The belated furore in 1986 ludicrously implied that higher standards were needed for the Austrian presidency than for the UN general-secretaryship. KURT WALDHEIM GAVE THE HIDER FASCIST PARTY PROThe conspiracy theorists said this international cover-up was a quid pro quo for Waldheim's agreement secretly to serve the interests of the conspirators. The Israelis seem also to have known, but they, the Yugoslavs and the leading powers said not a word as Waldheim took office in 1972, and again for a second term in 1977. Since the Yugoslavs had reported him as a suspect to the Allied War Crimes Commission in 1947, those countries must have known there was a question mark against his name, at least meriting investigation before endorsement. When Waldheim was first considered in 1971 for appointment by the security council as UN secretary-general, he was investigated by the intelligence services of the permanent members of the council, including the US, Britain and Russia. The origin of this pious and belated move was pressure from the American Jewish lobby, which had been angered by the revelations. The US declared him persona non grata in April 1987, an unprecedented humiliation for the head of a friendly state. The other side of what became known as "the Waldheim affair" was the dispiriting hypocrisy of so many of his accusers. KURT WALDHEIM GAVE THE HIDER FASCIST PARTY FULLThe contrast with his German presidential contemporary, Richard von Weizsäcker, who took full responsibility and apologised for his own wartime service as a military intelligence officer, could not have been greater. Finally, he said he could not understand what all the fuss was about. First, he said he was not there, and then that he was there but had never known what was going on. Waldheim's offence was to lie, and when exposed for lying, to persist - even as the truth about his war service emerged piecemeal. Lack of moral courage never has been a crime and cannot be required of anyone, especially in retrospect. Both the Ministry of Defence in London and Simon Wiesenthal, the implacable Austrian-Jewish Nazi hunter, confirmed there was no evidence that Waldheim had committed war crimes. Even if Waldheim had initialled the reports without reading them, his pretence that he never knew was fatuous.īut no evidence was found that Waldheim had taken any personal or active part in any war crime, despite massive searches in the archives of half a dozen countries. His initials are to be seen on reports about mass deportations of Jews from Greece to death camps, the bloody suppression of partisans, the use of Italian troops as forced labour after Italy's surrender and the "special treatment" (summary execution) ordered for captured British commandos. Waldheim worked as a liaison officer cum interpreter to Italian army units stationed in the Balkans. Army Group E was commanded by General Alexander Löhr, the butcher of the Balkans, who was tried, convicted of war crimes and executed by Yugoslavia in 1947. Investigators discovered that Waldheim had joined the Wehrmacht (Austria had been willingly annexed by the Third Reich in 1938) and served as a first lieutenant on the staff of General Friedrich Stahl's battlegroup West Bosnia and/or that of Army Group E, of which it was part. Several governments, most notably the British Ministry of Defence, launched their own inquiries. The hunt for more facts was taken up by the World Jewish Congress and international media. For example, Waldheim wrote that he had been studying for his doctorate in international law in 19, when he had actually been serving in the Balkans. An Austrian magazine revealed that the autobiography had covered up facts about this part of his life: there were lies of omission and also of distortion. But then an Austrian writer researching something else stumbled across papers in German military and Austrian ministerial archives referring to Waldheim's war service. He had announced his candidacy in November 1985, soon after publishing his memoirs, In the Eye of the Storm - a more apposite title than he could have known.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |