The Hated and the Dead

EP36: Kurt Waldheim

June 26, 2022 Tom Leeman Season 3
The Hated and the Dead
EP36: Kurt Waldheim
Show Notes Transcript

Kurt Waldheim served as President of Austria from 1986 until 1992. During the presidential campaign of 1986, revelations about Waldheim's service for the Nazis in Greece and Yugoslavia came to light, with Waldheim eventually admitting he had previously downplayed his actions in the Second World War. The Waldheim Affair triggered a period of collective reflection in Austria on the country's past, and demonstrated the differences between how Germany and Austria remembered the crimes of the Nazis. 

My guest for this conversation is Ruth Wodak, Emeritus Distinguished Professor in Discourse studies at Lancaster University and Professor in Linguistics at the University of Vienna. 


Unknown:

Hello and welcome to the hated in the dead with Tom Leeman. After another bizarre week in American politics, I would encourage you all to check out my last podcast on John F. Kennedy. This week though, we returned to Europe by looking at Austria. In 1986, Austria was due to have a presidential election. In that election, an unassuming bureaucrat called Kurt Waldheim was a front runner for the presidency. He had an impressive CV, having served as foreign minister in the 1960s and Secretary General of the UN in the 1970s. However, over the course of the campaign, it was found out that Valentime, who was 27, at the end of the Second World War, had lied about the extent of his service in the format whilst fighting for the Nazi regime, and had worked as an intelligence officer in Yugoslavia and Greece, to countries whose Jews suffered terribly in the Holocaust. Despite this, Austria elected Waldheim as their president, with his election triggering a period of reflection about Nazism, hitherto unseen in Austria. Well times own journey from denial to downplaying to grudging apology about his actions in the Second World War, would soon be practised all across the country. The whole episode demonstrated the differences between how Germany and Austria remembered the crimes of the Nazis, with the Austrians, often claiming the status of first victim to German aggression. The vowel time affair and its Fallout still split opinion in Austria, and listening to my guests reflections on that period. I was reminded of the weeks after the murder of George Floyd two years ago, with Americans and other peoples looking collectively at their nation's histories with polarising results. That guest is Ruth vo duck, who is an emeritus distinguished professor in Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, and professor in linguistics at the University of Vienna. Ruth has written many academic papers and a book in German about vowel time, and her knowledge about the vowel time affair shows. When I was contacting Austrian academics about this episode, they all declined in the belief they couldn't do it justice. Every single one of them recommended Ruth instead. And it was great listening to the definitive authority on this very important moment in Austrian history. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to introduce Kurt Valentine. Hi, Ruth, how are you? Fine. Thank you, Ruth. We're talking about Kurt Val time today. Waldheim was the president of Austria from 1986 until 1992. His career is quite interesting because he became controversial not for something he did when he was president, but because of revelations about his earlier life, about his actions during the Second World War. These allegations became known in 1985 when Val Time was running for President, before we talk about the allegations, specifically, can you describe in rough terms what Val times public image was in Austria, before he ran for president before these allegations? Well, he was UN General Secretary, which is a very high position, obviously. And before that, he was Minister for Foreign Affairs and had a very straightforward career as a high profile diplomat. In that way. He was well known he was obviously he obviously belong to the Conservative Party. And he there was some controversy 1968, which I don't know if that's well known. But when the Soviets entered the Czech Czechoslovakia in August 1968, to end the sort of soft transformation which was taking place, many Czech people had to flee and were very frightened, of course, and wanted to flee to Austria. And walltime was foreign minister at that time and actually forbid, the ambassador who was located in Prague to open the gates for these refugees and the Then ambassador in Prague, Czech schlager, who became Minister of Foreign Affairs later on. And President also later on, did not obey, which is quite exciting, so to speak, because this is something which happens very rarely, and did give asylum and lead people into the embassy and they were then supported to leave the country. At that point, I think almost 80,000 Czech people left Czechoslovakia and came to Austria. So that was an interesting debate at that time, you know, do you help refugees, Austria is a neutral country since 1955. That was one of the conditions for the Soviets to leave Austria, which was occupied 1945 to 1955. By the allied forces. And it didn't, didn't take well, from all time. It's I mean, the public response was much more on the side of the refugees and on the side of the Czech nation, which tried to resist the Soviet invasion, but that was not possible. If I can come in, you said, obviously, he was a member of the Conservative Party, other than the story that you've just told about the Czech refugees. Why, why obviously, was there something particularly indicative about his personality, the way that he spoke was, I'm just interested why you chose that word. Well, his his biography shows that he comes from a Christian social background, the now so called People's Party was called Christian Social party. Before 45, or before 38. He, his father was not a Nazi, his father was actually anti National Socialist, but they were a part of the Austrian fascist regime, which took place from 1934 to 1938. And in that way, from the family history, and from his biography, it was clear that he did endorse such conservative values. very stout Catholic, and he was part of the various students membership, student, fraternities, etc, which were on the conservative side, Catholic conservative side. I think that's set up quite well, an image of a person who is probably right of centre on political issues, and basically a kind of career bureaucrat, perhaps quite an impressive politician, but probably, in many ways, quite quite a dull one seemingly in 1985. But accomplished, as I said, at the start, Waldheim was contesting the presidential election, due to be held in 1986. And in 1985, various revelations about him came out that perhaps punctured, that image that he had, can you summarise what was alleged about fall time in 1985. And by whom? Well, basically, historian started researching, sort of in the in the 1980s, because walltime published a book about his life and autobiography. And in this book, he described what he did in during World War Two, which was that he was like all other young men, Austrian German young men, he had to join the Wehrmacht the German van after the German army, and he was wounded. That's what he claimed in his autobiography. He was wounded in early 1940s. I think 1941 at the Eastern Front, he had to return to Vienna. And then he claims that he actually stayed in Vietnam finished his studies, his PhD and never left in that way didn't participate in the war and anymore. Now, that was a lie. And that was very quickly discovered and detected, that that was not true that walltime had been wounded. That was true that he went back to Vienna that he was then recovering there. And but then he joined the Wehrmacht again, and he participated in the war on the Balkans. Ferocious, very violent, terrible war in both Montenegro and Serbia, and then also in Greece. And various pictures were found of walltime, specially also with other officers from the SS. But also one very famous picture with general law, who was the the general in Greece, and responsible for the deportations of Greek Jews to Auschwitz, and especially from Salonika to Salonika. And what became known later on was that walltime had acted or had been a translator of law, in Salonika. And walltime claimed that he didn't have known what had happened there. Now, of course, that raised a huge debate and scandal, because if you translate something, you obviously have to understand what you translate. The deportation of Jews didn't take place far away from where his office was. And he then had to concede that we're already looking forward a bit kind of week for week that he had not said everything or that he had not said the truth and make concessions. So it was a step by step, always conceding again, because new evidence was brought up, new pictures came out. And he had also claimed that he was never part of the NSDAP. And also not of any of the sub organisations. That turned out to be not true. He was also part of a student Nazi organisation. So bit by bit, yeah. During the election campaign, specifically, which started on March 3 1986, evidence was provided that he had falsified his past denied certain actions. And there were then big claims that he had actually possibly participated in the mass murder and extermination. So if I can just come in there, then So you mentioned that, obviously, this was a kind of piecemeal process of revelations, it didn't all come out at once. But when the initial photos came out, for instance, photos of him in in uniform with some quite senior Nazi officials came out. What was the initial public reaction to that? So what did was this something that was that was treated as a great surprise, because obviously, you alluded to this, most males of a certain generation in Austria had fought for the Nazis in some form or another. So this, this must have been good, not considered quite as shocking as perhaps as perhaps people might think. Well, the fact that he was part of the Wehrmacht was shocking. Because every every young man who could fight was sought to be able to fight had to be part of the rep max. Yeah, so there were no conscientious objectors, or you couldn't just say no, you don't want to join the Batman. It was really once AS VAL Tang frequently said once ut what was shocking was the lying about it, and actually the scandal and started on I remember that very well. I think it was March 3 or fourth, the weekly magazine Puffin, published an article by A bout to turn in a very well known journalist about wall times time in the family. And they had a photo of his so called Vashta. Carter, which showed that he had been part of the family much longer than he had written about in his autobiography. So basically, the scandal was not about first was not about was he part of the webmaster, wasn't he part of the master scandal was about he had lied about it. He had lied about his past, he had provided a totally different narrative in in this autobiography, and in that way, he had presented himself as somebody very different as a candidate for a presidential election, then he actually was, and it raised a lot of questions. As you can imagine, one of the questions was, why didn't one know that before? Or somebody who's elected general secretary of the United Nations is probably gone through every secret service who is available and who looks at these candidates. So didn't the cargo bay the CIA Mossad, you name it know, about this past? Why was he accepted? As impossible? How do you how do you explain that, because it's just for people listening. He was, he was supported for this role, the Secretary General of the UN in the in 1971, by among others, Marshal Tito, who was the head of Yugoslavia, and, and, obviously, in a country where full time had been stationed during the Second World War, and as it turned out, had, you know, supported some pretty dreadful things. So how do you explain that? Well, there is no good explanation up to date. I mean, why? What is what we do know is that, or what people think they know, is that Tito didn't know about the second participation in World War Two, everybody knew about the stock front and getting wounded, but not about the second part. And while tied to him, had even received some kinds of metal and decoration from former Yugoslavia. And I'm quite convinced that if Tito who had been head of the partisans, resisting the Nazis, and who had fought against Nazism in the Second World War, if he would have known that that would have been a different kind of resonance, about the other secret services, you don't know what kind of wheeling and dealing goes on. And what wasn't happened backstage in front stage. So I don't know about that. And it's, there are well written historical books about that. But obviously, it didn't, it didn't play an official role when he was elected to be UN General Secretary. And the interesting thing is, again, that the reaction which you asked me about after the Puffin brought this article was first actually people were quite scandalised. But then something interesting happened. And we actually document that documented this day by day in a book which we wrote about the World Time affair. The New York Times picked this up very quickly. And on March five, the New York Times brought this this piece of document, about walltime, having served in the Balkans and that the Autobiography was wrong. And then the Jewish world congress sort of entered the picture and claimed that walltime was a war criminal. Now, there was no evidence for that. And there is no evidence for that, that walltime had actually taken part in any kind of mass murder, extermination, killing of partisans or similar persona that was not factual. That was alleged, but it led to a huge polarisation in Austria. A kind of discussion which in Germany have taken place 1968. Austria had this discussion in 1986. About what did you do during the Second World War? I want to come on to the sort of the kind of implications of this for the Germans and the Austrians as kind of collective people. If if we talk if we discuss the the election itself, Waldheim obviously won the general election there. So excuse me the presidential election in 1986. Was that how was that victory received? Was it was it a shock given that all of this had comment? What was the reaction was on the one side, people were very happy that he had won because it was actually fought then as a kind of chauvinistic campaign. We Austrians against the world, we Austrians against all of these people who are alleging that we, the Austrians are bad people. It was generalised to the Austrians, the nation. And the response was we Austrians are doing what we want. They were very polemical, very aggressive campaign. Interestingly, using the colour yellow, which was very provocative, if you know that yellow was the colour of the yellow star, which Jews had to wear during Nazism. And it had a lot of anti semitic latent and explicit rhetoric, sort of against the world conspiracy, which was now sort of telling Austrians that their presidential candidate was not good enough. And we don't want that to happen. And basically, it wasn't only, of course, not only the Jewish world, Congress, whose name unfortunately lends itself to such insinuations, it was the international press, it was the entire international forum, who were shocked about all this evidence, which became apparent, but the allegations that walltime was really involved himself in murder, could never be proved. And after the election campaign, and after he won commission of historians committee and was launched was very prominent international historians, who basically said, Yes, walltime had lied about his past. That's obvious. He had been involved, too, as you had said, with some terrible people. But there was no evidence for him personally, to have been involved in war crimes. But of course, he was a bystander. And he also knew about it. Yeah. And that brings up a huge debate, very Austrian and German debate, which was very important after World War Two, the scaling of knowledge, who knew what, who participated, who knew what, who just watched who did nothing against it, or who did resist very later on after his presidency, and he wants apologised and said he couldn't do anything against it some apology which many people said it has been his duty to fight in this army. Now this fleet of for long as we the German term for this became a very important flag word. There was a lot of debate about finished a film about fulfilling one's duty because other people, anti fascists, anti Nazis said how can you fulfil your duty in a murderous army? Yeah, there is no way you have to fulfil your duties there. You cannot fulfil your duty. I mean, it's a bit of a half apology really, isn't it? That it was a duty. I do want to ask though. I mean, I don't I'm not on board with the idea of it being his duty at all. But there is a At least in the West, it's almost become a cliche now to talk about Nazi soldiers just following audit, it's a very often heard thing. And it doesn't sound great on the ears at first inspection, just following orders. But I think at a deeper level, if you were forced to work and and take part in an army as totalitarian and as authoritarian as the Nazi one, there have been endless psychological reports to have shown that most people would not have spoken out against this. The reality is, the vast majority of citizens in Germany and Austria did not speak out against the regime. If Waldheim had said, rather than it was my duty to do this, but simply, I am sorry that this happened. But I didn't do anything because I was too scared for the consequences for me and my family. Do you think that people would have been more sympathetic to him? In sort of wider, wider? Well, yeah, certainly. This, I mean, this is a very kind of justification legitimation discourse, which we documented and which is a very indicative of this Austrian dealing with the past sort of denial, sort of first, you say you didn't do it, when you then have to admit that there's some proof of evidence or something, then you actually couldn't do anything else you had to do it. And apologies were quite rare. And reflection was at first very rare. This is what I meant was comparing 1968 with 86. In Austria, sort of the the point, the tipping point, the student movement and the larger movement in Germany, were the post war generation as their parents, what have you done during the war? Explain why did this happen? And there were big, big conflicts and rifts going through families, etc. This didn't happen 68 In Austria, we did have student movement, but that was about universities, really about more liberal universities and other social movements, but it wasn't about the past. But 86 That was about the past. And finally, the question was asked of parents, grandparents, you know, what happened? Why did you watch Why didn't you help? Why was that possible? And it might be important to know that the anti semitic riots in Austria 1938, after the so called Angelo's, were much more brutal than they ever were in Germany. And also the, the area negation of Jewish possessions, forcing Jews to watch the streets, all of that was much more brutal than in Germany, actually, we know of correspondents and of lectures and males were the German command was asked to stop it in Austria, because it was so bad. So there was times where, of course you were in the army and you were forced to do certain things, and very few people had the courage and we're brave enough, but actually confronted deaths immediately if they spoke out, but there were many other activities, you know, denunciations or in isation, robbing, deportation, etc, where there were lots of possibilities to help to speak out to resist. And we know that resistance in Austria was much smaller than in Germany. And basically the resistance in Austria came from the communists and the Trotskyists, who then mostly fled to other countries also to the UK, or who fought in the allied forces and from some Catholic religious groups. So there were quite a few priests who resisted, but not from the Upper sort of the upper stages or the upper grades of the Catholic Church who supported the Nazis? There are kind of two elements of this. And I think I think this story tells you a lot about how the two different countries are the two different people remembered the war and how they sort of, I suppose exercised the memory of the war in lots of ways. There's the kind of bottom up level of the of the people doing that. But there's also the countries can you just go into how the germ how the German state approached the issue of Nazism, after 1945 versus how the Austrian state did so? Well, the German state couldn't obviously, deny guilt. So they had to confront guilt. People were ordered, and driven to look at the concentration camps, they were forced to confront this the most horrible pictures, documents, etc. And slowly, there were trials against war criminals, which specifically took up when there was one very famous judge, Fritz Bauer, who had been in exile and who was Jewish, but came back wasn't liked at all. Because everybody who came back was actually reminding the people what they have done and confronting them with it. And Fritz Bauer organised the outfits process, and therefore the first time participation, not just of individuals, but of the whole system was brought to court, that was a very big issue. And basically, there were a lot of crimes were criminals who were taken to court and also the Germany, the German state, paid reparations to Jewish and other victims. Obviously, there were homosexuals, there were people who, political prisoners, etc. And in that way there, they couldn't deny guilt. Although, of course, there there are very many documents showing that there were attempts to deny some stuff, people denied their participation took on other names and so forth. So there's a lot of research on that. Now, Austria has a totally different story. In in the so called Masco, declaration 1943, signed by the British by Churchill, Sterling. And Roosevelt, it was declared that Austria was the first victim of Nazism. So in that way, they occupied this victim status. There's a second paragraph which then says, but they have to take responsibility for what they did say in war crimes, etc. But that second paragraph is very rarely cited. So what every school child learned was this signing of the Moscow declaration, Austria is victim not guilty. Austrian Austria didn't exist, it was annexed, occupied. So as Austria didn't exist, Austria couldn't have done anything. And this victim, statues became the big myth. So 1945 Finally, Austria was liberated by the allied forces. And like it in their really interesting speeches, which we have analysed in various papers, like an innocent baby. It's it started to grow again and everything what has happened before was a nightmare and no Austrian was responsible. Now, that changed totally was the walltime affair. And in that way, the walltime affair was really cathartic. Really a very big social intervention, which, which really shook up and shock the entire society. I remember at that time I was a professor already. And students came to me and showed me the bathtub cut off their fathers said, but you know, my father wasn't guilty. It was it went through every family. And there were huge debates, demonstrations, big, big demonstrations against fascism against anti semitism. On the other side, there were also the far right, which was violent already at that time. So it was really a process, which then led to schoolbooks being newly written a lot of research being done finally, and in 1990, finally, an apology from the then Prime Minister from the Social Democratic Party who said, Well, I'll stress maybe half this victim status. But Austrians were also responsible. And he apologised, basically in Parliament to Austria and the world. And he also did the same thing in Israel, and in the Knesset, and in that way, this turned around the entire perception. So maybe Austria state didn't exist, but the Austrian says people were responsible. And there was a second big intervention, if I might just mentioned that, in the 1990s, the so called Wehrmacht exhibition, which was launched by a, a big entrepreneur from Hamburg. Yeah, but also historian. And for the first time, the terrible war crimes of BAM must soldiers for documented in an exhibition because up to that date, nobody could deny the Holocaust. Yeah, nobody could deny the protections and all the terrible events which have taken place, but they were ascribed to the SS Hitler and DSS. So these were the bad guys and the other guys were forced to fight. We have already talked about this, the duty here, following the orders, but suddenly, the war crimes of soldiers were shown, which they didn't have to do. Yeah, lynching people, civilians, specially on the Eastern Front, the mass murder of Jews, murdering Jews, by br 10 1000s of Jews shot. So suddenly, it was clear, the common soldier had taken part, the common soldier had made it possible that the trains ran, the common soldier had collected the people and put them in the trades. So suddenly, this was obvious. And this exhibition was huge posters. I remember I was shocked in this exhibition, you know, posters, two metres by two metres were hanging in big holes. That was horrible pictures. People could not deny anymore. And that that was again, a process which went through the entire society in which shook up, you know, again, a myth. The Wehrmacht was innocent. The SS was guilty. Well, that didn't work anymore. Obviously, Waldheim was till president when all of this was going on, or when most of it was going on. But he must have seemed he must, that must have resident for one or six years. Sure, sure. But this must this kind of collective exercising or exorcism of the past must have rendered him a very peculiar figure. You know, it's worth pointing out that he was basically an international pariah the Americans and understandably the Israelis basically refused to meet him. Did he almost become a complete spent force a complete lame duck as president straight away? Yes, because it wasn't just the American And who actually then also put him on the watch list, which was a very controversial move. But basically, he wasn't invited anywhere. I think he did one state visit. I can't even remember where many jokes about that, as you can imagine. He was really a total pariah. And it wasn't, as I said, just the Israelis, Americans, the Dutch the skin, all Scandinavians, everywhere. He wasn't welcome. So, for Neitzke, who was chancellor at that time, actually had to take up this role, and travel and do state visits or welcome, foreign leaders, etc, in Austria, because they didn't want to meet walltime, which is also, the reason why he didn't stand for a second election in Australia can stand for two elections. So after this election, he stood back and resigned. And as I said, he had this very well as you also said, lame apology, of having fulfilled his duty, and basically then kept to himself afterwards. But if we bring this up to date, we're now almost as far away from the vowel time of fair as the vowel time of fair was from the Second World War. This is quite a long time ago now. So it's a couple of generations of Australians have grown up with this, this sort of new way of thinking about Australia's role. How well do you think that new way of thinking has been adopted? How completely Do you think it's been adult? Do you think this is essentially something that has permeated society? Because often with these kinds of, you know, social revolutions almost, they're basically adopted by the kind of intellectual classes, by by A, by A kind of small strata of society, but the rest of the rest of society just sort of carries on? How do you think Austria has done in terms of this, I keep coming back to the way this kind of exorcism of its of its moral character? Well, I think it's quite ambivalent. And there are some indicators, which show that a lot has been taken on board. And not only from the elites and not intellectuals, and not only from the left, and Anti Fascist. So in the sense that their schoolbooks that their lectures in schools from survivors, which lots of events which are very, very important when kids, meet survivors and hear life stories, and there, there's a lot of programmes on television, radio, also on many not just state television, so very many films, important films, famous actress, etc. So there's a lot going on, and also bottom up, sort of in districts in areas where there are plackets put up for people who were murdered or deported. We have these so called stumbling stones on the street, where, you know, it shows from this house, so and so and so was deported, I don't know to Treblinka or somewhere and where that now one knows when they died and the family or the city of Vienna establishes the stumbling stones. And when you walk there, you see that something has happened. So there's a lot going on, in popular culture bottom up, but also top down school, etc. On the other hand, Austria has a very large, far right party. And 86 is not only the date of all time, it's also the date of your Qaeda. The coup of your chi, the really quite charismatic leader of the far right party, Austrian Freedom Party did a coup in the fall of 1986. Same year and took over the Austrian Freedom Party, which up to that date have been very small 6% 7% is existing off former Nazis, and also liberals but well known former Nazis, but with Hydras sort have starred, specially then after the fall of the Iron Curtain. And when migrants started to come from the former Eastern countries, that party grew enormously xenophobic. And revisionist and hider was very famous for his revenue, revisionist utterances about the better unemployment policies which Hitler had had, and giving speeches where former SS people were present, and so forth and so on. And Hydor got in the year 1999, the general election, he got 27%. Now, that is a third almost of the population. So the Austrian Freedom Party, if you look at European parties, is one of the oldest older than the full nationality in France, as its former had been formally cold and very strong. In the West, yeah, strong as the Swiss system Norwegian and the French. And that, although Austria is a very rich country, and no big sort of social problems, like in the south, or in other countries, so as this far right still endorses sometimes quite openly fascist language. They invited Holocaust deniers like David Irving, who actually spent some time in prison in Austria, because well, of course, denial is you go to court illegal, illegal, you can get up to 10 years. So Austria remains polarised in that way. And the far right party was together in the government twice with the conservatives in the year 2000 until 2006, with Chancellor shizzle, conservative and now with courts until the in famous EBITA. affair. So in that way, we have this polarisation we have on the one hand clear reflection, research bottom up top down changes of this perception of victim status and the collective responsibility on the other side and acceptance, even as coalition partner of the far right and of some very outspoken, extreme right, people. Ruth, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed that. That's been a very interesting, enlightening conversation, I think about something which is actually not very well known about I've done a sort of, sort of informal poll of people or friends of mine, and most of them have not heard of Kurt Waldheim. And they will have now so I think it's a valuable story because it tells you a lot about how countries come to terms with with traumatic events in their past. If people want to find out more about this, about what you've written about this, and I know that you're quite a prolific writer, not only about Val time, but about right wing populism more generally. What can they what can they reach for? Well, I have written or we have published a book on the walltime affair, but it's in German and it has the title, I translate the title we are in an innocent perpetrators, which is about the ambivalence of of this Austrian mindset. But I have published a lot of papers also in English about the walltime affair and the anti semitism. And in my book, The politics of fear, the shame this normalisation of far right, populist discourse, which appeared last year. You find a lot also about Austria's past and the strange way of denial and justification. Discuss this very specific rhetoric, which one can encounter and which can certainly be encountered elsewhere, as well because many countries have such skeletons in their cupboard. I might just want to point to a recent film where people can also get the kind of overview about the symbolic part of the walltime affair. The producer Ruth Beckerman produced the film world times, Walter and there you go. It's quite a good overview because it's it's really a documentary about what happened then without the broader discussion. Thank you, Ruth. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the hated in the dead. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow it on Spotify and Apple podcasts, and for good measure, leave us a review. 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