
Among those giving evidence that day were Otto Guensche, an SS officer, and Heinz Linge, a valet, who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun.

The remains of Hitler's bunker in Berlin Photo: AP

 

On the recording, discovered by researchers for the German Spiegel TV channel, the men speak under oath of entering the Fuehrer's study after hearing shots ring out on April 30 1945.
"When I entered to my left I saw Hitler on the sofa," said Linge, who died in 1980.
"Hitler had his head bent forward somewhat and I could see a bullethole approximately the size of a penny on the right side of the temple."
Guensche, who went to his death in 1983 refusing to give details about the dictator's end, said: "Hitler sat on the arm of the sofa with his head hanging down on the right shoulder which was itself hanging limp over the back of the sofa. On the right side was the bullethole."
Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary, was with them when they first entered Hitler's study, the pair testified.
They arrived at 3.30pm and participated in removing the bodies, carrying them upstairs to the devastated garden of the Reich Chancellery and assisting in their cremation.

The skull fragment that is believd to belong to Adolf Hitler Photo: EPA

Both men were captured by the Soviets after the fall of Berlin and shipped off to Moscow for over a decade. It fuelled the myth which Russian leader Josef Stalin wanted to perpetuate that Hitler might somehow have escaped and was on the run. They came back to Germany in 1955.
The testimony of Guensche and Linge lay hidden in the Munich public records office. Spiegel has restored the recordings to allow them to be heard by scholars and historians.

Germany's New AIDS Ad — Starring Hitler

By Tristana Moore / Berlin

Germany's latest AIDS-awareness commercial evokes some strong emotions: shock, disgust, nausea. And that's exactly the point. The controversial ad, which was released online on Sept. 3 and starts running on German TV on Wednesday, Sept. 9, shows a couple having steamy sex in a dimly lit room with menacing music playing in the background. The viewer sees only the back of the man's head until the very end, when the camera pans to his face — to reveal that he's Adolf Hitler. Then the slogan flashes across the screen: "AIDS is a mass murderer."

Photos

Africa's AIDS Crisis

It's a strong message, but HIV/AIDS organizations in Germany are arguing over whether it's the right one. Rainbow, the AIDS-awareness group spearheading the campaign — which also includes newspaper ads and posters featuring the images of other dictators, like Stalin and Saddam Hussein — says it deliberately wants to provoke people, especially young Germans, into using condoms to help prevent the spread of HIV. "We want to give this terrible virus a face," Jan Schwertner, spokesman for Rainbow, tells TIME. "AIDS is a forgotten issue in Germany. It's been swept under the carpet. This shock campaign is necessary to get people thinking again." (See pictures of Hitler's rise to power.)

But the use of Hitler's image — always a highly sensitive topic in Germany — has angered mainstream HIV/AIDS organizations, which say the ad stigmatizes HIV sufferers. On Tuesday, Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, an umbrella group for HIV counseling centers and Germany's biggest AIDS organization, called the video "disgusting" and demanded an immediate end to the campaign. "The video ridicules all victims of the Nazi regime, and it equates HIV-positive people with mass murderers," says spokeswoman Carolin Vierneisel. "The advertising campaign just relies on provoking anxiety among people. That's the wrong approach. Successful HIV prevention is based on factual information about the risks of HIV transmission and encourages people to use condoms." (Read "The Battle in Uganda Over Female Condoms.")

Germans need the encouragement — the facts about HIV rates in the country are alarming. According to Rainbow's research, eight people become infected with HIV in Germany every day. Across the country, 60,000 people are living with HIV. To help explain the advertisement's shock tactics, the campaign's website states, "Over the past number of years, public interest in AIDS has massively declined. The number of victims, however, has not. As of now, over 28 million people worldwide have died. And every day another 5,000 fatalities are added to that number. This makes AIDS one of the largest mass murderers of all time."

The ads will be shown in German cinemas and broadcast on TV starting on Wednesday, aiming for maximum impact. The agency that created the commercials, Hamburg-based Das Comitee, has robustly defended the campaign, pointing out that the video has already had thousands of viewings since last Thursday, when it was posted on video-sharing sites like YouTube. "We need to warn young people about the dangers of AIDS and the risks of unprotected sex," says creative director Hans Weishäupl. "AIDS is the mass murderer of the 21st century, and we have to show people how awful it is." He adds that he's received a lot of positive feedback on the commercials from young people and their parents. (See pictures of Kristallnacht.)

Weishäupl agrees that his agency's methods are controversial but insists that the end justifies the means. "It's the message that counts, and of course it was provocative to use the picture of Hitler," he says. "But how would you visualize a terrible virus?"

See TIME's Hitler covers.

Woman Shouts "Heil Hitler!" At Jewish Man Praising Israel's National Health System (VIDEO)

Dear God. This is the way America is now. Some conservative radio host stages a "town hall" meeting in Las Vegas. The local news reports that it "was a packed house, full of opinions and no shortage of passion." How passionate? How does some dumb lady, yelling anti-Semitic slurs at another man grab you?

Media Monitor Jon, who holds it down daily on YouTube at NewsPoliticsNews, has the completely depressing clip, which shows an Israeli man holding forth on the virtues of Israel's health care system, which is "universal and compulsory, and is administered by a small number of organizations with funding from the government." I have no basis to judge its merits -- in 2000, the World Health Organization ranked it as the 28th best in the world. That said, let me sum up the countering argument, proferred by another town hall attendee: "Heil Hitler!"

That's right! Some idiot woman yells "Heil Hitler" at a Jewish man who was doing nothing more than being a passionate advocate for Israeli health care. The man, quite naturally, goes completely apoplectic, saying "Shame on you" over and over again. The woman counters by saying, "Well, you ought to be the most against President Obama." The poor man responds by saying, "I want to talk, not against Obama or for Obama. I want to talk about [health care]." He goes on to describe his own experiences with high-cost health care. For his efforts, the woman mocks him some more!

As ThinkProgress points out today, "Conservatives have strenuously denied that there is any anti-Semitism on display by anti-health reform protesters at town hall meetings nationwide." Those denials are no longer tenable, are they?

UPDATE: Various sources maintain that this awful woman is wearing an Israeli Defense Forces t-shirt, which is precisely the level of coherence we've come to expect from these Town Hall twits.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

The fast and the Führer: Own Hitler's car for £5.5m

In Adolf Hitler’s estimation, the Auto Union D-type was up there with the Blitzkrieg – lightning fast in the 1939 season. Now you can own it but – schnell! – at £5.5 million you’ll be facing stiff Russian opposition...

By Simon Lewis

The Auto Union D-type racer is one of the rarest vintage cars in the world - and one of Hitler's favourites

Expected to fetch at least £5.5million at auction in August, this Auto Union D-type racer is one of the rarest vintage cars in the world – and one of Hitler’s favourites.

Driven by the Führer’s friend Hans Stuck in the 1939 Grand Prix racing season, it is one of only three D-types known to exist – and was lost behind the Iron Curtain for 50 years.

Hitler was obsessed with motor racing as proof of German technological superiority and the Silver Arrows – as the Mercedes and Auto Union teams were known – utterly dominated the sport in the Thirties. Stuck, originally a hill-climb champion and friend of Hitler’s chauffeur, impressed the Nazi leader when they met on a hunt in the mid-Twenties and was protected throughout his career by the acquaintance.

When the Red Army overran Berlin at the end of the war, all Silver Arrows cars were immediately shipped back to the NAMI motor research institute in Moscow to be reverse-engineered: a brutal process that destroyed almost all of them, one being chopped in half to serve as a trailer for an apparatchik’s car.

Nobody knew this chassis – number 19 – had survived, until American car enthusiast Paul Karassik tracked it down, adding an original engine from a separate D-type carcass and handing it over to British Silver Arrow specialists Crosthwaite and Gardiner to restore to its original form.

For more details about the D-type auction, visit bonhams.com/quail

COCKPIT

Wider and shorter than modern race cars because, in the Thirties, drivers still sat upright. The broad steering wheel has to be removed to get in, and the only instruments are a huge rev counter and gauges for the temperature and pressure of the oil and water. A chunky five-speed gear lever is by the driver’s right knee, with a long rod linkage to the rear-mounted gearbox. There is no seat belt or crash protection of any sort.

ENGINE

Three-litre 485hp V12 with two valves per cylinder, a Roots-type supercharger and two Solex racing carburettors. The D-type uses magneto ignition, these days used only on lawnmowers and chainsaws. Audi’s modern equivalent 12-cylinder uses electronic ignition and fuel injection, and has twice the capacity – but still only produces 450bhp to the D-type’s 485. Weighing less than a ton, this was one of the most powerful cars seen until the era of turbocharged Formula 1 – 40 years later. Torque is so great that the driver can easily spin the rear tyres at 100mph. Top speed is over 200mph.

Adolf Hitler receiving winner Rudolf Caracciola and second place driver Manfred Von Brauchitsch in the German Grand Prix at Bayreuth, also Josef Goebbels (back to camera)

Hitler's favourite driver was Hans Stuck

DRIVERS

Hitler took a personal interest in motorsport and the dominance of the Silver Arrows in the Thirties served as good PR material for his Nazi party. He’s pictured above with Rudolf Caracciola after the Mercedes-Benz team leader won the 1939 German Grand Prix, but his favourite driver was Hans Stuck. Indeed, when Auto Union offered Stuck’s place on the team to someone else, the SS somehow persuaded them to change their mind...

FUEL TANKS

The D-type’s ‘Toblerone’ shape is due to the fuel tanks lying down each side, which gives a lower centre of gravity – previously, racing cars had the tank behind the driver’s head. Starting the D-type is quite an operation: the spark plugs are removed and a remote starter-motor is plugged in to build up oil pressure, then the plugs are refitted and the carburettors primed with four-star petrol – but once up and running, twin aircraft pumps feed
the engine from the main tanks with high-performance methanol-benzole. It is very loud.

TYRES

Continental racing tyres, much taller and narrower than modern tyres. No power steering.

BODY

All aluminium on a steel chassis, designed by Auto Union engineers – whereas their A-, B- and C-types had been designed by Porsche Engineering.

SUSPENSION

The front axle has Porsche Engineering’s torsion bar suspension, later found in the VW Beetle. The DeDion
rear suspension was the D-type’s chief competitive advantage, guaranteeing much better road-holding than the opposition’s swing-axle rear suspension.

BRAKES

Wide drum brakes with air-cooling fins (modern cars use disc brakes).

THE FOUR-RING BADGE

Auto Union brought together four struggling car manufacturers during the Great Depression, the four rings of the badge representing Horch, Audi, DKW and Wanderer. It became ‘Audi NSU Auto Union’ in 1969 before reverting to simply Audi in 1985.