Did racing figure take a Reich turn?

LONDON — The scandal would likely have been a ho-hum tale of sex and bondage of little interest to jaded Europeans were it not for two things. The man holding the whip was one of the most powerful men in motor racing. And when he ordered his "prisoners" to submit, he was speaking in a practiced German that called up disturbing images of a distant past.

The man was Max Mosley, president of the international body that governs Formula One Racing — and the son of Oswald Mosley, the controversial founder in the 1930s of the pro-Nazi British Union of Fascists.

Mosley's five-hour encounter with five women in a bondage orgy has prompted accusations of Nazi role-playing and engulfed the Formula One racing world in a leadership crisis that prompted the sport's ruling body Wednesday to announce a meeting of its governing assembly June 3 to decide whether Mosley can keep his post.

The controversy heated up even further when a judge in Britain allowed Rupert Murdoch's News of the World to air on its Web site a videotape excerpt of the encounter between Mosley and the women. The racing chief says the session was a consensual adult gathering and the airing of the tape an invasion of his privacy.

The newspaper also published an interview with a woman who said she was one of several prostitutes hired by Mosley to pose as Nazi guards and prisoners.

The Web site's traffic immediately jumped, by 600 percent, as did the troubles of the 67-year-old Mosley. He now faces calls from Formula One drivers, manufacturers and automobile associations to resign as president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, world motor sport's governing body.

Mosley has admitted having a sex session with the women but claims it had nothing to do with Nazism. He said he speaks German in parts of the video because one of his sex partners was German. The guard uniforms, he said, were not Nazi apparel but featured a modern German air force jacket, while the women were wearing not concentration camp uniforms but U.S. prison garb.

"It goes without saying that the so-called Nazi element is pure fabrication," Mosley said after filing suit against News of the World for invasion of privacy.

But News of the World and its lawyers insisted Wednesday that many questions remain about Mosley's account.

"Why are German military uniforms worn? Why does he issue orders and threats in German to women who cannot speak German? ... Why are the victims of these beatings in German made to put on sinister striped uniforms?" Tom Crone, News Group Newspapers' legal manager, said in a statement.

"Why the head lice inspections, the forced shaving of body hair and the sinister references to inmates being housed in 'facilities'?"

After the ruling, Mosley's lawyers said their client intends to "vigorously pursue" damages against News of the World, the proceeds of which he will donate to the FIA Foundation.

Meanwhile, Mosley faces a flood of demands for his resignation as FIA president. The Automobile Association of America, a member of FIA, called the incident "distressing and embarrassing."