After losing the presidential election, Waldheim ran for Secretary-General of the United Nations in the 1971 selection. When defending himself against assertions that he had links to the Nazis, Waldheim always asserted that he never had belonged to a Nazi-affiliated group. [5], 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. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kurt-Waldheim, British Broadcasting Corporation - Kurt Waldheim, United Nations - Biography of Kurt Waldheim, Kurt Waldheim - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). OSI would track down a former concentration camp guard who lied on his immigration forms. During his tenure, he won praise for his handling of negotiations to establish a U.N. peacekeeping mission after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, and during an unsuccessful attempt to mediate the U.S. hostage crisis in Tehran in 1980, he braved an angry mob of Iranians waving wooden legs and arm stumps (supposed victims of torture under the rule of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi). Get out! and we went out. 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. I was happy to see him turned him down and he will never get to see the shores of the United States again. Foreign Affairs magazine, SeptemberOctober, 1995 (Volume 74 No. Office of Special Investigations, United States Department of Justice Criminal Division internal investigative report: Eli M. Rosenbaum, "The Kurt Waldheim Affair," in Ronald S. Lauder (Foreword) and Menachem Z. Rosensaft (Editor). However, Salim was vetoed by the United States, while Waldheim was vetoed by China. However, he was vetoed by China in the second round. [49][50] 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. Waldheim's functions within the staff of German Army's Group E from 1942 until 1945, as determined by the International Commission of Historians,[11] were: By 1943, Waldheim was serving in the capacity of an aide-de-camp in Army Group E which was headed by General Alexander Lhr, who would be executed as a war criminal in 1947. However, first and foremost, it is a film about the process of the affair. But theyve hit a snag, Student debt is a crisis: Activists rally outside Supreme Court for loan forgiveness, Tensions rise in Nigeria as opposition demands new vote. The sources, who spoke on . It is not a career-enhancing move, to get thrown out of the Secretarys office and to have done so in association with the likes of Ron Lauder made it doubly unpleasant. There was testimony that he had roughed up some of the POWs. Yet no government pressed to bring Waldheim to account or even to reveal his unsavory history. 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. I dont think any other major country received him. The ex-concentration guard would then show up on the Austrians doorstep. As is now known, he fought on the Eastern Front until he was wounded in December 1941. Kurt Waldheim, a diplomat with a selective memory, died on June 14th, aged 88. We wanted the information and we did not want it to fall into the hands of the Soviets. ", Kurt Waldheim dies at 88; ex-UN chief hid Nazi past, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/world/europe/14iht-waldheim.3.6141106.html. But for many critics, Waldheim embodied their view of the U.N. as a toothless appeaser or a weak tool of the dominant superpowers. 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. "[25], 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". BODDE: Kurt Waldheim was President of Austria. Posted by 5 days ago. For much of his adulthood, Waldheim claimed that he was drafted into the German army after Adolf Hitler occupied Austria but sat out most of the war, attending law school in Vienna, because of a shrapnel wound he suffered on the Eastern Front in 1941. 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. hide. Among the deeds in which he was implicated, U.S. officials said, were the transport of civilians to Nazi slave labor camps; the deportation of Jews from the Greek islands and from Banja Luka, in Serbian Bosnia, to death camps; reprisal executions of hostages; and the approval and dissemination of propaganda calling for the elimination of the Jews. [57] 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"). Footage of Austria's then-presidential candidate Kurt Waldheim speaking at a rally, from "The Waldheim Waltz." Credit: Ruth Beckermann filmproduktion The 90-minute film interweaves the video shot by Beckermann with other archival footage, creating a dramatic account of the buildup to the 1986 election - a brief period in history when the eyes . The former Secretary General of the United Nations and Ambassador to France and Canada was initially seen as an obvious choice for the position, which is primarily a ceremonial role. His aides at the United Nations even accused the Israeli mission of spreading rumors that he supported the Nazis. Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007) served as secretary-general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and president of Austria from 1986 to 1992. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. May 22, 1943. To deduce that knowledge constitutes some kind of crime is simply not correct, he told an Austrian television interviewer. Kurt Waldheim. [3] Watzlawick (original Czech spelling Vclavk) 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). There were a lot of them around. He came in and appealed. Kurt Waldheim; Sankt Andre-Verdern, blizu Bea, Austrija, 21. decembar 1918 Be 14. jun 2007) je bio austrijski politiar i diplomata.Njegov izbor za predsednika Austrije 1986. godine bio je zasenjen otkriima da je pripadao jedinici Hitlerovog Vermahta koja je u tadanjoj Jugoslaviji poinila ratne zloine nad civilima tokom Drugog svetskog rata. Sklici in opombe Glej tudi . The craft were also inscribed with a written message from then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter. 463. When I met Kurt Waldheim in Vienna in 1994, the Balkans were doubly at issue, a generation apart. During his presidential campaign, the efforts of his political opponents, investigative journalists, historians and the World Jewish Congress uncovered archival evidence of Waldheim's involvement with the Nazi movement as a student and his wartime role in the Balkans. National Socialist German Students' League, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Austria's refusal to address its national role in the Holocaust, Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI), "Former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim dies at 88 Haaretz Israel News", "Kurt Waldheim: Austrian head of the UN who as president of his country was later tainted by charges of complicity in Nazi atrocities", "Wir sterreicher whlen, wen wir wollen", "Suomen ulkoministerin johto tiesi Waldheimin natsimenneisyyden jo 1971", Israeli Ugandan Relations in the Time of Idi Amin, "July 4, Day of Operation Entebbe, Israel Upgrades Uganda Airport", "It's Election Year at U.N., With Waldheim Post Open", "Waldheim is Backed by Security Council for Five Years More", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_mJLwBgrc&t=45s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxXE_4nyxUg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97kxi1InWc&t=13s, Stealing Beauty: Dispute Rages Over Austria's Looted Art, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (RG 263), Bericht der internationalen Historikerkommission, Schlussbetrachtung, "WALDHEIM BARRED FROM ENTERING U.S. OVER ROLE IN WAR", https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-hrsp/legacy/2011/02/04/04-09-87waldheim-rpt.pdf, "Waldheim, ex-UN leader and Nazi, buried in Austria", "Kurt Waldheim dies at 88; ex-UN chief hid Nazi past", "Former Austrian president whose term was marred by wartime service buried", Trauerfeier fr Altbundesprsident Dr. Kurt Waldheim im Wiener Stephansdom, 23.06.2007, Ban Ki-moon voices sadness at death of former Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, Austria and Nazism: Owning Up to the Past (A BBC Report), The Waldheim Report: International Commission of Historians, Video of Kurt Waldheim sworn in as UN Secretary-General, GREEK JEWS CHALLENGING WALDHEIM by HENRY KAMM, Ambassador of Austria to the United Nations, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kurt_Waldheim&oldid=1141564433, Permanent Representatives of Austria to the United Nations, Secretaries-General of the United Nations, Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 2nd class, Austrian military personnel of World War II, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Interpreter with the liaison staff attached to the Italian. Kurt Josef Waldheim (21 December 1918 - 14 June 2007) was an Austrian diplomat and conservative politician. Reply . Kurt Josef Waldheim, fdd 21 december 1918 i Sankt Andr-Wrdern, Niedersterreich, dd 14 juni 2007 i Wien, var en sterrikisk politiker och diplomat. Shultz did not agree and got angry, so he threw us out of his office. Fred played Kurt Waldheim, Jr. Great stuff. (Waldheim, second from left, with Italian General Ercole Roncaglia, Col. Hans Herbert Macholz, and SS-GruppenfhrerArtur Phleps at Podgorica airfield, May 1943.). It was a period when the world body was increasingly dominated by third world rhetoric and paralyzed by disagreements between the superpowers. When he was Austrian Consul General in Los Angeles, Klestil developed a close relationship with the so-called California mafia that [President Ronald] Reagan brought to Washington. Podgorica, Yugoslavia. However, China was still opposed to Waldheim and approached several Third World countries seeking challengers. [45] 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. 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. The United States became the third country granted access to the file. In 1987 the US Justice Department declared Kurt Waldheim a dangerous agent; forever forbidding his re-entry onto US soil. Pope John Paul II welcomed Waldheim to the Vatican in the Austrian leaders first official trip abroad after his election as president, a recognition that provoked anger across the Jewish world and in Washington. Still, he denied any role in war crimes. Shortly afterwards, he ran and was defeated in the 1971 Austrian presidential elections. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. If we had done a little more digging, both 1946 and 1972 or whenever it was, we might have found out about him. Then we supported him to be Secretary General of the United Nations. From left to right, Italian Cdmr. Waldheim admitted that he had not been candid about his past but disclaimed all knowledge of or participation in wartime atrocities. Waldheim entered the diplomatic service in 1945. See 4 March 1986 WABC-TV news report (New York City) on the worldwide exposure that day of Waldheim's Nazi past, at: See WNBC-TV (New York City) 23 March 1986 news report on the World Jewish Congress's revelation of the U.N. War Crimes Commission inclusion of Waldheim on the UNWCC wanted list at: Zuroff, Efraim (April 2002) "Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, 20012002," Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem. For if history teaches us anything, it is that the Hitlers and the Mengeles could never have accomplished their atrocious deeds by themselves. While he was running for the latter office in the 1986 election, the revelation of his service in Greece and Yugoslavia as an intelligence officer in Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht . More posts from the howardstern community. I find it interesting that the Holocaust has become much more prominent fifty years after the War than it was 20 years after the War, or even right after the War. Despite his humble beginnings, Waldheim was able to pursue university studies in law and diplomacy in Vienna. 27. helmikuuta - Yhdistyneiden kansakuntien psihteeri Kurt Waldheim nimitti varatuomari Helvi Sipiln YK:n sosiaaliasioiden apulaispsihteeriksi. I had either to continue to serve or be executed. In 1986, four years after his tenure as the UN Secretary General, Kurt Waldheim made a bid to lead his native Austria. 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