Kurt Waldheim

Kurt Waldheim
Waldheim in 1981
Kurt Waldheim
Born	Kurt Josef Waldheim 21 12, 1918
Birthplace	Sankt Andrä-Wördern, Lower Austria, Austria
Died	Template:Death date and age Vienna, Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Occupation	Diplomat, politician
Known for	Secretary-General of the United Nations (1972–1981), President of Austria (1986–1992), wartime service controversy
Children	3

Kurt Josef Waldheim (21 December 1918 – 14 June 2007) was an Austrian diplomat and politician who served as the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981 and as the eighth President of Austria from 1986 to 1992. A career diplomat who rose through the ranks of Austria's postwar foreign service, Waldheim occupied two of the most prominent positions in international diplomacy during the Cold War era. His tenure at the United Nations encompassed a series of global crises, including conflicts in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, while his presidency of Austria was overshadowed almost from its inception by revelations about his wartime past. During the 1986 Austrian presidential campaign, investigators and journalists uncovered that Waldheim had served as an intelligence officer in the German Wehrmacht in the Balkans during World War II and had been aware of Nazi atrocities — facts he had concealed or minimized for decades. The controversy surrounding his wartime record led the United States to place him on a watchlist barring his entry into the country, making him the first and only sitting head of state to be so designated. Waldheim died in Vienna on 14 June 2007 at the age of 88.

Early Life

Kurt Josef Waldheim was born on 21 December 1918 in Sankt Andrä-Wördern, a small municipality in Lower Austria, shortly after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the establishment of the First Austrian Republic. His father, Walter Watzlawik, was a school superintendent who changed the family surname to Waldheim. The elder Waldheim was a devout Roman Catholic and a supporter of the Christian Social movement in Austrian politics.

Waldheim grew up during a period of considerable political turbulence in Austria. The interwar years were marked by economic hardship, rising political extremism, and the eventual dissolution of Austrian democracy under the Austrofascist regime of Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg. Following the German annexation of Austria — the Anschluss — in March 1938, Waldheim was conscripted into the Wehrmacht.

According to records that surfaced decades later, Waldheim joined the National Socialist German Students' League and a unit of the SA (Sturmabteilung) in 1938, though the precise circumstances and voluntariness of these memberships became a matter of intense debate. Waldheim served as a soldier on the Eastern Front and was wounded on the leg in 1941. He later claimed that this wound effectively ended his military service and that he spent the remainder of the war studying law in Vienna. This account, which he maintained for decades and included in his autobiography, was later demonstrated to be incomplete and misleading.

In reality, after recovering from his wound, Waldheim returned to active military duty. From 1942 to 1945, he served as an intelligence officer (Ordonnanzoffizier) in the Balkans, attached to German military commands in Yugoslavia and Greece. He held the rank of Oberleutnant (first lieutenant). His unit operated in areas where severe reprisals against civilian populations and deportations of Jewish communities took place, including the deportation of Jews from Thessaloniki (Salonika) to extermination camps in 1943 and brutal anti-partisan operations in Yugoslavia and Greece.

Education

Waldheim studied law at the University of Vienna, earning his doctorate in jurisprudence (Dr. jur.) in 1944. He pursued his legal studies partly during periods of leave from military service, a fact that later complicated his claims about the extent of his wartime involvement. After the war, he also studied at the Vienna Consular Academy (now the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna), which prepared him for a career in Austria's foreign service.

Career

Early Diplomatic Career

Following the end of World War II and the reestablishment of the Austrian Republic, Waldheim embarked on a diplomatic career. He entered Austria's foreign service in 1945 and quickly rose through its ranks. He served as secretary to Foreign Minister Karl Gruber and gained experience in multilateral diplomacy at a formative period for Austria's postwar international relations.

In 1948, Waldheim was posted to the Austrian legation in Paris. He subsequently served in various capacities within Austria's diplomatic corps, including as the country's permanent observer and later permanent representative to the United Nations in New York. His long association with the United Nations began in this period and would define the trajectory of his career.

Waldheim served as Austria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1964 to 1968, during which time he gained extensive knowledge of the organization's workings and built relationships with diplomats from around the world. His reputation as a competent, if somewhat colorless, diplomat who could work across Cold War divides made him an attractive candidate for higher office.

Austrian Foreign Minister

In January 1968, Waldheim was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria under Chancellor Josef Klaus of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). He served in this role until April 1970, when the ÖVP lost power to the Social Democrats under Bruno Kreisky. As foreign minister, Waldheim represented Austria's policy of neutrality on the international stage and continued to cultivate his standing within the broader diplomatic community.

In 1971, Waldheim ran as the ÖVP's candidate for the Austrian presidency but was defeated. The loss, however, did not diminish his international profile, and he soon turned his ambitions toward the United Nations.

Secretary-General of the United Nations (1972–1981)

The process of selecting a new Secretary-General in 1971 to succeed U Thant involved numerous candidates from around the world. Among those nominated were Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan of Iran, Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe of Sri Lanka, Felipe Herrera of Chile, and Gunnar Jarring of Sweden, in addition to Waldheim. After multiple rounds of voting in the Security Council, Waldheim was recommended by the Council and subsequently appointed by the General Assembly. He assumed office on 1 January 1972 for a five-year term and was reappointed for a second term beginning in 1977.

Waldheim's decade at the helm of the United Nations was marked by several major international crises. His tenure coincided with the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (Yom Kippur War), the subsequent oil crisis, and the complex negotiations surrounding peace in the Middle East. He oversaw the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces to the Sinai and the Golan Heights following the conflict.

In South Asia, Waldheim was involved in diplomatic efforts related to the aftermath of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War and the independence of Bangladesh. He also engaged with the crisis in Cyprus following the Turkish invasion in 1974, a conflict that led to the establishment of a UN peacekeeping force on the island that remains in place to this day.

One of the most dramatic episodes of his tenure occurred in 1976, when Palestinian and German militants hijacked an Air France flight and diverted it to Entebbe Airport in Uganda, then under the rule of Idi Amin. Waldheim was involved in diplomatic efforts to secure the release of the hostages before Israel launched its celebrated military rescue operation.

Waldheim also dealt with issues of decolonization, particularly in southern Africa, where he pressed for the independence of Namibia from South African administration. The question of Western Sahara and other territorial disputes also fell within his purview.

Critics of Waldheim's tenure as Secretary-General described his leadership style as cautious and bureaucratic. He was seen by some as more concerned with maintaining his position and avoiding confrontation with the major powers than with asserting the moral authority of the United Nations. Others credited him with steady management of a deeply divided organization during a period when Cold War rivalries severely constrained the UN's ability to act.

In 1981, Waldheim sought an unprecedented third term as Secretary-General but was blocked by a Chinese veto in the Security Council. China supported the candidacy of Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania, though Salim was in turn vetoed by the United States. The deadlock was eventually resolved with the selection of Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as Waldheim's successor.

The Wartime Record Controversy

The most consequential chapter in Waldheim's public life began during the 1986 Austrian presidential election, when he ran again as the ÖVP candidate. In March 1986, the World Jewish Congress publicly released documents showing that Waldheim had served as an intelligence officer attached to the staff of General Alexander Löhr in the Balkans — a period of service Waldheim had omitted from his autobiography and official biographical statements.

The documents revealed that Waldheim had been stationed in Salonika during the period when the city's Jewish community — approximately 40,000 people — was deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps in 1943. He had also been present in Yugoslavia during brutal anti-partisan operations that included massacres of civilians. While no evidence emerged that Waldheim had personally committed atrocities, the records indicated that his role as an intelligence officer meant he would have had knowledge of the deportations and reprisals taking place around him.

Waldheim's response to the revelations was widely criticized. He alternated between claiming he had known nothing about the atrocities, asserting that he had merely been performing his duty, and maintaining that he had been powerless to intervene. In a frequently quoted statement, he said he had "only done his duty as a soldier" — a formulation that drew comparisons to the discredited "following orders" defense used by defendants at the Nuremberg Trials.

An international commission of historians was appointed by the Austrian government to investigate Waldheim's wartime record. The commission concluded in 1988 that while Waldheim had not been a war criminal, he had been aware of atrocities committed in his area of operations and had done nothing to prevent them. The commission found that his repeated denials and evasions constituted a pattern of concealment that was "incompatible" with his claims of ignorance.

The Yugoslav government had placed Waldheim on a list of suspected war criminals after the war — a fact that remained buried in archives for decades. The United Nations War Crimes Commission had also received a file on Waldheim, though this was not publicly known during his UN tenure.

President of Austria (1986–1992)

Despite the international controversy, or in some interpretations because of a backlash against perceived foreign interference in Austrian domestic politics, Waldheim won the Austrian presidential election in June 1986. His campaign benefited from a wave of nationalist sentiment among some Austrian voters who resented what they saw as an attempt by outside forces to dictate the outcome of an Austrian election. The slogan "Wir wählen, wen wir wollen" ("We'll elect whomever we want") encapsulated this defiance.

Waldheim's election had immediate diplomatic consequences. In April 1987, the United States Department of Justice placed Waldheim on its watchlist of undesirable aliens, effectively barring him from entering the country. The decision, made under the Holtzman Amendment, was based on evidence that Waldheim had "assisted or otherwise participated in" the persecution of civilians during World War II. Waldheim became the first and only sitting head of state to be placed on this list.

The watchlist designation effectively rendered Waldheim a pariah in international diplomacy. Most Western governments avoided official contact with him, and he was unable to carry out the normal functions of a head of state on the international stage. Only a handful of countries, notably some Arab states and the Vatican, received him on state visits.

Within Austria, Waldheim's presidency was marked by a deepening debate about Austria's role during the Nazi period. For decades, Austria had officially maintained the fiction that it was the "first victim" of Nazi aggression — a narrative enshrined in the 1943 Moscow Declaration. The Waldheim affair forced a more honest reckoning with Austria's complicity in the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, who served under Waldheim, became the first Austrian chancellor to publicly acknowledge Austrian co-responsibility for Nazi crimes, in a landmark speech in 1991.

Waldheim did not seek reelection when his term ended in 1992. He was succeeded by Thomas Klestil.

Later Life and Death

After leaving the presidency, Waldheim largely withdrew from public life. He continued to maintain his innocence regarding the wartime allegations, insisting until the end of his life that he had done nothing wrong. He lived quietly in Vienna and made occasional public statements defending his record.

Kurt Waldheim died on 14 June 2007 in Vienna at the age of 88. His death was attributed to heart and circulatory failure. He received a state funeral with full military honors in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, attended by Austrian officials including President Heinz Fischer and Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent condolences but did not attend the ceremony.

The World Jewish Congress issued a statement upon his death noting that Waldheim "was never a Nazi per se" but that "he was a man who had a great deal to hide and went to great lengths to hide it."

Personal Life

Waldheim married Elisabeth Ritschel in 1944. The couple had three children. Elisabeth Waldheim remained a private figure throughout her husband's public career and was largely absent from the public debates surrounding his wartime record.

Waldheim was a Roman Catholic, and his faith was an important part of his personal identity. His visit to Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 1987 — one of the few official visits he was able to make during his presidency — drew considerable controversy, with Jewish organizations protesting the papal audience.

Waldheim was described by those who knew him as reserved, formal, and meticulous — qualities that served him well in diplomatic settings but also contributed to a public persona that many found distant and difficult to warm to. His manner was characterized by Time magazine as that of "an ambitious but essentially dull bureaucrat."

Recognition

Waldheim received numerous honors during his diplomatic career, particularly during and after his tenure as Secretary-General of the United Nations. However, the wartime revelations that emerged in 1986 fundamentally altered his international standing and the way his achievements were regarded.

The most significant mark on his official recognition was the 1987 decision by the United States to place him on its watchlist under the Holtzman Amendment, barring his entry to the country on the grounds of his wartime activities. This decision by the U.S. Department of Justice was based on an extensive investigation and represented an extraordinary diplomatic step against a sitting head of state.

Despite the international opprobrium, Waldheim retained a degree of support within Austria. His state funeral in 2007 was attended by senior Austrian officials and conducted with full honors, reflecting the continued ambivalence within Austrian society about his legacy.

Legacy

Kurt Waldheim's legacy is deeply contested and remains the subject of scholarly and public debate. His career trajectory — from a provincial Austrian town to the summit of international diplomacy and then to a presidency defined by scandal — encapsulates broader questions about memory, accountability, and the politics of the past in postwar Europe.

As Secretary-General of the United Nations, Waldheim led the organization during a turbulent decade of Cold War tensions, regional conflicts, and decolonization. His administrative record, while not considered transformative, reflected the constraints under which any Secretary-General operated during this period. His failure to win a third term in 1981, blocked by a Chinese veto, ended a chapter that might otherwise have been remembered as a competent if unremarkable stewardship of the institution.

It is the wartime record, however, that defines Waldheim's place in history. The revelations that emerged in 1986 had consequences far beyond one man's career. The Waldheim affair became a catalyst for Austria's overdue confrontation with its Nazi past. The longstanding Austrian narrative of victimhood — the claim that Austria had been the "first victim" of Hitler's aggression — was subjected to sustained scrutiny for the first time in the postwar period. Historians, journalists, and civic organizations used the momentum of the Waldheim controversy to open archives, challenge official narratives, and demand a more honest accounting of Austrian participation in the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes.

The affair also raised fundamental questions about the vetting processes of international organizations. That a man with Waldheim's wartime record could ascend to the highest position in the United Nations — an organization founded in large part as a response to the horrors of World War II — prompted reflection on the inadequacy of background checks and the willingness of governments and institutions to accept self-serving biographical narratives at face value.

For the study of Holocaust memory and postwar European politics, the Waldheim case remains a significant reference point. It demonstrated how wartime complicity could be concealed for decades within the structures of postwar respectability and how the exposure of such concealment could reshape national political cultures. The phrase "the Waldheim affair" has entered the vocabulary of modern European history as shorthand for the broader process by which Austria and other countries began to confront their roles in the crimes of the Nazi era.