Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Nazi Holocaust may be an ``excuse'' by the nations that won World War II to keep Germans ``ashamed.''

``Is it not a reasonable possibility that certain victorious countries in the war aimed to make up an excuse on the basis of which they could keep the defeated people constantly ashamed,'' and to block Germany's ``progress and strength?'' Ahmadinejad wrote in a letter to Merkel cited today by the state-run Mehr news agency. The letter was delivered July 20 to Germany's embassy in Tehran and hadn't been made public previously.

The Holocaust has been detrimental, ``in addition to Germans, to the people of the Middle East and to all of humanity,'' wrote Ahmadinejad. ``With the design of Holocaust survivors' necessary settlement in Palestine, a constant threat has been created in the Middle East,'' he said, referring to the Jews who settled in the region.

Iran is involved in an international dispute over its nuclear program. The United Nations Security Council has given Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment, which the U.S. and its allies say is part of a nuclear weapons program. Iran also has been criticized for supporting the Lebanese Muslim militia Hezbollah, which fought Israel in a 33-day conflict that has been suspended by a UN-backed cease-fire since Aug. 14.

Iran doesn't recognize Israel. Ahmadinejad drew international condemnation after saying on Oct. 26 that Israel should be ``wiped off the map.'' The English-language, state-run Tehran Times newspaper in May published a full-page statement describing the Holocaust as a ``myth'' and the 6 million Jewish deaths during the Nazi regime as ``impossible.''

German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm had replied in July that the letter to Merkel contained ``many statements which aren't acceptable to us, especially on Israel and on Israel's right of existence and the Holocaust.'' The German government doesn't intend to enter into correspondence with the Iranian president, he said at the time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Tehran at lnasseri@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 28, 2006 12:00 EDT