Blockbuster actor and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger is opening up about his childhood with his abusive Nazi father in a new three-part Netflix docuseries called Arnold, according to Insider.
The series details the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger's personal story and journey as a bodybuilder turned actor turned American politician. The first episode spends time on Schwarzenegger's “tough” childhood that began two years after the end of World War II in the Austrian village of Thal.
Schwarzenegger said he and his older brother Meinhard were frequently pitted against each other by their father, who Schwarzenegger suspected returned from World War II “suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome.” His father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, served as a member of the Nazi Party's paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung (SA), and was involved in the invasion of Leningrad.
Arnold also details how his father was “buried underneath buildings, rubble, for three days, and on top of that, they lost the war. They went home so depressed. Austria was a country of broken men. I think there were times where my father really struggled.”
Schwarzenegger further describes his father as a “tyrant and a very tough police officer” and also admits “there was a kind of schizophrenic behavior that my brother and I witnessed at home, ” particularly when his father had been drinking.
Schwarzenegger said his father's abusive behavior is what led him to leave Austria for America and helped shape him into who he is today. Unfortunately, Schwarzenegger also suspects it is what led his brother Meinhard to start drinking (and subsequently die at age 24 of a drunk-driving accident).
The new Nextflix streaming docuseries Arnold, which began streaming Wednesday, is sure to shed some other eye-opening details about Schwarzenegger's life story as well.
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