A prominent Austrian historian who gave Kurt Waldheim his first job in the diplomatic corps after World War II is the latest emissary of the Austrian government to come here in the past few days to tell the Dutch people that the President of Austria was not a Nazi.
Fritz Molden, 63, invited to address The Netherlands-Austrian Society on the history of the Austrian people, insisted that he never found any evidence implicating Waldheim in atrocities against resistance fighters, Jews and other civilians when he was an intelligence officer in the German army in the Balkans during the war.
Molden’s own credentials are impeccable, Arrested by the Gestapo several times, he escaped in 1944 and served as liaison between the Austrian anti-Nazi resistance and the Allies. In 1945, employed by the Allied-controlled Austrian Foreign Office, he processed Waldheim’s application for a position.
Molden told the Dutch audience that he checked Waldheim’s wartime record three times and found nothing against him.
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