The authenticity of a document allegedly proving that Austrian President Kurt Waldheim deported more than 4,000 Yugoslavians form the Balkans during World War II was hotly disputed after its contents were reported on Austrian television Saturday night.
The document, in possession of the West German news weekly Der Spiegel, is an “urgent telegram” from a Col. Dragojlov to the command of the First Unit in the Bosnian town of Kozara in 1942. It states that Lt. Waldheim demands that 4,244 prisoners be sent on their way. Many of those deported, including children and elderly people, died in concentration camps.
Waldheim’s spokesman, Gerold Christian, told the Austrian news agency APA that the document is obviously a forgery. According to Christian Waldheim, who served in the Balkans as a Wehrmacht intelligence officer, never had the power of command and could not have ordered the deportation prisoners.
Christian said that the document had been offered to several foreign correspondents accredited to Vienna for a five-figure sum in U.S. dollars. Der Spegel obtained it from the head of the Yugoslav military archives, Dusan Plenca.
An international panel of military historians is expected to render a report next month on their examination of Waldheim’s military activities during World War II.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
