Austrian Presidential candidate Kurt Waldheim was the signator of a secret war-time intelligence report on partisan activity in Greece which was later used by United States prosecutors at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the World Jewish Congress disclosed Monday.
The document, located at the National Archives in Washington, is one of a series of 11 captured reports issued at the headquarters of the high command of Heeresgruppe E, the command in which Waldheim served as a senior intelligence officer with the rank of Ober-Leutnant, or First Lieutenant.
The Waldheim document, dated August 22, 1944 and stamped “secret,” is the report of the intelligence section of the high command of Army Group E. It states: “Several communists were shot during a raid in Athens.” It also reports on “band activity” — the German’s expression for partisan operations — south of Iraklion, on the Island of Crete.
The WJC asserted in releasing the document, part of Nuremberg document NOKW-935, that it provides “extraordinary …. corroboration” of conclusions reached last month by WJC researchers and in 1947 by the Yugoslav war crimes commission in a decision declaring Waldheim to be a “fugitive Nazi war criminal.”
Waldheim has denied that he participated in activities against Yugoslav partisans and said he had no knowledge of the deportation of thousands of Jews from Salonika as alleged by the WJC. The Yugoslav state commission said in 1947 that Waldheim “drafted proposals for orders relating to reprisal measures” carried out later in 1944 in Yugoslavia as the Germans retreated. Last week, the United Nations gave Israel and Austria a copy of the Waldheim file from the UN archives of the War Crimes Commission. No details of the file were released because access was granted under terms of strictest confidentiality. Israel’s UN Ambassador, Binyamin Netanyahu, said after reviewing the file that there appears to be a need for further investigation of Waldheim’s alleged war-time activities.
Waldheim is reported to have received a copy of the UN war crimes file on him by Austrian President Rudolph Kirchschlaeger. A spokesperson for Waldheim said over the weekend that Waldheim was in the process of drafting a detailed response to the UN file and that his comments would soon be given to Kirchschlaeger.
Meanwhile, the president of the Jewish community in the Greek Island of Rhodes, Maurice Soriano, said in an interview on Israel Radio that he has positively identified Waldheim as one of three German officers who confiscated money, gold and jewelry from the Island’s Jewish community during World War II. Waldheim has denied ever being in Rhodes.
In a related development, Martin Mendelsohn, legal counsel of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, arrived Sunday in Yugoslavia to review Belgrade’s files on Waldheim. The government in Belgrade has been reluctant to provide access to the Waldheim documents, but Mendelsohn said he had been “assured” that he will be able to view the documents.
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