Kurt Josef Waldheim (Austrian German: [kʊrt ˈvaldhaɪm] ; 21 December 1918 – 14 June 2007) was an Austrian politician and diplomat. Waldheim was the secretary-general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981 and the president of Austria from 1986 to 1992.
While he was running for the latter office in the 1986 election, the revelation of his service in Greece and Yugoslavia during World War II, and of his knowledge of Nazi atrocities as an intelligence officer in Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht, raised international controversy.
Waldheim was born in Wördern (from 1972 Sankt Andrä-Wördern), near Vienna, Republic of German-Austria on 21 December 1918. He was the eldest child of Walter Watzlawik, a schoolmaster of Czech origin, and his wife Josefine Petrasch. Watzlawik (original Czech spelling Václavík) 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). Active in the Christian Social Party, he was well regarded as a devoutly Catholic family man. Waldheim and his two younger siblings, a brother, Walther, and a sister, Gerlinde, enjoyed a comfortable middle-class upbringing. From his youth, Waldheim was distinguished by his unusual height of 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in). As a gymnasium student in Klosterneuburg, he excelled at languages and was a competent violinist in the school orchestra, also enjoying swimming, boating and tennis.
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. In March 1936, the Schuschnigg government passed a law mandating a period of military service for prospective civil servants. Consequently, following his graduation Waldheim volunteered for a 12-month term of enlistment in the Austrian Army, and was posted to the 1st Dragoon Regiment on his 18th birthday. In the autumn of 1937, now an army reservist, Waldheim entered the prestigious Consular Academy in Vienna on a scholarship, where he began his studies in law and diplomacy. Along with his family, Waldheim opposed the German annexation of Austria in 1938, and while actively campaigning against it in Vienna was attacked and injured by Austrian Nazis. Following the annexation, Waldheim's father was briefly arrested by the Gestapo and dismissed from his post, while Waldheim's scholarship was cancelled. He managed to continue his studies by working as a Latin and Greek tutor and borrowing funds from relatives.
Waldheim applied for membership in the National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB), a division of the Nazi Party. He joined the Reiter-SA or Mounted SA (SA Mounted Standard 5/90) on 18 November 1938.
In March/April 1944, Waldheim received his doctorate in law from the University of Vienna. He used an approved study leave from the Balkan front (from 25 February to 16 April 1944) to complete his dissertation on the “Reich idea with Konstantin Frantz” at the Faculty of Law and Political Science. Shortly after graduating, he returned to his staff assignment under Alexander Löhr.
On 19 August 1944, he married Elisabeth Ritschel in Vienna; their first daughter, Lieselotte, was born the following year. A son, Gerhard, and another daughter, Christa, followed.
Military service in World War II
In early 1941, Waldheim was conscripted 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. In December, he was wounded but returned to service in 1942. His service from 1942 to 1945 was the subject of international review in 1985 and 1986. 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. After publication, documents and witnesses came to light that revealed Waldheim's military service continued until 1945, during which time he rose to the rank of Oberleutnant der Reserve.
Service in Yugoslavia and Greece
Waldheim's functions within the staff of the German Army's Group E from 1942 until 1945, as determined by the International Commission of Historians, were:
Interpreter and liaison officer with the 5th Alpine Division (Italy) in Pljevlja, Montenegro from 22 March 1942 to July 1942;
O2 (2nd Assistant Adjutant) to the 1b (General Staff Quartermaster) with Kampfgruppe West in Bosnia in June/August 1942,
Interpreter with the liaison staff attached to the Italian 9th Army in Tirana in early summer 1942;
O1 (1st Assistant Adjutant) to the 1a (General Staff Chief of Operations) 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 (3rd Assistant Adjutant) to the 1c (General Staff Chief Intelligence Officer) officer on the staff of Army Group E in Arsakli, Kosovska Mitrovica and Sarajevo from October 1943 to January/February 1945.
By 1943, Waldheim was serving in the capacity of an aide-de-camp in Army Group E which was headed by General Alexander Löhr, who would be executed as a war criminal in 1947. In 1986, Waldheim said that he had served only as an interpreter and a clerk and had no knowledge either of reprisals against local Serb civilians or of massacres in neighboring provinces of Yugoslavia. He said that he had known some things and was horrified but felt powerless.
Much historical interest has centred on Waldheim's role in Operation Kozara in 1942. According to one post-war investigator, prisoners were routinely shot within only a few hundred metres (yards) of Waldheim's office, and 35 kilometres (22 mi) away at the Jasenovac concentration camp. Waldheim later stated that "he did not know about the murder of civilians there".