It was a glance by a mildly curious archivist in Washington at the widely available Allied list of wanted Nazi war criminals ten days ago which overnight transformed the World Jewish Congress's opportunistic campaign against Dr Kurt Waldheim into a set of serious allegations that now embraces senior government officials in Washington, Belgrade and Athens. Unmistakably, the former UN secretary general had, rightly or wrongly, been listed in 1948 as wanted for murders committed during the Second World War.
News of the archivist's discovery prompted Yugoslav officials to unearth a thick, long forgotten file which makes allegations of 'murder and slaughter'. Hitherto, the 67-year-old Austrian had suffered only malicious lampooning as a would-be emperor, 'looking and behaving like a head waiter - the only man who could bend over backwards and forwards at the same time'.
For three weeks Waldheim had successfully protected his meticulously cultivated image as a servant of peace against charges of taking part in the Nazi deportation of 42,830 Greek Jews from Salonika to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Paralysed by his stubborn protestations of innocence that as a former Wehrmacht lieutenant he was 'not even aware' of the event, the World Jewish Congress in New York despaired. Then, abruptly, it was given an opportunity toswitch tactics.
Last week, Professor Robert Herzstein, an historian appointed by the WJC, discovered in the Washington archives the voluminous divisional history of the Wehrmacht's 714th Infantry Division. An entry written in late 1942 describes 'Operation Kozara', an anti-partisan sweep that summer across the mountainous Yugoslav countryside as a 'liquidation operation' against 'Untermenschen' (sub-humans), many of whom agonizingly impaled themselves on barbed wire rather than be captured alive. Waldheim's name was on the divisional flow chart of responsibilities for that operation as an intelligence lieutenant in '03', a branch of the overall intelligence division, I c/AO, '03' was assigned 'special tasks'. On the surface it seems that Waldheim, although only a lieutenant, was chief of an interrogation branch.
The crux of the new allegations is that between July 1942 and Christmas 1944 Waldheim was a 'senior' Wehrmacht intelligence officer in Army Group E, a 300,000-strong force under General Alexander Lohr whose headquarters in Salonika directed routine search-and-destroy operations. Waldheim allegedly played a part in the merciless massacre of thousands of Yugoslav partisans and their families. Twice daily he is supposed to have complied 'activity reports' for the chiefs of the general staff, based on raw intelligence data from interrogations of captured partisans. More incriminatingly, during operations, Waldheim was apparently present at the inquisitions. In 1947, General Lohr was executed by the Yugoslav government for crimes committed during those operations.
Until four weeks ago Waldheim had deliberately concealed his wartime activities. In his autobiography, published last year, he told how, after being wounded in Russia in December 1941, he was demobilized and completed his legal studies. Implicitly, he suggested non-involvement in the Nazi horrors. Asked on American television recently to explain the omission, he insisted that a full account of his life would have been 'too boring'. The true reason may well have been different.
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News of the archivist's discovery prompted Yugoslav officials to unearth a thick, long forgotten file which makes allegations of 'murder and slaughter'. Hitherto, the 67-year-old Austrian had suffered only malicious lampooning as a would-be emperor, 'looking and behaving like a head waiter - the only man who could bend over backwards and forwards at the same time'.
For three weeks Waldheim had successfully protected his meticulously cultivated image as a servant of peace against charges of taking part in the Nazi deportation of 42,830 Greek Jews from Salonika to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Paralysed by his stubborn protestations of innocence that as a former Wehrmacht lieutenant he was 'not even aware' of the event, the World Jewish Congress in New York despaired. Then, abruptly, it was given an opportunity toswitch tactics.
Last week, Professor Robert Herzstein, an historian appointed by the WJC, discovered in the Washington archives the voluminous divisional history of the Wehrmacht's 714th Infantry Division. An entry written in late 1942 describes 'Operation Kozara', an anti-partisan sweep that summer across the mountainous Yugoslav countryside as a 'liquidation operation' against 'Untermenschen' (sub-humans), many of whom agonizingly impaled themselves on barbed wire rather than be captured alive. Waldheim's name was on the divisional flow chart of responsibilities for that operation as an intelligence lieutenant in '03', a branch of the overall intelligence division, I c/AO, '03' was assigned 'special tasks'. On the surface it seems that Waldheim, although only a lieutenant, was chief of an interrogation branch.
The crux of the new allegations is that between July 1942 and Christmas 1944 Waldheim was a 'senior' Wehrmacht intelligence officer in Army Group E, a 300,000-strong force under General Alexander Lohr whose headquarters in Salonika directed routine search-and-destroy operations. Waldheim allegedly played a part in the merciless massacre of thousands of Yugoslav partisans and their families. Twice daily he is supposed to have complied 'activity reports' for the chiefs of the general staff, based on raw intelligence data from interrogations of captured partisans. More incriminatingly, during operations, Waldheim was apparently present at the inquisitions. In 1947, General Lohr was executed by the Yugoslav government for crimes committed during those operations.
Until four weeks ago Waldheim had deliberately concealed his wartime activities. In his autobiography, published last year, he told how, after being wounded in Russia in December 1941, he was demobilized and completed his legal studies. Implicitly, he suggested non-involvement in the Nazi horrors. Asked on American television recently to explain the omission, he insisted that a full account of his life would have been 'too boring'. The true reason may well have been different.
---------------
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