ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 3, 1996 TAG: 9606030140
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEMO: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.
Francois Genoud - a Nazi sympathizer, banker to Arab militants and defender of terrorists - has committed suicide. He was 81.
Genoud, who made a fortune from publishing the diaries of Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels, poisoned himself Thursday. He was aided by the Swiss pro-euthanasia group Exit, his daughter said Saturday.
``He had decided to leave this earth on a date that he chose himself,'' Martine Genoud said. She did not say whether he had been ill.
Genoud was born in Lausanne in 1915. When he was 15, he moved to Germany, where he acquired his national socialist ideals.
``I stayed a Nazi for the rest of my life. I never changed my colors,'' Genoud said in a 1990 interview.
Adolf Hitler ``was my hero and always will be,'' Genoud said of the Nazi leader he met twice.
After World War II, Genoud won a long legal battle for the copyrights to the writings of leading Nazis, including Goebbels and Martin Bormann.
Swiss media said Genoud had joined the Exit group last year and spoke openly of suicide plans.
``Look at me. I, who was once the adventurer, am now just a tired old man,'' the Tribune de Geneve quoted him as saying. ``I can't accept that kind of existence.''
LENGTH: Short : 37 linesby CNB