Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007)

Austrian diplomat and politician Kurt Waldheim was born in a village outside Vienna on December 21, 1918. He was studying law in Vienna when the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938 and he served as a lieutenant in the German army. He claimed that he was drafted into the army and sat out most of the war show more because of shrapnel wounds he suffered in 1941. After the war, he was accepted into diplomatic service and eventually served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 - 1981. He was the visiting professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington for two years before deciding to run for President of Austria in 1985. During the campaign, the truth about his service in the German army came to light. After recovering from the shrapnel wounds, he became an intelligence officer for General Alexander Löhr, who presented Waldheim with a War Merit Cross, First Class, with Swords. Löhr led numerous brutal campaigns against Yugoslav partisans and dispatched about 40,000 Greek Jews to Auschwitz. While Waldheim did not challenge the facts, he said he did what he had to do in order to protect his family and his future. He won the presidency with 54% of the vote, but was shunned by many foreign countries. He was the President of Austria from 1986 - 1992. He died of heart failure on June 14, 2007. (Bowker Author Biography) show less