Word: waldheim
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...polls to choose a new President. The formality seemed to reflect a widespread somberness as they cast their ballots in the final round of a five-month presidential campaign that had evolved into a painful referendum on the country's past. The race was overshadowed by allegations that Kurt Waldheim, the former United Nations Secretary-General (1972-1982) and candidate of the conservative People's Party, had lied about his knowledge of Nazi atrocities committed while he served as an officer in the German army during World War II. Despite evidence that he had obscured major episodes of his military...
...special runoff came five weeks after Waldheim narrowly failed to win a majority of the popular vote against Steyrer and two other candidates. In the final weeks of the campaign, Austrian anger about the international storm over Waldheim's murky military past created a wave of sympathy for him that played a critical role in his victory. Waldheim had long claimed that he had been discharged from the Wehrmacht after being wounded on the Eastern Front in 1941. In March the New York City-based World Jewish Congress disclosed that Waldheim had served in the Balkans from...
Thus far, no evidence has surfaced to link Waldheim to specific war crimes. Still, the debate over Waldheim's Nazi past struck a responsive chord among the Austrian people, and many of his countrymen rallied behind him. "My husband was drafted at age 17," said a Vienna woman. "If he were more prominent, he too might be wrongly accused of war crimes...
...Socialists treated the controversy gingerly. Only recently did Steyrer begin to allude openly to the damage a Waldheim victory could inflict on the country's reputation. WITH STEYRER, ALL OF AUSTRIA WINS proclaimed one campaign poster. Bruno Kreisky, the Socialist ex-Chancellor, last week appealed to his countrymen not to vote for Waldheim. Asked Kreisky: "Didn't we always have decent Presidents whom we could show in public...
Belatedly, Waldheim has made some conciliatory gestures toward Jews. Addressing People's Party functionaries and the press last month, he spoke for the first time of the enrichment that Austria has derived from "this small but so important Jewish community, which we would not wish to miss." Recognizing that "special grief has come through the Nazis to the Jews of Europe and our Jewish countrymen of Austria," Waldheim called on his fellow citizens "not to tolerate any new anti-Semitism in our country...