Otto Abetz shakes hands with Vichy leader Marshal Philippe Petain in 1941. Credit:Roger Viollet

"I think it was one of mixed reaction in that he did some really positive things but he also did participate in, you know, the deportation of the Jews which is really, there's no excuse for that whatsoever and yet he also did some very positive things," Abetz said after host Jenny Brockie asked how he felt when he discovered the family's Nazi past.

"I was told that he - when the Americans were advancing on Paris - because he was so passionate about French culture, he actually negotiated with the Americans to, and the Wehrmacht, that the Germans would vacate Paris and not booby trap anything if the Americans gave them I think three or four days to withdraw and the French were incredibly grateful for that because that way Paris wasn't actually destroyed."

During Abetz's trial by a French military tribunal one witness, a high-ranking Nazi official, claimed Abetz, who was passionate about French art and architecture, was instrumental in disobeying Hitler's order to raze Paris in 1944.

Quizzed by Brockie on whether he tried to "cling to the positive" about his notorious relative, Peter Abetz said he had been deeply touched by a visit to the Holocaust memorial in Israel.