BERLIN (AFP-EJP)---A conservative German politician whose defence of his predecessor’s Nazi past provoked criticism from Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that he "regretted" his comments.

Guenther Oettinger, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said in an "open letter to those who criticised me" that he had not intended to appear to "in any way put into perspective the terrible Nazi dictatorship."

"In so far as the comments led to misunderstandings, I formally regret them," said the leader of the southwestern Baden-Wuerttemberg regional government.

Oettinger caused outrage by remarks made during a eulogy for Hans Filbinger, a former CDU leader of Baden-Wuerttemberg and a navy judge under the Third Reich, whom he described as an "opponent of the Nazi regime."

Filbinger, who died aged 93 on April 1, had resigned as state leader in
1978 following revelations about his involvement while a judge in death sentences against deserters in World War II. He never expressed regret about his past.

Wide condemnation

Oettinger’s comments, made on Wednesday, were condemned across Germany and by the Simon-Wiesenthal Centre which called on the politician to resign.

"Is is inadmissible that a German premier can publicly defend an ex-Nazi official and we call for his resignation," Ephraim Zuroff, the director of the Israeli chapter of the Nazi-hunting centre, told AFP in Jerusalem.

On Friday, Chancellor Merkel announced publicly that she had called Oettinger to tell him that she wished "that beyond honouring the great life’s work of premier Hans Filbinger, critical questions about the Nazi era had also been posed."

She added this was particularly crucial "out of respect for the feelings of the victims" of the Third Reich.