Waldheim was supported by 11 votes, including the Soviet Union, and led the first two rounds of voting. He added that the secretary-general condemned any form of racial discrimination and genocide. He was 88. save. Israeli ambassador Yehuda Zvi Blum denied the charges, saying, "We don't believe Waldheim ever supported the Nazis and we never said he did. Tracy Wilkinson covers foreign affairs from the Los Angeles Times Washington, D.C., bureau. And although the scandal around him kicked up new poisonous clouds of anti-Semitism, when he finally left public life, in disgrace, Austria also began a slow process of recognizing its sins. [34], Waldheim had previously claimed to have received a medical discharge after being wounded in winter 1942. On the other hand, I never saw any evidence, and I saw a lot of the files and so on, that would classify him as a war criminal. Song, Little Ricky 8/14/86 Susan Berkley, Cindi Lauper Record, Phila. A year after the first allegations surfaced, the U.S. Justice Department took the highly unusual step of placing the sitting Austrian presidents name on a watch list, which prohibited him from entering the United States. They told us that they didnt know about these peoples past and why should they be saddled with former Romanians or Yugoslavs. Four years after returning from New York to Austria, Waldheim was hot on the campaign trail, all but certain of an . Carriepants931 . When they emigrated to the United States they hid their Nazi past. Kurt Waldheim . . share. "We lived in daily apprehension.". [10], Much historical interest has centred on Waldheim's role in Operation Kozara in 1942. But for most of the world, Waldheim was ruined and discredited. It was a complicated situation because some years earlier the United States had supported Waldheims successful candidacy for United Nations Secretary General and now we were going to ban him as a war criminal from entry into the U.S. Waldheim had been in the German army and lied about his military service. In my view he was the kind of person and there are many of his type in Austria who goes along to get along. 28. helmikuuta San Josssa Kaliforniassa alkoi oikeudenkynti professori Angela Davisia vastaan. After six weeks of deadlock, Waldheim and Salim both withdrew from the race. He served in Paris (194851) and was head of the personnel department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna from 1951 to 1955. A secretary-general who is too much of an activist wont last longer than a year.. Butthe Pope has his own foreign policy. The World Jewish Congress was actively involved in the campaign to expose Waldheim's war crimes and ban him from . Waldheims father, Walther, was briefly jailed because of his anti-Nazi views and stripped of his job. The World Jewish Congress and an Austrian investigative magazine produced documents detailing his membership in Nazi organizations and his military service in the Balkans. La yaro 1918 (MCMXVIII per Romala algarismi) esis ordinara yaro komencinta ye mardio segun Gregoriala kalendario, ed ordinara yaro komencinta ye lundio segun Juliala kalendario.Ol esis la 918ma yaro di la duesma yarmilo, la 18ma yaro di la 20ma yarcento, e la 9ma yaro di la yari 1910a.Kande 1918 komencis, Gregoriala kalendario esis 13 dii avan Juliala kalendario, qua duris uzesar en kelka loki . He was 88. But what could I do? Entire villages were wiped out by Lohrs men. 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). At the U.N., Kurt Waldheim was known as "the man who the world trusts.". Waldheim was a member of the Austrian People's Party (sterreichische Volkspartei, or VP) and served as foreign minister. [7] Following the annexation, Waldheim's father was briefly arrested by the Gestapo and dismissed from his post, while Waldheim's scholarship was cancelled. He won election to the Austrian presidency in June 1986 for a six-year term. He argued that the Austrian Prime Minister, a Social Democrat, was about to visit the U.S. and it would be a great embarrassment to him if we banned Waldheim. After the war, Lohr was condemned and executed as a war criminal. Well, there was never really any good evidence that tied Waldheim directly to atrocities. [46] 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". BODDE: Kurt Waldheim was President of Austria. He managed to continue his studies by working as a Latin and Greek tutor and borrowing funds from relatives.[8]. Kurt Waldheim, who has died aged 88 of heart failure, served two terms as secretary-general of the United Nations (1972-82) before it was revealed that he had lied about . 100 comments. In 1985, he launched his bid for the presidency of Austria, a largely ceremonial post that he nevertheless wanted to take from the hands of the Socialist Party, which had held it 16 years. The controversy surrounding Waldheim was particularly problematic for Austria, forcing a tardy reckoning of the nations complicity in Nazi crimes. After a distinguished diplomatic career, culminating in 10 years as UN Secretary General, Dr Kurt Waldheim found himself embroiled in bitter controversy over his war record more than 40 years after the end of the World War II. Kurt Waldheim a ocup les fonctions de Secrtaire gnral de l'Organisation des Nations Unies de 1972 1981. But, in fact, at the age of 19 he joined the National Socialist German Students League - a Nazi youth organization - just a month after the Anschluss. That position earned Wiesenthal the enmity of some Jewish groups. The Austrian government, hoping to put the matter to rest, appointed a special historical commission to review the evidence against Waldheim. [60] In a two-page letter, published posthumously by the Austrian Press Agency the day after he died, Waldheim admitted 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.[61]. He had been stationed in Yugoslavia when atrocities were committed. 463. In early 1941, Waldheim was drafted 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. However, shortly after he was elected, Waldheim was banned from entering the United States under suspicion of Nazi war crimes. Waldheim did not challenge the authenticity of the documents and instead sought to explain his actions as the hard choices one must make during a reign of terror to survive and to protect ones family and future. It was a period when the world body was increasingly dominated by third world rhetoric and paralyzed by disagreements between the superpowers. William Bodde Jr, interviewed in October 1998, reflects on his time as a staff aide in Vienna during this controversy. The Waldheim affair triggered a fundamental debate in Austria about the countrys past during World War II. "Kurt Waldheim did not, in fact, order, incite or personally commit what is commonly called a war crime," Herzstein wrote. In 1994, Pope John Paul II awarded Waldheim a knighthood in the Order of Pius IX and his wife a papal honor. Consequently, he chose not to run for a second term in 1992. Instead Waldheim, a hardworking and talented diplomat, was allowed to rise to the pinnacle of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, and then go on to serve two terms as secretary general, from 1972 to 1982. [22] His diplomatic efforts particularly in the Middle East were overshadowed by the diplomacy of then U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. 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. But for many critics, Waldheim embodied their view of the U.N. as a toothless appeaser or a weak tool of the dominant superpowers. With Kurt Waldheim, Ruth Beckermann, Yasser Arafat, Hubertus Czernin. Following the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy, his father changed the family surname to . . As a member of the German army, I did what was necessary to survive the day, the system, the war -- no more, no less, he wrote in the 1996 book, The Answer.. They identified with his attempts to deny complicity with the Nazis and to view himself as a citizen of a nation occupied by German invaders and forced into their military service. [13] According to one post-war investigator, prisoners were routinely shot within only a few hundred metres (yards) of Waldheim's office,[14] and 35 kilometres (22mi) away at the Jasenovac concentration camp. He died of heart failure, the state broadcaster ORF reported. So far, the Justice Department was acting completely aboveboard. Waldheims father, a Czech by ethnic origin, changed his name from Waclawik to Waldheim. It was intended to prompt us to look into the causes, course and consequences of the Waldheim affair. But the weirdest part was his German Imitation was a dead ringer for Kurt . 27. helmikuuta - Yhdistyneiden kansakuntien psihteeri Kurt Waldheim nimitti varatuomari Helvi Sipiln YK:n sosiaaliasioiden apulaispsihteeriksi. Shortly before his birth the Habsburg monarchy had collapsed, and his father, whose Czech family had been called Watzlawick . They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. *** In 1987 the US Justice Department declared Kurt Waldheim a dangerous agent; forever forbidding his re-entry onto US soil. To deduce that knowledge constitutes some kind of crime is simply not correct, he told an Austrian television interviewer. [52:55, April] Kurt Waldheim Jr. and "Guess Who's The Jew," Washington DC pro-choice rally, Reporter Jim Jensen parody. 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