Former U.N. Chief Accused of Nazi Past; He Denies It

VIENNA — The World Jewish Congress on Tuesday accused Kurt Waldheim of concealing a Nazi past, but the former U.N. secretary general denied the allegation, calling it “nonsense.”

“We don’t know if he committed a war crime, but he was in places where god-awful things happened,” Elan Steinberg, executive director of the congress, said in New York.

Waldheim, 67, said in a television interview that the charges were an attempt by opponents to hurt his chances of winning election to the largely ceremonial post of president of Austria. He is considered a front-runner in the May 4 Austrian election.

The congress said Waldheim had covered up his membership in the Austrian Nazi Student Union and the S.A., Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted security troops.

The New York-based congress, representing Jewish communities and organizations in 68 countries, alleged that Waldheim became a member of the Nazi Student Union in 1938, the year Germany absorbed Austria, and shortly thereafter joined the S.A.

Deportation of Jews

The congress said he also served on the staff of Gen. Alexander Loehr, an Austrian in Hitler’s army who is linked by historians to the deportation of thousands of Jews to death camps and atrocities against Balkan partisans during World War II.

“As I’ve said several times already, it’s not true,” Waldheim said in response to alleged S.A. and student union activities. “I was never a member of one of these organizations.”

But Waldheim did not deny serving as a first lieutenant under Loehr, who was executed by Yugoslavia in 1947 for war crimes. Waldheim insisted that he had served in rear areas as one of many interperters for Loehr’s command and had no knowledge of any atrocities.

Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, head of Vienna’s Jewish documentation center, said that to his knowledge, there was nothing to incriminate Waldheim. Evidence of a Nazi past would have led to a Soviet veto of his appointment as secretary general, he said.

‘Elaborate Deception’

However, Edgar M. Bronfman, president of the Jewish congress, said Tuesday that Waldheim had engaged in “one of the most elaborate deceptions of our time.”

Waldheim was U.N. secretary general from 1972 to 1982. His appointment would have been inconceivable “had the facts been known,” said Bronfman, according to a congress statement.

But Waldheim said his background was carefully examined during the postwar years, before his U.N. appointment, and found without fault.

Steinberg said Waldheim’s alleged deception raised questions as to whether he was susceptible to blackmail or political pressure when he was U.N. secretary general.

“If he lied about his past, what else did he lie about and did any government know of his Nazi past? If a government did, then the question is was Waldheim compromised and susceptible to blackmail?” Steinberg added.