The Waldheim controversy
Throughout this period the charge of 'too little too late' was occasionally levelled at Austria, but it made little impact. Austria was either too small - in international terms - to matter, or it was seen as an enclave of tranquillity and good order (and 'permanent neutrality' between east and west), which ought to be cultivated.
'Waldheim had concealed or "forgotten" important details of his military service in World War Two.'
Things began to change in the 1970s, but perhaps the most dramatic turning-point was at the time of the controversy over Kurt Waldheim, the former UN secretary general, who was an Austrian presidential candidate in 1986. Throughout his post-war career Waldheim had concealed or 'forgotten' important details of his military service in World War Two. As his past came to be known, through journalistic investigations and leaks, during his campaign, he spoke of having only 'done his duty' in the German Wehrmacht. It was hardly the comment of a victim of the Nazi regime, and caused a furore within Austria as well as outside it. Nevertheless Waldheim was elected president, and Austria's international standing plummeted.
Domestic reaction to the affair consisted partly of a defiant, partly patriotic, assertion of Austria's right to ignore outside opinion. Other elements almost (or actually) offered an apologia for the 'good side' of the Nazi regime; many of these people were found in the Freedom Party (FPO), along with its rising star Jörg Haider. But the Waldheim affair also prompted heart-searching and self-criticism, especially from the post-war generation. And there was by now a more self-confident Jewish community in Austria, whose members were not prepared to keep quiet, or be intimidated by actual or threatened anti-Semitism.
Published: 2003-02-28
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