Kurt Waldheim#Military service in World War II

Waldheim was born in Sankt Andrä-Wördern, near Vienna, on 21 December 1918.{{cite web |title=Former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim dies at 88 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/871159.html |url-status=dead |work=Haaretz |date=14 June 2007 |access-date=14 June 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080524141341/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/871159.html |archive-date=24 May 2008}} He was the eldest child of Walter Watzlawik, a schoolmaster of Czech origin,[https://web.archive.org/web/20071102154220/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2007%2F06%2F15%2Fdb1501.xml Kurt Waldheim], The Daily Telegraph, 15 June 2007. and his wife Josefine Petrasch.{{sfn|Herzstein|1988|p=27}} Watzlawik (original Czech spelling Václavík) changed his name to "Waldheim" that year as the Habsburg monarchy collapsed and eventually rose to become superintendent of schools for the Tulln District, attaining the rank of Regierungsrat (government councillor). Active in the Christian Social Party, he was well regarded as a devoutly Catholic family man.{{sfn|Herzstein|1988|pp=35–36}} Waldheim and his two younger siblings, a brother, Walther, and a sister, Gerlinde, enjoyed a comfortable middle-class upbringing. From his youth, Waldheim was distinguished by his unusual height of {{Infobox person/height|1.92 metres}}. As a gymnasium student in Klosterneuburg, he excelled at languages and was a competent violinist in the school orchestra, also enjoying swimming, boating and tennis.{{sfn|Herzstein|1988|pp=35–37}}

Although his father wanted him to study medicine, Waldheim had an aversion to the sight of blood, and had already decided to enter the foreign service.{{sfn|Herzstein|1988|pp=35–36}} In March 1936, the Schuschnigg government passed a law mandating a period of military service for prospective civil servants. Consequently, following his graduation Waldheim volunteered for a 12-month term of enlistment in the Austrian Army, and was posted to the 1st Dragoon Regiment on his 18th birthday.{{sfn|Herzstein|1988|pp=44–45}} In the autumn of 1937, now an army reservist, Waldheim entered the prestigious Consular Academy in Vienna on a scholarship, where he began his studies in law and diplomacy. Along with his family, Waldheim opposed the German annexation of Austria in 1938, and while actively campaigning against it in Vienna was attacked and injured by Austrian Nazis.{{sfn|Herzstein|1988|pp=50–52}} Following the annexation, Waldheim's father was briefly arrested by the Gestapo and dismissed from his post, while Waldheim's scholarship was cancelled. He managed to continue his studies by working as a Latin and Greek tutor and borrowing funds from relatives.{{sfn|Herzstein|1988|pp=54–55}}

Waldheim applied for membership in the National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB), a division of the Nazi Party.Report of the International Historical Commission of 8 February 1988, section on "Membership in National Socialist Organizations", as cited, e.g., in [http://nationalsozialismus.at/Themen/Umgang/waldheim.htm Waldheim Affäre] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070225120601/http://nationalsozialismus.at/Themen/Umgang/waldheim.htm |date=25 February 2007}}. nationalsozialismus.at Shortly thereafter he became a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi Party's original paramilitary wing.

On 19 August 1944, he married Elisabeth Ritschel in Vienna; their first daughter, Lieselotte, was born the following year. A son, Gerhard, and another daughter, Christa, followed.

In early 1941, Waldheim was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany, specifically to the Heer (Army), and posted to the Eastern Front where he served as a squad leader. In December, he was wounded but returned to service in 1942. His service from 1942 to 1945 was the subject of international review in 1985 and 1986. In his 1985 autobiography, he claimed that he was discharged from further service at the front and, for the remainder of the war, finished his law degree at the University of Vienna, in addition to marrying in 1944.{{cite news|title=Kurt Waldheim: Austrian head of the UN who as president of his country was later tainted by charges of complicity in Nazi atrocities|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1934744.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523143546/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1934744.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=23 May 2011|work=The Times|location=London|date=15 June 2007|access-date=13 October 2008}} After publication, documents and witnesses came to light that revealed Waldheim's military service continued until 1945, during which time he rose to the rank of {{lang|de|Oberleutnant}}.

Waldheim's functions within the staff of the German Army's Group E from 1942 until 1945, as determined by the International Commission of Historians,see page 39 of The Waldheim Report. Submitted 8 February 1988 to Federal Chancellor Dr. Franz Vranitzky were:

• Interpreter and liaison officer with the 5th Alpine Division (Italy) in Pljevlja, Montenegro from 22 March 1942 to July 1942;
• O2 (2nd Assistant Adjutant) to the 1b (General Staff Quartermaster) with Kampfgruppe West in Bosnia in June/August 1942,
• Interpreter with the liaison staff attached to the Italian 9th Army in Tirana in early summer 1942;
• O1 (1st Assistant Adjutant) to the 1a (General Staff Chief of Operations) in the German liaison staff with the Italian 11th Army and in the staff of the Army Group South in Greece in July/October 1943; and
• O3 (3rd Assistant Adjutant) to the 1c (General Staff Chief Intelligence Officer) officer on the staff of Army Group E in Arsakli, Kosovska Mitrovica and Sarajevo from October 1943 to January/February 1945.

By 1943, Waldheim was serving in the capacity of an aide-de-camp in Army Group E which was headed by General Alexander Löhr, who would be executed as a war criminal in 1947.Walther-Peer Fellgiebel (2000), Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945. Podzun-Pallas. {{ISBN|3-7909-0284-5}} In 1986, Waldheim said that he had served only as an interpreter and a clerk and had no knowledge either of reprisals against local Serb civilians or of massacres in neighboring provinces of Yugoslavia. He said that he had known about some of the things that had happened, and had been horrified, but could not see what else he could have done.

Much historical interest has centred on Waldheim's role in Operation Kozara in 1942.{{cite news|work=The New York Times|date=15 June 2007|title=Kurt Waldheim|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/world/europe/15waldheim.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1|quote="Waldheim took part in, and was decorated for, Operation Kozara, a large-scale antipartisan operation involving mass reprisals – at the rate of 100 executions for every German killed – and mass deportations of Serb women and children to concentration camps."|first=Jonathan|last=Kandell|access-date=7 May 2010}} According to one post-war investigator, prisoners were routinely shot within only a few hundred metres (yards) of Waldheim's office,{{cite journal|title=Kurt Waldheim: man of mystery |journal=Spokesman Magazine |date=1 May 2005 |author=Casey, Dennis |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QUY/is_2005_May/ai_n15387360/pg_2/?tag=content;col1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111119100320/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QUY/is_2005_May/ai_n15387360/pg_2/?tag=content%3Bcol1 |archive-date=19 November 2011}} and {{convert|35|km}} away at the Jasenovac concentration camp. Waldheim later stated that "he did not know about the murder of civilians there".

Waldheim's name appears on the Wehrmacht{{'}}s "honour list" of those responsible for the militarily successful operation. The Nazi puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia, awarded Waldheim the Medal of the Crown of King Zvonimir in silver with an oak branches cluster.[https://www.newyorker.com/archive/1986/06/30/1986_06_30_065_TNY_CARDS_000345713 Letter from Europe: Vienna, 20 June] The New Yorker Decades later, during the lobbying for his election as U.N. Secretary General, Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, who had led the Yugoslav Partisans during the war, awarded Waldheim one of the highest Yugoslav orders, not knowing the details of his prior military service.{{cite news|title=Wir Österreicher wählen, wen wir wollen|language=de |work=Der Spiegel|date=14 April 1986|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13517709.html|quote=Staatschef Tito überreichte Waldheim trotzdem einen der höchsten jugoslawischen Orden [Anyhow, Tito awarded Waldheim with one of the highest Yugoslav orders].}}

Waldheim denied that he knew war crimes were taking place in Bosnia at the height of the battles between the Nazis and Tito's partisans in 1943.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1554545/Kurt-Waldheim.html|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|title=Kurt Waldheim|date=15 June 2007|access-date=7 May 2010}} According to Eli Rosenbaum, in 1944, Waldheim reviewed and approved a packet of antisemitic propaganda leaflets to be dropped behind Soviet lines, one of which ended: "Enough of the Jewish war, kill the Jews, come over."Rosenbaum, EM with Hoffer W, Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up St. Martin's Press, 1993, {{ISBN|0-312-08219-3}}, p. 338

In 1945, Waldheim surrendered to British forces in Carinthia, at which point he said he had fled his command post within Army Group E, where he was serving with General Alexander Löhr.{{cite news |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/WALDHEIM,%20KURT%20%20%20VOL.%201_0030.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123204329/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/WALDHEIM%2C%20KURT%20%20%20VOL.%201_0030.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=23 January 2017 |title=CIA Records on Kurt Waldheim |work=CIA Reading Room |date=11 July 1986}}

After finishing his studies in law at the University of Vienna Waldheim joined the Austrian diplomatic service in 1945. Waldheim escaped a denazification proceedings, as Austrian governmental forces quashed it, though it would have been required because of Waldheim's memberships in the SA's equestrian unit and in the NSDSB — Nazi Student Association.Rathkolb, Oliver. 2020. Waldheim, Kurt. Stolberg-Wernigerode, Otto zu, 1893-1984: Neue deutsche Biographie, Bd.: 27. Band, Vockerodt-Wettiner, Berlin, 306. Thereafter, his diplomatic career could commence.

Waldheim served as First Secretary of the Legation in Paris from 1948, and in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Vienna from 1951 to 1956. In 1956 he was made Ambassador to Canada, returning to the Ministry in 1960, after which he became the Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations in 1964. For two years beginning in 1968, he was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Austrian People's Party, before going back in 1970 as Permanent Representative to the UN. Shortly afterward he ran in the 1971 Austrian presidential election, and was defeated.

File:Kurt Waldheim 1971b.jpg

After losing the presidential election, Waldheim ran for Secretary-General of the United Nations in the 1971 selection. Waldheim was supported by 11 votes, including the Soviet Union, and led the first two rounds of voting. The United States and United Kingdom initially supported him in the second round of voting. However, he was vetoed by China in the second round. Waldheim won an accidental victory in the third round of voting when those three permanent members failed to coordinate their vetoes and all abstained.{{harvnb|FRUS 1969–1976 V|loc=[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v05/d247 Document 247]}}: Telegram From the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State, 22 December 1971, 0356Z. According to Finnish diplomat Risto Hyvärinen, Waldheim's former Nazi connections were already known to the Finnish officials who supported Max Jakobson for Secretary-General in the election. However, this knowledge was not used against Waldheim, because the Finns believed he would not be chosen anyway due to the United States having promised to veto him.{{cite web|title=Suomen ulkoministeriön johto tiesi Waldheimin natsimenneisyyden jo 1971|work=Helsingin Sanomat|date=3 November 2000|url=https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000003924029.html|access-date=21 August 2022|language=fi}}

As secretary-general from 1972 onward, Waldheim opened and addressed a number of major international conferences convened under United Nations auspices. These included the third session of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (Santiago, April 1972), the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, June 1972), the third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (Caracas, June 1974), the Third World Population Conference (Bucharest, August 1974) and the World Food Conference (Rome, November 1974), and the World Conference on Women, 1975 (Mexico City, June 1975). During the later, UN Resolution 3379, which considered Zionism as a form of racism and equated it with South African Apartheid, was approved by impulse of Arab countries, the Soviet bloc, and Non-Aligned Movement countries.{{cite book|last=Katz Gugenheim|first=Ariela|url=http://libcat.calacademy.org/title/boicot-el-pleito-de-echeverria-con-israel/oclc/1122578103%26referer%3Dbrief_results|title=Boicot. El pleito de Echeverría con Israel|publisher=Universidad Iberoamericana/Cal y Arena|year=2019|isbn=978-607-8564-17-0|location=Mexico|language=es|access-date=29 October 2021|archive-date=10 April 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220410191926/http://libcat.calacademy.org/title/boicot-el-pleito-de-echeverria-con-israel/oclc/1122578103%26referer%3Dbrief_results|url-status=dead}} His diplomatic efforts particularly in the Middle East were overshadowed by the diplomacy of then U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3486823.stm Obituary: Kurt Waldheim] BBC News (14 June 2007)

File:Kurt Waldheim with family 1971.jpg

On 11 September 1972, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin sent a telegram to Waldheim, copies of which went to Yasser Arafat and Golda Meir. In the telegram, Amin "applauded the massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich and said Germany was the most appropriate locale for this because it was where Hitler burned more than six million Jews".Israeli-Ugandan Relations in the Time of Idi Amin by Arye Oded, Jewish Political Studies Review 18:3–4 (Fall 2006) Amin also called "to expel Israel from the United Nations and to send all the Israelis to Britain, which bore the guilt for creating the Jewish state".[http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=5&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=625&PID=1631&IID=1643&TTL=Israeli-Ugandan_Relations_in_the_Time_of_Idi_Amin Israeli Ugandan Relations in the Time of Idi Amin] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120318080609/http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=5&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=625&PID=1631&IID=1643&TTL=Israeli-Ugandan_Relations_in_the_Time_of_Idi_Amin |date=18 March 2012}} JCPA Amidst international protest, "the UN spokesman said [in his daily press conference] it was not the secretary-general's practice to comment on telegrams sent him by heads of government. He added that the secretary-general condemned any form of racial discrimination and genocide."

After Operation Entebbe on 7 July 1976 – in which Israeli commandos freed more than 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers held captive in Entebbe Airport (Uganda's main airport) by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and German Revolutionary Cells fighters protected by forces of dictator Idi Amin, and where all the hijackers, three hostages, and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed – Waldheim described the raid as a "serious violation of the national sovereignty of a United Nations member state".{{cite web|title=July 4, Day of Operation Entebbe, Israel Upgrades Uganda Airport|publisher=The Jewish Press|date=4 July 2013|url=http://www.jewishpress.com/news/july-4-day-of-operation-entebbe-israel-upgrades-uganda-airport/2013/07/04/|access-date=28 July 2014}}

Waldheim ran for a second term in the 1976 UN Secretary-General selection. However, China was still opposed to him, and approached several Third World countries seeking challengers.{{cite news|last=Hofmann|first=Paul|title=It's Election Year at U.N., With Waldheim Post Open|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/17/archives/its-election-year-at-un-with-waldheim-post-open-election-year-at-un.html|work=The New York Times|date=17 April 1976}} Outgoing Mexican President Luis Echeverría finally entered the race in October 1976, making Waldheim the only Secretary-General to face a contested re-selection campaign. Waldheim resoundingly defeated Echeverría in the first round of voting. China cast a single symbolic veto against Waldheim in the first round and voted for him in the second round, handing him an easy victory with 14 of 15 votes on the Security Council.{{cite news|title=Waldheim is Backed by Security Council for Five Years More|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/08/archives/waldheim-is-backed-by-security-council-for-five-years-more-his.html|work=The New York Times|date=8 December 1976}}

{{listen |filename=The_Voyager_Interstellar_Record_-_131_Greetings_From_The_Secretary_General_Of_The_UN_Kurt_Waldh_(1).ogg |title=Waldheim's Voyager greeting.|description=Kurt Waldheim's Golden Record Greeting}}

In 1977, Waldheim recorded a greeting for the Voyager Golden Records, a pair of discs containing sounds and images representing the diversity of life and culture on Earth, which were launched into deep space on the Voyager spacecraft. The craft were also inscribed with a written message from then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter.{{cite web |title=Voyager – What's on the Golden Record |url=https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/ |website=Jet Propulsion Laboratory |publisher=NASA/Caltech |access-date=8 May 2021}}{{cite book |last=Bell |first=Jim |title=The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission |year=2015 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-698-18615-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KXPoAwAAQBAJ&dq=kurt+waldheim+voyager+message&pg=PT49 |access-date=8 May 2021}}

Waldheim was the first Secretary-General to visit North Korea, in 1979.[https://web.archive.org/web/20080304015451/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947307,00.html "Discipline and Devotion"], Time, 28 May 1979 Retrieved 1 December 2008. In 1980, Waldheim flew to Iran in an attempt to negotiate the release of the American hostages held in Tehran, but Ayatollah Khomeini refused to see him. While in Tehran, it was announced that an attempt on Waldheim's life had been foiled. Near the end of his tenure as secretary-general, Waldheim and British popular musician Paul McCartney organized a series of concerts for the People of Kampuchea to help Cambodia recover from the damage done by Pol Pot.[http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/charity.html CBC.ca – Arts – Music – Charity Begins]

Waldheim ran for an unprecedented third full term as Secretary-General in the 1981 selection. China was determined to unseat him this time and lined up a strong candidate in Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania. In the first round of voting, Waldheim lost to Salim by one vote. However, Salim was vetoed by the United States, while Waldheim was vetoed by China. The veto duel between China and the United States lasted a record 16 rounds. After six weeks of deadlock, Waldheim and Salim both withdrew from the race. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru won the selection and succeeded Waldheim as Secretary-General of the United Nations.{{cite book|last1=Sievers|first1=Loraine|last2=Davis|first2=Sam|title=The Procedure of the UN Security Council|date=2014|publisher=Oxford Univ Press|isbn=978-0-19-968529-5|edition=4}}{{rp|411}} The events of 1981 established a customary two-term limit on the office, and no Secretary-General since Waldheim has run for a third term.{{cite web |title=Appointment Process: United Nations Secretary-General |url=https://www.un.org/sg/en/appointment.shtml |website=www.un.org |access-date=19 August 2023}}

File:Artur Phleps and Kurt Waldheim.jpg Ercole Roncaglia (on his right), Wehrmacht Colonel Macholz (on his left) and SS General Artur Phleps (with briefcase) at Podgorica airfield in Montenegro during Case Black, 22 May 1943. This photograph caused much controversy when it was published while Waldheim was running in the 1986 Austrian presidential election.|alt=an Italian officer and three German officers in uniform standing beneath the wing of an aircraft on a grassed airfield]]

Waldheim had unsuccessfully sought election as President of Austria in 1971, but his second attempt on 8 June 1986 proved successful. During his campaign for the presidency in 1985, what became known internationally as the "Waldheim affair" began. Before the presidential elections, investigative journalist Alfred Worm revealed in the Austrian weekly news magazine Profil that Waldheim's recently published autobiography had several omissions about his life between 1938 and 1945.{{cite book|author=Mitten, Richard|title=The Politics of the Antisemitic Prejudice. The Waldheim Phenomenon in Austria|date=1992|publisher=Westview Press|location=Boulder|url=http://www.demokratiezentrum.org/fileadmin/media/pdf/mitten.pdf|access-date=24 January 2015|archive-date=28 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150128112359/http://www.demokratiezentrum.org/fileadmin/media/pdf/mitten.pdf|url-status=dead}}

Waldheim had previously claimed to have received a medical discharge after being wounded in winter 1942. His aides at the United Nations even accused the Israeli mission of spreading rumors that he supported the Nazis. Israeli ambassador Yehuda Zvi Blum denied the charges, saying, "We don't believe Waldheim ever supported the Nazis and we never said he did. We have many differences with him, but that isn't one of them."{{cite news|last=Rosen|first=Jane|title=The U.N.'s Man in the Middle|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/13/magazine/the-un-s-man-in-the-middle.html|work=The New York Times Magazine|date=13 September 1981}}

A short time later, beginning on 4 March 1986, the World Jewish Congress alleged that Waldheim had lied about his service in the mounted corps of the SA and had concealed his service as a special missions staff officer (Ordonnanzoffizier) for Germany's Army Group E in Yugoslavia and Greece, from 1942 to 1944, based primarily on captured German wartime records held at the United States National Archives in Washington, DC, and in other archives.See Section "Military Service" above{{cite book|title=Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution|page=753|first=Richard S.|last=Levy|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2005|isbn=978-1-85109-439-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tdn6FFZklkcC&pg=PA753}}See 4 March 1986 WABC-TV news report (New York City) on the worldwide exposure that day of Waldheim's Nazi past, at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_mJLwBgrc&t=45s and a report of the same date on WOR-TV (New York City) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxXE_4nyxUg The 23 March 1986 public disclosure by the World Jewish Congress that the organization had unearthed the fact that the United Nations War Crimes Commission concluded after the war that Waldheim was implicated in Nazi mass murder and should be arrested arguably transformed the Waldheim affair into the most sensational of all post-war Nazi scandals.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97kxi1InWc&t=13s |title=WNBC: Kurt Waldheim was listed by the UN War Crimes Commission as wanted for murder, March 23, 1986 |date=2018-01-12 |last=Karina |access-date=2024-10-10 |via=YouTube}}

Waldheim called the allegations, which grew in magnitude in the ensuing months, "pure lies and malicious acts".{{cite news|author=Serrill, Michael S. |author2=McWhirter, William |author3=Svoboda, Wayne |title=Sequels Running Out of Answers|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961050-2,00.html|magazine=Time|date=7 April 1986 |access-date=13 October 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204080504/https://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961050-2,00.html |archive-date=4 December 2008}} Nevertheless, he admitted that he had known about German reprisals: "Yes, I knew. I was horrified. But what could I do? I had either to continue to serve or be executed." He said that he had never fired a shot or even seen a partisan. His former immediate superior at the time stated that Waldheim had "remained confined to a desk". Former Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky, who was Jewish, denounced the actions of the World Jewish Congress as an "extraordinary infamy", adding that Austrians would not "allow the Jews abroad to ... tell us who should be our President".

Part of the reason for the controversy was Austria's refusal to address its national role in the Holocaust (many leading Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, had been born Austrians, and Austria became part of the Third Reich). Austria refused to pay compensation to victims of Nazism, and from 1970 onwards refused to investigate Austrian citizens who were senior Nazis.Zuroff, Efraim (April 2002) "Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, 2001–2002," Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem. Stolen Jewish art remained public property a generation after the Waldheim affair.Knöfel, Ulrike and Kraske, Marion (4 April 2008) [http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,545392,00.html Stealing Beauty: Dispute Rages Over Austria's Looted Art] Der Spiegel

Because the revelations leading to the Waldheim affair came shortly before the presidential election, there has been speculation about the background of the affair. Declassified documents from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency show that the CIA had been aware of some details of his wartime past since 1945.[https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/rg-263-report.html Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (RG 263)]. archives.gov Information about Waldheim's wartime past was also previously published by a pro-German Austrian newspaper, Salzburger Volksblatt, during the 1971 presidential election campaign, including the claim of an SS membership, but the matter was supposedly regarded as unimportant or even advantageous for the candidate at that time.World Socialist Web Site [http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/wald-j21.shtml obituary]

In view of the ongoing international controversy, the Austrian government decided to appoint an international committee of historians to examine Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945. Their report found no evidence of any personal involvement in those crimes.{{cite book|last1=Kurz|first1=Rudolf|last2=Collins|first2=James I. Collins|last3=Fleischer|first3=Hagen|last4=Fleming|first4=Gerald|last5=Messerschmidt|first5=Manfred|last6=Vanwelkenhuyzen|first6=Jean|last7=Wallach|first7=Jehuda L.|title=The Waldheim Report|date=1993|publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press|location=Copenhagen|isbn=87-7289-206-4|page=209f}} Although Waldheim had stated that he was unaware of any crimes taking place, the committee cited evidence that Waldheim must have known about war crimes.Wiesenthal, Simon (1999) "The Waldheim Case" in Contemporary Jewish Writing in Austria. Dagmar Lorenz (ed.). pp. 81–95. University of Nebraska press. {{ISBN|0-8032-2923-2}}. The International Committee in February 1988 concluded that Waldheim had been "in close proximity to some Nazi atrocities, knew they were going on and made no attempt to stop them".{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/02/worlddispatch.kateconnolly|work=The Guardian|location=London| title=CIA knew about Waldheim's Nazi past|author=Connolly, Kate |date=2 May 2001|access-date=7 May 2010}} The committee also noted that "he only had very minor possibilities to act against the injustices happening".James L. Collins Jr. u.a.: [https://web.archive.org/web/20070807210825/http://zeit1.uibk.ac.at/quellen/gehler1.htm Bericht der internationalen Historikerkommission, Schlussbetrachtung], 8. February 1988. (translated from German)

On 27 April 1987, the United States Departments of Justice and of State announced that evidence amassed in an investigation conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) had established a prima facie case that Waldheim participated in Nazi-sponsored persecution during World War II and therefore that his entry into the United States was prohibited by federal statute. This marked the first time that a head of state had been put on an immigration watchlist.{{cite news |last=Werner |first=Leslie Maitland |title=Waldheim Barred from Entering U.S. Over Role in War |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/28/world/waldheim-barred-from-entering-us-over-role-in-war.html |work=The New York Times |date=28 April 1987 |via=NYTimes.com}}{{cite AV media |date=5 March 2018 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYEHe7PyBoE |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/sYEHe7PyBoE |archive-date=11 December 2021 |url-status=live |title=US bars President Kurt Waldheim from country for Nazi crimes – ABC World News Tonight, Apr 27, 1987 |publisher=Karina |via=YouTube |access-date=5 October 2021}}{{cbignore}} The 232-page internal Department of Justice 9 April 1987 investigative report was released in 1994 by that agency, and it is available at the agency's website."In the Matter of Kurt Waldheim", at https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-hrsp/legacy/2011/02/04/04-09-87waldheim-rpt.pdf The report catalogues evidence that, the U.S. government concluded, proved that Waldheim had taken part in, among other actions: the transfer of civilian prisoners to the SS for exploitation as slave labor; the mass deportation of civilians—including Jews from Greek islands and the town of Banja Luka, Yugoslavia—to concentration and death camps; the utilization of antisemitic propaganda; the mistreatment and execution of Allied prisoners; and reprisal executions of hostages and other civilians.{{cite AV media |date=12 January 2018 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt8UlosSQM |title=CNN: USDOJ's internal Kurt Waldheim Nazi crimes investigative report is released, Mar 19, 1994 |publisher=Karina |via=YouTube |access-date=5 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190708051757/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt8UlosSQM&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=8 July 2019 |url-status=live}}

Additional allegations of participation in Nazi crimes, with citations to captured Nazi documents and other records, were leveled in a 1993 book by Eli Rosenbaum, the former U.S. federal prosecutor who had directed the World Jewish Congress investigation that led to the New York Times{{'}} initial exposure of Waldheim's hidden Nazi-era past in 1986. The book also alleged that the Soviet Union was aware of Waldheim's alleged involvement in Nazi crimes and that, after vetoing other candidates in order to get Waldheim installed as U.N. Secretary General in 1972, used that information to extract concessions at the United Nations that facilitated KGB espionage in the United States, and that the CIA's failure to anticipate this possibility was a major failure for the intelligence agency.Eli M. Rosenbaum with William Hoffer, Betrayal: The Inside Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. In a letter to the editor published in Foreign Affairs magazine two years after Rosenbaum's book was released, former Finnish ambassador to the U.N. Max Jakobson (one of the candidates whom the USSR had vetoed) wrote, "The Soviets knew everything about Waldheim. That is why they preferred him."Foreign Affairs magazine, September–October 1995 (Volume 74 No. 5), p. 188.

Throughout his term as President (1986–1992), Waldheim was officially deemed persona non grata by the United States and, officially or informally, by nearly every other nation in the world outside the Arab world.{{cite web|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2351006420070623?pageNumber=2|title=Waldheim, ex-UN leader and Nazi, buried in Austria|publisher=Reuters|date=23 June 2007}}

Not all evidence was weighted against Waldheim, however. Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Bruce Ogilvie was captured in civilian clothing, carrying a stolen German pistol, on Leros, in Greece, in 1943, and was taken to Athens along with other prisoners captured under circumstances that might have led to their executions had not Waldheim exchanged their identity tags for those of Allied soldiers killed in action.{{cite news |author= |date=4 April 1988 |title=Waldheim saved my life: British veteran |page=10 |work=The Royal Gazette |location=City of Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda |agency=UPI |quote=}}

After his term ended in 1992, Waldheim did not seek re-election. In the same year, he was made an honorary member of K.H.V. Welfia Klosterneuburg, a Roman Catholic student fraternity, part of the Austrian Cartellverband. In 1994, Pope John Paul II awarded Waldheim a knighthood in the Order of Pius IX and his wife a papal honor.{{cite news|title=Waldheim's Wife Gets a Papal Award|work=The New York Times|date=22 August 1994|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED71439F931A1575BC0A962958260|access-date=14 June 2007}} He died on 14 June 2007, at the age of 88 from heart failure.{{cite news |url=https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/world/europe/14iht-waldheim.3.6141106.html |title=Kurt Waldheim dies at 88; ex-UN chief hid Nazi past |work=The New York Times |date=14 June 2007 |access-date=14 June 2007}} On 23 June, his funeral was held at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, and he was buried at the Presidential Vault in the Zentralfriedhof ("central cemetery").[http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/23/europe/EU-GEN-Austria-Waldheim.php "Former Austrian president whose term was marred by wartime service buried"], Associated Press (International Herald Tribune), 23 June 2007.

In his speech at the cathedral, Federal President Heinz Fischer called Waldheim "a great Austrian" who had been wrongfully accused of having committed war crimes. Fischer also praised Waldheim for his efforts to solve international crises and for his contributions to world peace.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120210091453/http://www.bundespraesident.at/index.php?id%3D20%26no_cache%3D1%26tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D%3D2035%26L%3D0 Trauerfeier für Altbundespräsident Dr. Kurt Waldheim im Wiener Stephansdom, 23.06.2007] (Speech of President Heinz Fischer)

At Waldheim's own request, no foreign heads of states or governments were invited to attend his funeral except Hans-Adam II, the Prince of Liechtenstein. Also present was Luis Durnwalder, governor of the Italian province of South Tyrol. Japan and Syria were the only two countries that laid wreaths on his grave. Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, issued a message "voicing sadness".[https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=22906&Cr=secretary&Cr1=general#.U-cWCWOKa1U Ban Ki-moon voices sadness at death of former Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim]. un.org In a two-page letter, published posthumously by the Austrian Press Agency the day after he died, Waldheim admitted to making "mistakes" ("but these were certainly not those of a follower let alone an accomplice of a criminal regime") and asked his critics for forgiveness.[https://web.archive.org/web/20070703082848/http://activepaper.tele.net/vntipps/WaldheimVermaechtnis.pdf Waldheim Vermaechtnis] Active Paper

• {{Cite book |author=Waldheim, Kurt |title=In the Eye of the Storm: The Memoirs of Kurt Waldheim |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |location=London |year=1985 |isbn=0-297-78678-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ineyeofstormmemo0000wald}}
• {{Cite book |last=Waldheim |first=Kurt |title=Die Antwort (The Answer) |orig-year=1966 |year=1996 |publisher=Amalthea |isbn= 3-85002-371-0}}
• {{Cite book |last=Waldheim |first=Kurt |title=The Austrian Example |year=1971 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn= 0-297-76522-1}}
• {{Cite book |last=Waldheim |first=Kurt |title=The Challenge of Peace |year=1980 |orig-year=1977 (French) |url=https://archive.org/details/challengeofpeace00wald |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |isbn=0-297-77586-3}}
• {{Cite book |last=Waldheim |first=Kurt |title=Building the Future Order |year=1980 |url=https://archive.org/details/buildingfutureor00wald |publisher=Free Press |isbn=0-02-933670-8}}

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Refbegin}}

• {{citation|title=United Nations, 1969–1972 |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v05 |series=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976 |volume=V |editor-last=Duncan |editor-first=Evan M. |year=2004 |location=Washington |publisher=United States Government Printing Office | ref=CITEREFFRUS 1969–1976 V}}
• {{Cite book |last=Herzstein |first=Robert Edwin |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/17484125 |title=Waldheim: the missing years |date=1988 |publisher=William Morrow |isbn=0-87795-959-5 |edition=|location=New York |oclc=17484125}}

{{Refend}}

• Bassett, Richard (1988). Waldheim and Austria, Penguin Books. {{ISBN|978-0-14-013019-5}}
• {{Cite book|author=International Commission of Historians |title=The Waldheim Report|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1OsiQQPAGPEC|publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen|location=Copenhagen|year=1993 |pages=224 |isbn=87-7289-206-4}}
• Rosenbaum, Eli M. with William Hoffer. Betrayal: The Inside Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.
• Office of Special Investigations, United States Department of Justice Criminal Division internal investigative report: In the Matter of Kurt Waldheim, at https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-hrsp/legacy/2011/02/04/04-09-87waldheim-rpt.pdf
• Eli M. Rosenbaum, "The Kurt Waldheim Affair", in Ronald S. Lauder (Foreword) and Menachem Z. Rosensaft (Editor). The World Jewish Congress, 1936–2016, New York: World Jewish Congress LLC, 2017.
• Harold H. Tittmann III, The Waldheim Affair: Democracy Subverted. Dunkirk, NY: Olin Frederick, 2000. {{ISBN|0-9672357-4-X}}.

{{Commons category}}{{wikiquote}}

• [https://search.archives.un.org/secretary-general-kurt-waldheim-1972-1981 Kurt Waldheim papers] at the United Nations Archives
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/austria_nazism_01.shtml Austria and Nazism: Owning Up to the Past (BBC Report)]
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=1OsiQQPAGPEC The Waldheim Report: International Commission of Historians], via Google Books
• [http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.film.data.film/o430a.mpg Video of Kurt Waldheim sworn in as UN Secretary-General]
• [https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/10/world/greek-jews-challenging-waldheim.html Greek Jews Challenging Waldheim, by Henry Kamm]

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