Documents Link Waldheim to Nazi Reprisals

The World Jewish Congress on Wednesday produced documents indicating that Kurt Waldheim told his Nazi superiors about partisan activity in an area of Yugoslavia 48 hours before three villages there were burned to the ground in Nazi reprisals.

Congress officials said 114 people were killed in the three villages of Krupiste, Gorni Balvan and Dolnyi Balvan on Oct. 14, 1944.

The documents, apparently signed by Waldheim as a lieutenant in Group E of the German army in Yugoslavia, were found in the U.S. National Archives. They consist of Oct. 12 reports pinpointing activities by “bandits,” or partisans, on the Stip-Kocane road where those villages are situated.

Elan Steinberg, executive vice president of the congress, said his organization has no documentary evidence that the former U.N. secretary general was involved with the Nazi order to destroy the villages.

Captain’s Testimony

But he noted that a German captain hanged after the war had testified that Waldheim was responsible for the reprisals, and he said Waldheim had to know about orders mandating reprisals wherever partisan activities were found.

On Aug. 10, 1943, Waldheim’s commander in chief, Gen. Alexander Loehr, ordered reprisals “in every case,” including “shooting or hanging of hostages, destruction of the surrounding localities, etc.”

“‘These documents bespeak an utterly wanton disregard on Waldheim’s part for the lives of innocent persons--for whom he had every reason to anticipate that terrible consequences would flow from his reports,” said World Jewish Congress counsel Eli Rosenbaum. “But the reports continued to be written, day after day.”

Another document, also signed with Waldheim’s name Nov. 7, 1944, reported that in October, 1944, 739 partisans were killed and 94 prisoners taken, although only 63 weapons were confiscated.

Mostly Unarmed Civilians

Rosenbaum said Waldheim had to know that “most if not all of the remainder--more than 700 people--were unarmed civilians.’

Waldheim, a candidate going into a runoff election for the Austrian presidency, has acknowledged that he did not reveal the length of his wartime service, but he has insisted that he knew nothing about atrocities and had no part in them.

The World Jewish Congress has, since February, pressed its own investigation into Waldheim’s activities.

Despite Waldheim’s denials that he joined any Nazi organization, the congress produced documents that he was a member of two Nazi-linked groups during the war, and on Wednesday displayed a personnel form from 1945 in which he identified himself as a member of a third, the “NS-Reiterkorps.”

Congress officials said they will continue to release information about Waldheim as it is found, regardless of whether he wins or loses the election. They again called on Waldheim to explain why he lied.

Investigations Sought

And they called upon Austria, Yugoslavia or Greece to conduct official investigations into Waldheim’s background.

“In principle, he could and should be tried in Austria,” said Steinberg. “Do I think that will happen? No.”

The New York Times reported that documents listing more than 36,000 war criminal suspects and witnesses, whose files had been kept secret in U.N. archives since 1948, have been found inadvertently on an open shelf of a military records center in Maryland.

Waldheim appears on one list. He was described as wanted for murder and taking hostages, the paper said.

The names and files were compiled by the 17-nation War Crimes Commission that sat in London from 1943 to 1948.

The United Nations has refused to give general access to the commission files, but it turns over those for which it receives specific requests from governments. With a master list available, requests for the file of every individual could be made.