Editing Kurt Waldheim (section)

===Election and Waldheim Affair===
[[File:Artur Phleps and Kurt Waldheim.jpg|250px|thumb|Waldheim (2nd from left), with Italian Army [[Army corps general|Corps General]] [[Ercole Roncaglia]] (on his right), ''Wehrmacht'' Colonel Macholz (on his left) and SS General [[Artur Phleps]] (with briefcase) at Podgorica airfield in Montenegro during [[Case Black]], 22 May 1943. This photograph caused much controversy when it was published while Waldheim was running in the [[1986 Austrian presidential election]].|alt=an Italian officer and three German officers in uniform standing beneath the wing of an aircraft on a grassed airfield]]

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, what became known internationally as the "Waldheim affair" began. Before the [[1986 Austrian presidential election|presidential elections]], investigative journalist [[Alfred Worm]] revealed in the Austrian weekly news magazine ''[[Profil (magazine)|Profil]]'' that Waldheim's recently published autobiography had several omissions about his life between 1938 and 1945.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mitten, Richard|title=The Politics of the Antisemitic Prejudice. The Waldheim Phenomenon in Austria|date=1992|publisher=Westview Press|location=Boulder|url=http://www.demokratiezentrum.org/fileadmin/media/pdf/mitten.pdf|access-date=24 January 2015|archive-date=28 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150128112359/http://www.demokratiezentrum.org/fileadmin/media/pdf/mitten.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Waldheim had previously claimed to have received a [[Military discharge|medical discharge]] after being wounded in winter 1942. His aides at the United Nations even accused the [[Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations|Israeli mission]] of spreading rumors that he supported the Nazis. Israeli ambassador [[Yehuda Zvi Blum]] denied the charges, saying, "We don't believe Waldheim ever supported the Nazis and we never said he did. We have many differences with him, but that isn't one of them."<ref name="nytimes19810913">{{cite news|last=Rosen|first=Jane|title=The U.N.'s Man in the Middle|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/13/magazine/the-un-s-man-in-the-middle.html|work=The New York Times Magazine|date=13 September 1981}}</ref>

A short time later, beginning on 4 March 1986, the [[World Jewish Congress]] alleged that Waldheim had lied about his service in the mounted corps of the [[Sturmabteilung|SA]] and had concealed his service as a special missions staff officer (Ordonnanzoffizier) for Germany's [[Army Group E]] in Yugoslavia and Greece, from 1942 to 1944, based primarily on captured German wartime records held at the United States National Archives in Washington, DC, and in other archives.<ref>See Section "Military Service" above</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution|page=753|first=Richard S.|last=Levy|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|year=2005|isbn=978-1-85109-439-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tdn6FFZklkcC&pg=PA753}}</ref><ref>See 4 March 1986 WABC-TV news report (New York City) on the worldwide exposure that day of Waldheim's Nazi past, at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_mJLwBgrc&t=45s and a report of the same date on WOR-TV (New York City) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxXE_4nyxUg</ref> The 23 March 1986 public disclosure by the World Jewish Congress that the organization had unearthed the fact that the United Nations War Crimes Commission concluded after the war that Waldheim was implicated in Nazi mass murder and should be arrested arguably transformed the Waldheim affair into the most sensational of all post-war Nazi scandals.<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97kxi1InWc&t=13s |title=WNBC: Kurt Waldheim was listed by the UN War Crimes Commission as wanted for murder, March 23, 1986 |date=2018-01-12 |last=Karina |access-date=2024-10-10 |via=YouTube}}</ref>

Waldheim called the allegations, which grew in magnitude in the ensuing months, "pure lies and malicious acts".<ref name=Time1986>{{cite news|author=Serrill, Michael S. |author2=McWhirter, William |author3=Svoboda, Wayne |title=Sequels Running Out of Answers|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961050-2,00.html|magazine=Time|date=7 April 1986 |access-date=13 October 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204080504/https://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961050-2,00.html |archive-date=4 December 2008}}</ref> Nevertheless, he admitted that he had known about [[Bandenbekämpfung|German reprisals]]: "Yes, I knew. I was horrified. But what could I do? I had either to continue to serve or be executed."<ref name=Time1986/> He said that he had never fired a shot or even seen a partisan.<ref name=Time1986/> His former immediate superior at the time stated that Waldheim had "remained confined to a desk".<ref name=Time1986/> Former Austrian chancellor [[Bruno Kreisky]], who was Jewish, denounced the actions of the World Jewish Congress as an "extraordinary infamy",<ref name=Time1986/> adding that Austrians would not "allow the Jews abroad to ... tell us who should be our President".<ref name=Time1986/>

Part of the reason for the controversy was [[Austria victim theory|Austria's refusal to address its national role in the Holocaust]] (many leading Nazis, including [[Adolf Hitler]], had been born Austrians, and Austria became [[Anschluss|part of the Third Reich]]). Austria refused to pay compensation to victims of Nazism, and from 1970 onwards refused to investigate Austrian citizens who were senior Nazis.<ref>Zuroff, Efraim (April 2002) "Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, 2001–2002," Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem.</ref> Stolen Jewish art remained public property a generation after the Waldheim affair.<ref>Knöfel, Ulrike and Kraske, Marion (4 April 2008) [http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,545392,00.html Stealing Beauty: Dispute Rages Over Austria's Looted Art] ''Der Spiegel''</ref>

Because the revelations leading to the Waldheim affair came shortly before the presidential election, there has been speculation about the background of the affair. Declassified documents from the U.S. [[Central Intelligence Agency]] show that the CIA had been aware of some details of his wartime past since 1945.<ref>[https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/rg-263-report.html Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (RG 263)]. archives.gov</ref> Information about Waldheim's wartime past was also previously published by a pro-German Austrian newspaper, ''Salzburger Volksblatt'', during the 1971 presidential election campaign, including the claim of an SS membership, but the matter was supposedly regarded as unimportant or even advantageous for the candidate at that time.<ref name="wsws.org">[[World Socialist Web Site]] [http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/wald-j21.shtml obituary]</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kurz|first1=Rudolf|last2=Collins|first2=James I. Collins|last3=Fleischer|first3=Hagen|last4=Fleming|first4=Gerald|last5=Messerschmidt|first5=Manfred|last6=Vanwelkenhuyzen|first6=Jean|last7=Wallach|first7=Jehuda L.|title=The Waldheim Report|date=1993|publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press|location=Copenhagen|isbn=87-7289-206-4|page=209f}}</ref> Although Waldheim had stated that he was unaware of any crimes taking place, the committee cited evidence that Waldheim must have known about war crimes.<ref name=wies>Wiesenthal, Simon (1999) "The Waldheim Case" in ''Contemporary Jewish Writing in Austria''. Dagmar Lorenz (ed.). pp. 81–95. University of Nebraska press. {{ISBN|0-8032-2923-2}}.</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/02/worlddispatch.kateconnolly|work=The Guardian|location=London| title=CIA knew about Waldheim's Nazi past|author=Connolly, Kate |date=2 May 2001|access-date=7 May 2010}}</ref> The committee also noted that "he only had very minor possibilities to act against the injustices happening".<ref>James L. Collins Jr. u.a.: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20070807210825/http://zeit1.uibk.ac.at/quellen/gehler1.htm Bericht der internationalen Historikerkommission, Schlussbetrachtung]'', 8. February 1988. (translated from German)
<!-- Replaced citation link which no longer exists with archive.org link which does, and contains the quote. Google translate produced a slightly different one this time around, it is included in this comment for posterity (It is listed under the section 'Document 2' and point letter 'B'): b) Waldheim's great credit that were open to him for a resistance against injustice only very limited options. Such operations have, according to the stage at which they have been made very different weight. For a young staff member who did not have their own authority on the army group level, the practical possibilities of counter-actions were very low and could hardly have done with all probability to a tangible result. They would probably have to be limited to a formal protest or to the practical rejection of his employees, which would indeed be published as a courageous act, but would hardly have led to a practical success. Such action of Waldheim is not known. Also, the Commission's long-known and quoted in the press document of 25 5, 1944, in the Waldheim is alleged to have protested against excessive punishment measures (if it were a monthly "enemy newsletter Greece"), does not contain a protest against the application of Sanctions but merely pragmatic references to the "dosage" of these measures and not a "critique of Balkan atrocities," as it was in some press reports. An "enemy bulletin" was in any case not a place for "protests". Moreover, the criticism of excessive counter-productive Sanctions (command 22 12 43) and also by General Speidel is pronounced to orders already been been spoken extensively on the occasion of Kalavrita massacre in December 1943. The document shows the way one more time that Waldheim was Sanctions in the picture. --></ref>