“I was very little, but I have memories of Germany in WW II,” he said in his quiet, but intense way of speaking. “I remember hearing sirens a lot, having to get in the basement a lot because the Brits would come and bomb the s--- out of us and I mean bomb the s--- out us — Kiel was 96 percent destroyed and they estimate something like 500,000 bombs were dropped on that town alone.”

Although living through a war would be difficult for anyone, Braeden said he harbors no hard feelings about the war.

“It was a necessary war and it was a good war because Germany had succumbed to the mutterings of an utterly insane person -- a German-first xenophobe that promised economic recovery and for the first five years he got,” he said. “It’s very comparable to what’s happening today in America because it’s a great country and it’s doing damn well — you know who were the first people he had put into camps? The journalists, so be aware of guys offering simple solutions to complex problems.”

And in case you can't read between the lines, Braeden clarified his thoughts.

“Yes, I’m talking about Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump,” he said. “So many people have escaped absolute desperation by coming to America —so, here we have the son of a rich man, a spoiled boy, and he finds the disenfranchised and panders to them, but people are starting to see through his bulls---. He’s going to make this country great again? This is the greatest (censored) country in the world.”

Braeden’s anger is especially evident when it comes to insisting that he will “go after” anyone who crosses or undermine him, and also with the mention of Donald Trump, who you might expect Victor Newman to have much in common with, but not so Braeden who angrily denounces the president as a “clown,” whose policies are “bullshit” (a favorite word).

The ethos of Trump’s presidency echoes fascism, Braeden says, and this is something he feels passionately about. His much-loved father, who died when Braeden was 12, joined the Nazi party, and in his just-published memoir Braeden writes movingly about the anger and confusion that this has caused him in the years since.
As Braeden notes, Hitler’s ascendancy was powered by his dragging Germany out of a Depression. “In 1928 people thought he was a nut, no-one took him seriously. German Jews didn’t take him seriously.

“The Weimar Republic, one of the most liberal constitutions in the world, failed because of the Wall Street Crash, providing a fertile ground for real disgruntlement and fear in Germany. Then along comes this raving maniac promising to defy the Versailles Treaty and re-establish German pride. The German people said ‘yeah.’ Now, we have this idiot here (Donald Trump) who says he wants to make America great again.”