Why Did Premadasa Admire Hitler?

By Rifat Halim –MAY 1, 2018

Ranasinghe Premadasa was a fascinating leader, who deserves a much better biography than the ones that Bradman Weerakoon and Evans Cooray have produced.

Premadasa, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Local Government with the
Minister of Local Government Senator M Tiruchelvam QC (In the White Suit) in the Colombo Airport in 1968.

There are three questions that come to mind on his 25th death anniversary:

(1) Why did he admire Hitler?

Premadasa served as the Parliamentary Secretary (colloquially known as the Deputy Minister) to the Minister of Local Government Murugeysen Tiruchelvam QC from March 1965 to September 1968. Tiruchelvam was the Federal Parry’s nominee in Dudley Senanayake’s Cabinet. He succeeded Tiruchelvam as Minister, when the latter resigned in September 1968.

In early 1968, the Frederich Ebert Stiftung (FES), a think tank controlled by German Social Democratic Party (SPD), invited Minister Tiruchelvam to study local government in West Germany. The Minister declined the invitation and nominated his Deputy Premadasa, Dr. Sarath Amunugama (who was then a coordinating secretary in the Ministry) and one more official. Dr. Sarath Amunugama is now a Cabinet Minister.

When they arrived in Bonn (West Germany’s capital), Premadasa asked Amunugama to purchase books on Adolf Hitler. Premadasa told Amunugama that he was a long-standing admirer of Hitler. This was the first and only time that Amunugama had met a fan of Hitler.

Amunugama had to look long and hard for books on Hitler in Bonn. The Americans had restricted all pro-Nazi literature from the bookshops. When a few books were produced, Premadasa was delighted. He exclaimed that he wished that his late mentor AE Goonesinghe (who modelled the Ceylon Labour Party on the Nazi Party) could have been in Bonn.

Former UNP MP Asoka Somaratne (who resigned after the accord) has written that Premadasa enjoyed watching Hitler’s speeches, even if he could not speak one word of German. Premadasa even adopted Hitler’s mannerisms in his own speeches.

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