Kurt Waldheim

Kurt Waldheim (born December 21, 1918) is an Austrian diplomat and politician. He was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and Federal President of Austria from 1986 to 1992.

Born at St. Andrä-Wördern near Vienna, Waldheim served as a military officer during World War II. In 1945, he surrendered to British forces in Carinthia, at which point he said he had fled his command (Heeresgruppe D), where he was serving with General Löhr, who was seeking a special deal with the British. Questions were later raised about Waldheim's truthfulness as to his World War II service (see "The Waldheim Affair," below).

Waldheim joined the Austrian diplomatic service in 1945, after finishing his studies in law at the University of Vienna. He 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 in Austria serving for the Austrian People's Party, before going back as Permanent Representative to the U.N. in 1970. He was defeated in the Austrian presidential elections in 1971, but was then elected to succeed U Thant as United Nations Secretary-General in 1972. He was re-elected in 1976 despite some opposition. In 1981, his bid for a third term was blocked by a veto by China, and he was succeeded by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru.

The Waldheim Affair

Waldheim had unsuccessfully sought election as President of Austria in 1971, but his second attempt on June 8, 1986 proved successful. 1986 also marked the beginning of what became known as the Waldheim affair. Before the presidential elections, the Austrian weekly newsmagazine Profil revealed that there had been several omissions about Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945 in his recently-published autobiography. A short time later, it was revealed that Waldheim had lied about his service as an officer in the SA-Reitercorps (stormtroopers), a paramilitary unit of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) before the war, and his time as an ordinance officer in Saloniki,( Greece) from 1942 to 1943. Many war crimes against civilians were documented during the Nazi occupation of Greece. Instead, Walheim had incorrectly stated that he was wounded and had spent the last years of the war in Austria. Speculation grew, and Waldheim was accused of being either involved, or complicit, in Nazi war crimes.

Throughout his term as President (1986-1992), Waldheim was deemed persona non grata by many countries. In 1987, he was put on a "watch list" of people barred from entering the United States). In six years he made almost no state visits, notable exceptions being Vatican City, which he visited twice during his term, and the Near East.

Because of the ongoing international controversy, the Austrian government decided to appoint an international committee to examine Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945. Ultimately, the committee found no evidence of Waldheim's involvement in war crimes, but its final report stated that he must have known more than he was now willing to admit.

Waldheim's behaviour reflects a characteristic feature of how many Austrians have dealt with their Nazi history: denial or unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions. Waldheim famously defended himself by saying, Ich habe im Krieg nichts anderes getan als hunderttausende Österreicher auch, nämlich meine Pflicht als Soldat erfüllt (I did not do anything different than hundreds of thousands of Austrians during the war, I just fulfilled my duty as a soldier).

Miscellaneous

His memoirs, mainly about his time as U.N. Secretary-General, was published in 1985 under the title In the Eye of the Storm.

Waldheim and then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter both prepared statements for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records. The spacecraft carrying the records are now in deep space, and will probably endure long after the Sun and Earth are gone.