Kurt Waldheim

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Kurt Waldheim

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Waldheim, 1971 (credit: UPI)

(born Dec. 21, 1918, Sankt Andrä-Wördern, Austria — died June 14, 2007, Vienna) Fourth secretary-general of the United Nations (1972 – 81). After military service in the German army before and during World War II, he entered the Austrian foreign service and served successively as ambassador to Canada (1958 – 60) and the UN (1964 – 68, 1970 – 71) and as foreign minister (1968 – 70). Elected to succeed U Thant as UN secretary-general, he served two terms, during which he oversaw disaster relief in Bangladesh, Nicaragua, and Guatemala and peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, the Middle East, Angola, and Guinea. Denied a third term, he returned to Austria and ran for president in 1986. His candidacy became controversial when the dissemination of wartime and postwar documents pointed to his having been part of a German army unit that had deported most of the Jewish population of the Greek town of Salonika to Nazi death camps in 1943. Elected nonetheless, he was diplomatically isolated throughout his term (1986 – 92).

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Political Biography: Kurt Waldheim

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(b. 21 Dec. 1918) Austrian; President 1986 – 92, Secretary-General of the UN 1972 – 82 Kurt Waldheim has the doubtful honour of being the only Austrian President, or indeed politician, since 1945, who is remembered outside Austria. He is remembered far more for his wartime service than for his service as UN Secretary-General.

Born in 1918 into a middle-class Catholic family in Lower Austria, Waldheim grew up in a country torn by political divisions and trying to come to terms with its decline from being a great empire in 1914 to being a small state in 1918. Waldheim studied law in Vienna with the intention of entering the diplomatic service, but the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938 prevented him realizing this ambition. The war came and he was called up, serving in the German army as a lieutenant. After recovering from wounds sustained on the eastern front he was sent to occupied Greece and later Yugoslavia. He was an intelligence officer on the staff of General Alexander Löhr who, on Hitler's birthday in 1945, presented his fellow Austrian Waldheim with a War Merit Cross, First Class, with Swords. Löhr was executed after the war as a war criminal. In his memoirs Waldheim wrote very little about his wartime activities.

As Austria was treated as a victim of Nazi Germany rather than a willing ally it was able to re-establish its own government and diplomatic service in 1945. Waldheim was accepted for the diplomatic service and rose rapidly, serving in Paris, Ottawa, at the UN, and as Minister for Foreign Affairs 1968 – 70. He stood unsuccessfully as the (Conservative) People's Party candidate for the Austrian presidency in 1971. As a seasoned diplomat from a small, neutral country he was elected Secretary-General of the UN in 1972, serving until 1982. On the second ballot, he was elected President of Austria in 1986, being the first non-Socialist since 1945 to hold this office.

It was during his election campaign that allegations were made about Waldheim's wartime role. He was accused of being involved in atrocities against civilians including the deportation of Jews to the death camps. Although an international commission of inquiry set up by the Socialist government found in his favour, it believed he had been unwise not to say more about his time in the German army. Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi hunter, came to the same conclusion. Nevertheless, Waldheim's detractors were partly successful. He was largely ostracized during his presidency and decided not to seek a second term.

Biography: Kurt Waldheim

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Kurt Waldheim (born 1918) was an Austrian diplomat and politician who served as secretary general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1982. In 1986 he was elected president of Austria despite a controversy over his role as a Nazi intelligence officer in World War II.

Kurt Waldheim was born in St. Andrä-Wördern, a village near Vienna, Austria, on December 21, 1918. His father was a Roman Catholic school inspector and an active Christian Socialist. Waldheim's youth was spent in a country searching for identity amid domestic turmoil. During his years of schooling at the Vienna Consular Academy he was nonpartisan politically.

War Record

After graduation in 1936 Waldheim entered the University of Vienna and studied law and diplomacy. In 1938, three weeks after Adolph Hitler annexed Austria, Waldheim joined the Nazi student union, and later that year he joined the mounted unit of the Nazis' notorious paramilitary force, the Sturm-Abteilung (S.A.) or "brown-shirts." It was a membership that Waldheim later concealed. When war broke out, he was drafted into the army, sent to the Eastern front, wounded in the spring of 1941, and received a medical discharge. According to two autobiographies, The Challenge of Peace (1980) and In the Eye of the Storm (1986), he then quit active service, returned to Vienna, completed his doctorate in law in 1944, and married his wife Cissy before the end of the war.

But documents uncovered in the mid-1980s showed that Waldheim remained active in the Germany army until 1945, assigned as an intelligence officer on the staff of General Alexander Löhr, an Austrian who was executed in 1947 as a war criminal. Löhr's forces committed atrocities against Yugoslav resistance fighters and deported 40,000 Greek Jews to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Waldheim told reporters in 1986 that he was only an interpreter and clerk on Löhr's staff and had no part in war crimes, but intelligence reports and eyewitnesses indicated he was aware of the atrocities. After the war, the Allied war crimes commission ruled that Waldheim should be tried as a war criminal, but he was among 40,000 suspects whose files were sealed and given to the United Nations and who were never tried.

Postwar Political Rise

After the war, Austria was considered a victim of a Nazi invasion, and Austrians' complicity in Nazi war crimes was generally overlooked. Talented and ambitious, Waldheim advanced rapidly in politics. Late in 1945, he took a job in the Foreign Ministry and became involved in negotiations for an end to the Allied occupation. He became secretary to the Austrian foreign minister and rose quickly through the diplomatic ranks, serving for three years in Paris. When Austria regained its sovereignty in 1955, Waldheim was its first delegate to the United Nations. He was Austria's ambassador to Canada (1956-1960), then served four years in high posts in Austria's ministry for foreign affairs (1960-1964), and returned to the United Nations as Austria's representative (1964-1968), where he was chairman of the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (1965-1968).

In 1968, Waldheim became Austria's foreign minister. He lost his job in a change of government and returned to the United Nations a third time as Austria's ambassador in 1970. In 1971, he made an unsuccessful bid to become Austrian president as the candidate of the Independent party. Back at the UN, he became chairman of the safeguards committee of the Atomic Energy Agency.

United Nations Head

In 1972, Waldheim took over from U Thant of Burma as secretary general of the United Nations. His polished diplomacy and studied neutrality appealed to both the Soviet Union and the United States. During his eight years as UN leader, he promoted the ideals of world peace, justice, and human rights. With many new Third World nations gaining admission to the UN, Waldheim sought to lead by consensus. He put the United Nations back on a sound financial footing by reducing operating costs and getting dues collected. He led peacekeeping efforts in Cyprus, the Middle East and Vietnam. Waldheim was praised for initiating talks that ended the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, but later drew the wrath of the American Jewish community for condemning Israel's 1976 raid to rescue hostages on a hijacked plane in Uganda. In his second term, Waldheim faced several crises which the United Nations had little power to resolve, including Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, the war in Afghanistan, the conflict between Iraq and Iran, and the Iranian hostage crisis.

In 1981, Waldheim sought an unprecedented third term, but lost to Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru despite the backing of the United States and the Soviet Union. He then became special Austrian envoy to international congresses and a visiting professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington, DC (1982-1984).

Controversial President

In 1986, Waldheim campaigned for president of Austria as the candidate of the conservative People's party, seeking to end 16 years of Socialist rule. During the campaign, the World Jewish Congress and an Austrian news magazine produced documents revealing Waldheim's Nazi past. Waldheim insisted he had joined the Nazi groups only because he wanted to protect his family. Many Austrian voters accepted his explanation that he was the victim of an international smear campaign, and he was elected president to a six-year term amid an angry eruption of anti-semitism. U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan called Waldheim's victory "a symbolic amnesty for the Holocaust."

Israel boycotted his inauguration and recalled its ambassador to Austria. The United States banned Waldheim as a war criminal. On February 8, 1988, a six-man international commission of prestigious historians found that Waldheim was aware of Nazi atrocities and did nothing to stop them, though he did not personally participate in war crimes. Waldheim resisted calls for his resignation and continued to insist he was innocent. Shunned by almost every world leader, he served out his term but did not run again in 1992. Waldheim's efforts to clear his name resulted in another autobiography, The Answer, published in 1996, in which he wrote of his wartime activities: "I did what was necessary to survive the day, the system, the war - no more, no less."

Kurt Waldheim

9th President of Austria
In office 8 July 1986 – 8 July 1992
Chancellor	Franz Vranitzky
Preceded by	Rudolf Kirchschläger
Succeeded by	Thomas Klestil
4th Secretary-General of the United Nations
In office 1 January 1972 – 1 January 1982
Preceded by	U Thant
Succeeded by	Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

Born	21 December 1918(1918-12-21) Sankt Andrä-Wördern near Vienna, German Austria
Died	14 June 2007 (aged 88) Vienna, Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Political party	Austrian People's Party
Spouse(s)	Elisabeth Waldheim (1944-2007)
Children	3
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Profession	lawyer, diplomat
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Early life

Waldheim was born in Sankt Andrä-Wördern, a village near Vienna, on 21 December 1918.^[1] His father was a Roman Catholic school inspector of Czech origin named Watzlawick^[2] (original Czech spelling Václavík) who changed his name that year as the Habsburg monarchy collapsed. Waldheim served in the Austrian Army (1936-37) and attended the Vienna Consular Academy, where he graduated in 1939. Waldheim's father was active in the Christian Social Party. Waldheim himself was politically unaffiliated during these years at the Academy. Shortly after the German annexation of Austria in 1938, Waldheim applied for membership in the National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB), a division of the Nazi Party.^[3] Shortly thereafter he became a registered member of the mounted corps of the SA.

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

Military service in World War II

Overview

In early 1941 Waldheim was drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern Front where he served as a squad leader. In December 1941 he was wounded but later returned to service. His further service in the Wehrmacht from 1942 to 1945 (at age 24 to 27) was subject of the international dispute regarding his person in 1985 and 1986. In 1985, in his autobiography, he stated that he was discharged from further service at the front and for the rest of the war years finished his law degree at the University of Vienna and married in 1944.^[4] Documents and witnesses which have since come to light reveal that Waldheim’s military service continued until 1945, and confirmed that he graduated with a law degree from the University of Vienna in 1945 and that he married in 1944.

Service in Yugoslavia and Greece

His functions within the staff of German Army Group E from 1942 until 1945, as determined by the International Commission of Historians^[5], were:

interpreter and liaison officer with the 5th Alpine Division (Italy) in April/May 1942, then,
O2 officer (communications) with Kampfgruppe West Bosnia June/August 1942,
interpreter with the liaison staff attached to the Italian 9th Army in Tirana in early summer 1942,
O1 officer 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 officer on the staff of Army Group E in Arksali, Kosovska Mitrovica and Sarajevo from October 1943 to January/February 1945.

By 1943 he was serving in the capacity of an ordnance officer in Army Group E which was headed by General Alexander Löhr^[6]. In 1986, Waldheim said that he had served only as an interpreter and a clerk and had no knowledge either of reprisals against civilians locally 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.^[4]

Much historical interest has centered on Waldheim's role in Operation Kozara^[7]. According to one post-war investigator, prisoners were routinely shot within only a few hundred yards of Waldheim's office^[8], and at the Jasenovac concentration camp. Waldheim later stated "that he did not know about the murder of civilians there."^[8]

Waldheim's name appears on the Wehrmacht's "honor list" of those responsible for the militarily successful operation. The Independent State of Croatia awarded Waldheim the silver medal of the Order of Zvonimir with an oak leaf cluster.^[9] Later, during the lobbying for his election as U.N. Secretary General, Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito awarded Waldheim the Order of the Grand Cross of Yugoslavia.^{[citation needed]}

According to Eli Rosenbaum, in 1944, Waldheim reviewed and approved a packet of anti-Semitic propaganda leaflets to be dropped behind Russian lines, one of which ended, "enough of the Jewish war, kill the Jews, come over."^[10]

Surrender

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 Löhr, who was seeking a special deal with the British.

Diplomatic career

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. Shortly afterwards, he ran and was defeated in the 1971 Austrian presidential elections.

United Nations Secretary-General

After being defeated in his home country's presidential election, he was elected to succeed U Thant as United Nations Secretary-General the same year. As Secretary-General, 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 Seas (Caracas, June 1974), the World Population Conference (Bucharest, August 1974) and the World Food Conference (Rome, November 1974). However, his diplomatic efforts particularly in the Middle East were overshadowed by the diplomacy of then US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.^[11]

In 1972 Waldheim refused^{[citation needed]} to condemn a letter sent to him by Idi Amin which

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. "It happened because Hitler and all of the German people knew that the Israelis are not a people who work for humanity and because of that they burned them alive and killed them with gas on the soil of Germany." ^[12]

In a 1976 security council debate, Waldheim described the Israeli rescue of hijacked airline passengers at Entebbe, Uganda as "a serious violation of the national sovereignty of a United Nations member state. "^[13]

Waldheim was re-elected in 1976 despite some opposition. Waldheim and then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter both prepared written statements for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records, now in deep space.^[14] He was the first Secretary-General to visit North Korea, in 1979.^[15] 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.^[11] 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 Paul McCartney also organized a series of concerts for the People of Kampuchea to help Cambodia recover from the damage done by Pol Pot.^[16] The People's Republic of China vetoed Waldheim's candidature for a third term, and he was succeeded by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru.

Presidency of Austria

Election and Waldheim Affair

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, the events started that marked the beginning of what became known internationally as the "Waldheim Affair". Before the presidential elections, Alfred Worm revealed in the Austrian weekly news magazine Profil that there had been several omissions about Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945 in his recently-published autobiography. A short time later, the World Jewish Congress alleged that Waldheim had lied about his service as an officer in the mounted corps of the SA, and his time as an ordnance officer in Saloniki, Greece, from 1942 to 1943.^[17] Waldheim called the allegations "pure lies and malicious acts".^[18] Nevertheless he admitted that he had known about German reprisals against partisans: "Yes, I knew. I was horrified. But what could I do? I had either to continue to serve or be executed."^[18] He said that he had never fired a shot or even seen a partisan.^[18] His former immediate superior at the time stated that Waldheim had "remained confined to a desk".^[18] Former Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky denounced the actions of the World Jewish Congress as an "extraordinary infamy"^[18] adding that Austrians wouldn't "allow the Jews abroad to ... tell us who should be our President.".

In 1994, former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky claimed in his book The Other Side of Deception that Mossad doctored the file of the then UN Secretary General to implicate him in Nazi crimes. These allegedly false documents were subsequently "discovered" by Benjamin Netanyahu in the UN file, and triggered the "Waldheim Affair". Ostrovsky says it was motivated by Waldheim's criticism of Israeli action in Lebanon.^[19] Controversy surrounds Ostrovsky and his writings and some of its claims disputed; many of which have not been verified from other sources; critics, such as Benny Morris and author David Wise charged that the book is essentially a novel.^[20]

The International Committee of historians

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. Although Waldheim had stated that he was unaware of any crimes taking place, the historians cited evidence that Waldheim must have known about war crimes.^[21]

In an account of the controversy, Simon Wiesenthal states that Waldheim was stationed 5 miles from Salonika while, over the course of several weeks, the Jewish community which formed one third of the population there, was sent to Auschwitz. Waldheim denied any knowledge of this. Wiesenthal states:

I could only reply what the committee of historians likewise made clear in its report: "I cannot believe you."^[22]

Wiesenthal stated there was no evidence found by the committee that Waldheim took part in any war crimes, but was guilty of lying about his military record.^[23] The International Committee in February 1988 concluded, with regard to Waldheim's ability to do something about the crimes he knew that were going on in Yugoslavia and Greece:

In favour of Waldheim is, that he only had very minor possibilities to act against the injustices happening. Actions against these, depending on which level the resistance occurred, were of very different importance. For a young member of the staff, who did not have any military authority on the army group level, the practical possibilities for resistance were very limited and with a high probability would not have led to any actual results. Resistance would have been limited to a formal protest or on the refusal to serve any longer in the army, which would have seemed to be a courageous act, however would have not led to any practical achievement. ^[24]

Term of presidency 1986–1992

Throughout his term as president (1986–1992), Waldheim and his wife Elisabeth were officially deemed personae non gratae by the United States.^[25] In 1987, they were put on a watch list of persons banned from entering the United States and remained on the list even after the publication of the International Committee of Historians' report on his military past in the Wehrmacht. He also was not invited to, and therefore did not, visit any other Western countries during his term as Austrian president. Waldheim therefore concentrated his state visits on the Middle East, the Vatican and some communist states.

Late life

After his term ended in 1992, Waldheim did not seek a second term. In 1992 Waldheim was made an honorary member of K.H.V. Welfia Klosterneuburg, a Roman Catholic student fraternity that is a part of the Austrian Cartellverband (ÖCV). In 1994, Pope John Paul II awarded Waldheim a knighthood in the Order of Pius IX and his wife a papal honor.^[26] He died in June 2007 from heart failure. On 23 June his funeral was held at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna and he was laid to rest at the Presidential Vault in the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery).^[27] 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.^[28] At Waldheim's own request, no foreign heads of states or governments were invited to attend his funeral. Hans-Adam II, the Prince of Liechtenstein, a neighbouring country of Austria, was the only one to be present. Also present was Luis Durnwalder, governor of Italian province of Bolzano-Bozen. Syria and Japan were the only two countries that laid a wreath. 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^[29].

Media references

Waldheim is the subject of Lou Reed's song "Good Evening, Mr. Waldheim" from the album New York, in which he is criticized as a racist along with Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Pope John Paul II^[30]
W. G. Sebald's novel The Rings of Saturn (1995; English trans., 1998) refers to Waldheim, though not by name.^[31]
As a much-heralded invited guest on Dame Edna Everage's talk show The Dame Edna Experience, a dignified "Kurt Waldheim" began a grand entrance, except that halfway down the staircase he abruptly fell through a hidden chute and disappeared: the band's fanfare stopped as Dame Edna explained she had decided at the last minute to "abort" Dr. Waldheim's appearance because it would have been "too political." The episode aired 12 September 1987.
A running segment on the Howard Stern radio show is called Guess Who's The Jew and features Fred Norris portraying a Nazi Kurt Waldheim Jr.^[32]
Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, in which Germany won the Second World War, a "Kurt Haldweim" is the third Führer of Germany, and parts of Haldweim's biography closely parallel Waldheim's.
In a 1988 ice hockey film entitled Hockey, The Lighter Side, former New York Rangers goaltender John Davidson is explaining his fictional goaltender school and as hockey highlights play he exclaims, "You'll have more shots taken at you than Kurt Waldheim".
In episode 3, series 2 of The Million Pound Radio Show, Andy Hamilton announces next week's special guest as Waldheim, "although he'll deny [his appearance on the show] in 40 years time."
In an episode of The New Statesman, aired in 1989, Alan B'Stard (Rik Mayall) attempts to blackmail an aged former Nazi officer, who complains that, "it's not fair; I'm living here in the tripe capital of Europe, while Kurt Waldheim is President of Austria- and he was beneath me!"

References

^ Former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim dies at 88 - Haaretz - Israel News
^ Kurt Waldheim, The Daily Telegraph, 15 June 2007.
^ Report of the International Historical Commission of 8 February 1988, section on "Membership in National Socialist Organizations", as cited for example in http://nationalsozialismus.at/Themen/Umgang/waldheim.htm
^ ^a ^b "Kurt Waldheim: Austrian head of the UN who as president of his country was later tainted by charges of complicity in Nazi atrocities". The Times (London: News Corporation). 15 June 2007. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1934744.ece. Retrieved 13 October 2008.
^ see page 39 of The Waldheim Report. Submitted 8 February 1988 to Federal Chancellor Dr. Franz Vranitzky
^ Walther-Peer Fellgiebel (2000), Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939-1945. Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 3-7909-0284-5
^ "Kurt Waldheim". The New York Times. 15 June 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/world/europe/15waldheim.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1. ""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 to concentration camps.""
^ ^a ^b Casey, Dennis (1 May 2005). "Kurt Waldheim: man of mystery.". http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-135759558.html.
^ Letter from Europe: Vienna, 20 June: The New Yorker
^ 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
^ ^a ^b BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Obituary: Kurt Waldheim
^ Israeli-Ugandan Relations in the Time of Idi Amin by Arye Oded, Jewish Political Studies Review 18:3-4 (Fall 2006)
^ National Review, 9 July 2007, Vol. LIX, No. 12
^ Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record
^ "Discipline and Devotion", TIME, 28 May 1979 article. Accessed 1 December 2008.
^ CBC.ca - Arts - Music - Charity Begins
^ See Section "Military Service" above
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Serrill, Michael S.; William McWhirter, Wayne Svoboda (7 April 1986). "Sequels Running Out of Answers". Time (magazine). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961050-2,00.html. Retrieved 13 October 2008.
^ Victor Ostrovsky (1994). The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda. HarperCollins (New York).
^ "18 June 2008 meeting - Victor Ostrovsky, Former Mossad Officer". AFIO. June 2008. http://www.afioaz.org/UpComingMeetings/tabid/55/ModuleID/412/ItemID/10/mctl/EventDetails/Default.aspx?selecteddate=6/18/2008.
^ Simon Wiesenthal "The Waldheim Case" in Contemporary Jewish Writing in Austria edited by Dagmar Lorenz. pp 81-95, University of Nebraska press
^ Simon Wiesenthal "The Waldheim Case" in Contemporary Jewish Writing in Austria edited by Dagmar Lorenz. page 91, University of Nebraska Press
^ Kurt Waldheim | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
^ James L. Collins Jr. u.a.: Bericht der internationalen Historikerkommission, Schlussbetrachtung, 8. Februar 1988. (translated from German)
^ "Waldheim, ex-UN leader and Nazi, buried in Austria". Reuters. 23 June 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2351006420070623?pageNumber=2.
^ "Waldheim's Wife Gets a Papal Award". The New York Times. 22 August 1994. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED71439F931A1575BC0A962958260. Retrieved 14 June 2007.
^ "Former Austrian president whose term was marred by wartime service buried", Associated Press (International Herald Tribune), 23 June 2007.
^ http://www.hofburg.at/show_content2.php?s2id=855 Speech of President Heinz Fischer (official text)
^ http://activepaper.tele.net/vntipps/WaldheimVermaechtnis.pdf
^ Jewsrock.org : Words : Subterranean Homeland Blues
^ http://www.buzzwords.ndo.co.uk/mellor/ringsofsaturn.html
^ Howard Stern.com

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kurt Waldheim

Official U.N.S.G. Biography
Austria and Nazism: Owning Up to the Past (A BBC Report)
The Waldheim Report: International Commission of Historians at Google Books
Daily Telegraph obituary [1]
The Guardian obituary [2]
The Times obituary [3]
WSWS obituary [4]
Video of Kurt Waldheim sworn in as UN-Secretary-General

Political offices
Preceded by Lujo Tončić-Sorinj	Foreign Minister of Austria 1968 – 1970	Succeeded by Rudolf Kirchschläger
Preceded by U Thant Burma	United Nations Secretary-General 1972 – 1982	Succeeded by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar Peru
Preceded by Rudolf Kirchschläger	President of Austria 1986 – 1992	Succeeded by Thomas Klestil

v • d • e Presidents of Austria

Karl Seitz · Michael Hainisch · Wilhelm Miklas · Anschluss · Karl Renner · Theodor Körner · Adolf Schärf · Franz Jonas · Rudolf Kirchschläger · Kurt Waldheim · Thomas Klestil · Heinz Fischer

v • d • e Secretaries-General of the League of Nations and United Nations

League of Nations (1919-1945)	James Eric Drummond (United Kingdom) • Joseph Louis Anne Avenol (France) • Seán Lester (Irish Free State)

United Nations (since 1945)	Gladwyn Jebb (United Kingdom)* • Trygve Lie (Norway) • Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden) • U Thant (Burma) • Kurt Waldheim (Austria) Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (Peru) • Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt) • Kofi Annan (Ghana) • Ban Ki-moon (South Korea)

*Gladwyn Jebb was provisional Secretary-General of the United Nations prior to the election of Trygve Lie

v • d • e Foreign Ministers of Austria

First Austrian Republic	Victor Adler · Otto Bauer · Karl Renner · Michael Mayr · Johann Schober · Walter Breisky · Leopold Hennet · Alfred Grünberger · Heinrich Mataja · Rudolf Ramek · Ignaz Seipel · Ernst Streeruwitz · Johann Schober · Ignaz Seipel · Johann Schober · Karl Buresch · Engelbert Dollfuß · Stephan Tauschitz · Egon Berger-Waldenegg · Kurt Schuschnigg · Guido Schmidt · Wilhelm Wolf

Second Austrian Republic	Karl Gruber · Leopold Figl · Bruno Kreisky · Lujo Tončić-Sorinj · Kurt Waldheim · Rudolf Kirchschläger · Erich Bielka · Willibald Pahr · Erwin Lanc · Leopold Gratz · Peter Jankowitsch · Alois Mock · Wolfgang Schüssel · Benita Ferrero-Waldner · Ursula Plassnik · Michael Spindelegger

Persondata
NAME	Waldheim, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Waldheim, Kurt Josef
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and President of Austria from 1986 to 1992
DATE OF BIRTH	21 December 1918(1918-12-21)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Sankt Andrä-Wördern near Vienna, Austria
DATE OF DEATH	14 June 2007
PLACE OF DEATH	Vienna, Austria

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