FILES SHOW KURT WALDHEIM SERVED UNDER WAR CRIMINAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100130027-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: March 4, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100130027-0
NEW YORK TIMES
C:~< PACE l . 4 March 1986
Files. Show; Kurt Waldheim
Served.'Under War Criminal
By JOHN,TAGLLIBUE
Special toThe New York Times,
VIENNA, March 3 - Kurt - Wald-
heim, former Secretary General of they
United Nations, was attached to a Ger-
man Army command, in World War IL
that fought brutal campaigns, against
Yugoslav partisans and' .engaged in
available here:. ' had had Nazi associations. Mr. Wald He spid the students had a choice
The documents also show that, as a,: heim has said on each occasion that he; among sports of tennis, horseback rid
young man, he was enrolled in two Nazi never was a member of a Nazi organs Ing and motorcycle racing. He chose
Party organizations. anizations. zation or a Nazi-affiliated organization.
Y g riding? he said, never assuming that
The documents, which were obtained-; The documents show. that in July (this would lead to enrollment in, the SA.
by The New, York Times;- were found.' 1942, after a campaign against Yugo-
Y slay. partisans, Mr. Waldheim was Sought to Protect Family
coring to official: documents made- There have been past Chia e8 that he e ' coffee parties and things like
mass deportations-of Greek Jews, ac-?. I Timr+si . ,,.....~...., v1 ? "? dents" and were used for "social gath-
the archives,. oft the.,.Austrian=Justice.
Ministry. and'. the Foreign, Ministry.
Austria. was part' of Nazi..Germany
from the Anschluss, or union, of 1938, to
the end?of World' War,II'.
among Germanmilitary records and in,
Mr. Waldheim is running for the
presidency of Austria. The election is-
scheduled for May 5, and Mr. Wald-
heim, in recent polls, has had a slight'
edge over his Socialist opponent, Kurt
Steyrer. . .
Waldll@im, attributed to A. wartime cur. w a,wicim sauu ne oecaine aware
document, were ay after the war that he had been enrolled
in,"Profil, a news magazine.lished here Other roddoc- in. the SA, but that he had not consid-
ments, about his military service, were, i-ered himself, at the time, a member of
made available to-The Times by the:' union. The: t groups, he Nazi student
had
..World Jewish Congress and were cor. The, wo . b
- -a-
y or
awarded a high military decoration of He said his basic motive for taking
the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, the part in the gatherings was to shield
Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir. himself and his family from political
The Croatian state was known for harassment, a common enough motive
persecuting Jews, Serbs and gypsies at the time.
through deportations, forced labor and . Indeed, Mr. Waldheim's personnel
mass murders. A former. Cabinet .. file in the Austrian Justice Ministry
Autobiography Skips Period . minister of that state, Andri ja Artukov-1 quotes a character reference written in
ic, was recently extradited by the 1940 by a gauleiter, a Nazi party authorized biographies and in a re- United States to Yugoslavia to stand cial, revealing lingering distrust. The
cent autobiography, Mr. Waldheim trial on war crimes charges. official described Mr. Waldheim's fa-
ther, Walter, a schoolteacher until the
does not discuss his activities during Little Known of His Activities
the years involved, 1942 and 1943. Nazis stripped him of his job, as a fol-
Mr. Waldheim, who headed the ite the cal commentators d that de. lower of Kurt Schuschnigg, the documentary evidence of Mr. gg. the ?An-
-
United Nations Secretariat from 1972 to trian leader who official in 1942-43, ho opposed the An
1982, acknowledged in an interview positions his braggadocio and said that the son "through
little is known of his activities, and that, his braggadocio gave proof of his an-
Sunday that he had served in the units the most serious accusation against tipathy toward our movement."
in question. But he said he had played a him may ultimately turn out to be that ; The official added that the younger
minor role and knew of no war crimes he was not forthcoming about his past. ' Mr. Waldheim had "proved himself"
or atrocities ascribed to the units. The disclosures are nevertheless through military service, eliminating:
In the interview, he said it was the ,awkward, because of his assertions doubt of his qualification for Govern-
first. time that. he had heard of mass over the years - when he was q - ment service.
tioned, particularly by Jewish groups Mr. Waldheim. in discussing joining-
deportations of Greek . Jews from Sa- -that he never had anything to do witht the student group at the Consular Acad-
inn:4. Arn.i_efliliurdi
He accused his opponents of using the
information about the war years to
damage him politically.
"The timing of it is perfect," he said.
For 40 years these things have rest-
ed."
Mr. Waldheim belittled his member-
ship in the Nazi groups,.saying that his
activities were intended to shield him.
and his family, who were known as op-
ponents of the Nazis.
Some of the allegations against Mr.
In 1981, a group of American Jews
told him that the United Nations risked
losing public support in the United
States because of a series of anti-Is=
raeli resolutions under his steward,
ship.-
The recent disclosures also raised
the question whether, at the United Na-
tions or earlier as Austrian Foreign
Minister, Mr. Waldheim. had been sus-
ceptible to pressure from the Soviet
Union or other countries if they knew of.
his past activities.
Given an opportunity to comment on
the disclosures, Mr. Waldheim denied
that he had ever been subjected to
political pressure or blackmail.
According to the records made avail-
able to The Times, Mr. Waldheim, as a-
20-year-old student at the Consular
Academy here, was enrolled April 1,
1938, in the Nazi student union, about
three weeks after the.Anschluss. The
following Nov. 18, he was enrolled in a'
mounted unit of the Sturmabteilung, or'
SA; the paramilitary Nazi organization,
known as the Brownshirts. He re-
mained a member until he entered.
military service on Aug. 15, 1939:
emy, said in the interview:
"I did not the want to refuse because
I thought .that is harmless, it is not
political involvement. Naturally, it was
important for me. If I ever had the idea
of finishing my studies, I had to have.
some protection.
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100130027-0
"I never received a membership
card. I was never informed that I had
become a member. The most that can
be concluded from this is: that some.
where in a file I was'listed as a candi-
date, but even that I do not know."
In 1946, when Mr. Waldheim was ap-
pointed private secretary to the then
Austrian Foreign Minister, Karl
Gruber, a Socialist, an anonymous de-
nunciation led to an investigation of his
political past. Though the inquiry ab-
solved him of any Nazi links, the enroll-
ment records were evidently never
deleted from his personal file.
Why had he; never discussed this
when accused of Nazi ties? Mr. Wald-
heim said he had not been a member.
"And even If it were true, well, so
what," he said. "It would still not be a
sign of Nazi thinking or that I was a
proponent of theirs. You should not ex-
aggerate. The student union was noth-
ing, a totally harmless, fully uninter-
esting organization, in which most of
those went who wanted to study, to
somehow be left in peace. .
Service With IAbr Acknowledged
He was equally insistent in defending
his record as a soldier. The potential
embarrassment arises from his serv-
ice on the staff of Gen. Alexander Lohr,
an Austrian who was executed as a war
criminal in Belgrade in 1947.
In the interview, Mr. Waldheim ac-
knowledged that he served on General
Lohr's staff in 1942 and 1943, at a time
of military operations against Yugo-
slav partisans and mass deportations
of Greek Jews.
Mr. Waldheim had not previously
disclosed information about this peri-
od. In his recent recent autobiography,
"In the Eye of the Storm," he suggests
that his military career ended in
December 1941, when he was wounded
in the leg on the eastern front near the
Russian town of Orel, and that after his
recovery in 1942, he was permitted to
resume his law studies.
But German military record's in
West Berlin show that Mr. Waldheim
was assigned to German Army Com-
mand 12, based in Salonika, Greece, on
March 14, 1942, and was sent to Bel-
grade where he apparently served as
an Italian-German interpreter in Yugo-
slavia and Albania in 1942 and 1943.
Calls Croatian Award Routine
General Lohr's command, including
German, Italian, Croatian and Bulgar-
ian forces, was then engaged in cam-
paigns against Tito's partisans in
which villages thought to be harboring
guerrillas were wiped out.
In July 1942, Mr. Waldheim was
awarded Croatia's Zvonimir medal, in
silver and with oak leaves, indicating
that it was earned "under enemy fire.'
Moreover, a photograph that was dis-
covered last year by an amateur histo-
rian in Innsbruck and is now in the pos-
session of The Times shows Mr. Wald-
heim with Italian and German officers,
including Gen. Artur Phleps, the com-
mander of the 7th SS Volunteer Divi-
sion "Prinz Eugen," on May 22,1943, at
an airstrip in the Montenegrin town of
Podgorica, now Titograd.
According to records of the Yugoslav
War Crimes Commission, General
Phleps's division, composed of Cro-
atian and other Slavic volunteers, was
guilty of some of the most brutal
crimes against civilians.
Mr. WaWheim called it "absolutely
absurd" that he was in any way in-
volved in atrocities. He described his
role as that of an interpreter in discus-
sions between Italian and German
commanders.
Mr. Waldheim acknowledged ha
received the Zvonimir medal, but said
it was given to virtually all staff mem-
bers "as a matter of routine."
"Someone with bad intentions might
conclude, because partisans were
there, Waldheim must have committed
war crimes," he said. "That is pure
nonsense.
"I committed no crime in the whole
time. I sat there and the German com-
mand gave orders to the Italian units
and the Italians gave messages back,
and they needed an interpreter. I was
not chief of the liaison staff. There was
a whole group of interpreters."
Airstrip Meeting Confirmed
Mr. Waldheim said the 1943 meeting
-in Podgorica was the only time he ever
met the SS general or was in that town.
The potentially most embarrassing
disclosures concern Mr. Waldheim's
presence in Salonika in the spring of
1943, after the Yugoslav campaign.
According to Raul Hilberg, the
American historian and author of the
book, "The Destruction of the Euro-
pean Jews," the deportation of 42,830
Jews from Salonika to death camps at
Auschwitz, Treblinka and Lublin was
carried out by German forces under
the command of General Lahr, Mr.
Waldheim's commanding officer, be-
tween March and May 1943, part of
which time Mr. Waldheim was in Sa-
lonika.
Gerald Reitlinger, a historian of the
Holocaust and author of the book, "The
Final Solution," said General Lohr was
"perhaps more implicated in Jewish
deportations than any other Wehr-
macht commander."
Witnesses described how dozens of
German Army trains left Salonika day
after day bearing the Jews to their
death in extermination camps.
Analyzed Troop Movements
Mr. Waldheim acknowledged that he
had been serving on General Lohr's
staff in Salonika, but he said his ac-
tivity consisted in analyzing reports on
enemy- troop movements. He denied
knowing anything of the deportations.
Mr. Waldheim, visibly shaken, said,
"I regret these things most deeply, but
I have to repeat that it is really the first
time that I hear that such things hap-
pened. I never heard or learned any-
thing of this while I was there. I hear
for the first time that there were depor-
tations of Jews from there."
Although Mr. Waldheim writes in his
autobiography that he studied law in
Vienna during this period - "it was
impossible to leave Austria," he
writes, 'the borders had been closed"
- he in fact continued his military
service under General Lohr in the Bal-
kans until the end of the war.
A front-page photograph in the Ger-
man Army newspaper of the Balkans,
Wacht Im Siidosten, dated Dec: '3, 1944,
which Mr. Waldheim recognizes as
genuine, shows General Lohr peering
at maps surrounded by several offi-
cers, including Mr. Waldheim.
Why had he neglected to allude in the
past to this period of his military serv-
ice? he was asked. In response, he
quoted from the foreward to his autobi-
ography: "This is not a book of mem-
oirs in the ordinary sense, nor is it a
comprehensive account of events dur-
ing my term of office as Secretary Gen-
eral of the United Nations."
Not Worthy of Comment
He said he never considered his later
wartime experiences as worthy of com-
ment.
"I never said that my book made
claim to completeness," he said.
"Otherwise it would have. been so bor-
ing that no one would have read it."
The version of Mr. Waldheim's war
record that he conveys in his autobiog-
raphy was also communicated by him
to Representative Stephen J.. Solarz, a
Brooklyn Democrat, in November 1980,
when the legislator wrote to him about
his war record, based on allegations in
the New Republic.
Mr. Waldheim responded, "First of
all, I wish to say that I was never as-
sociated in any way with the Nazi youth
movement." Referring to his service
with an Austrian division on the east-
ern front in 1941, Mr. Waldheim told
Mr. Solarz that he had served with a
reconnaissance unit.
"It certainly had no contact or con-
nection with extermination units. I my-
self was wounded on the eastern front
and, being incapacitated for further
service at the front, resumed my law
studies at Vienna University, where I
graduated in 1944.",
Information Supplied by C.P.A.
Mr. Solarz also asked the Central In%
telli once Agency for information and
was informed: "We believe that Wald-
eim was not a member of the Na i
out movement nor was he involved
anti-Jewish activities."
The C.I.A. said it had learned from
German records that Mr. Waldheim
had been drafted in 1939 to serve with
the 45th Infantry Division as a staff in-
telligence o icer with the rank of lieu-
tenant. he division, actor in to the
C.I.A. information, saw action in Po-
land and France and in the German in-
vasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
nothing "There is sug-
gest that while in this unit, Waldheim
p icl ated direct or indirectly in
anti-Jewish activities " the C.I.A. id.
T e letter in Fre