Kohl Rejects Jewish Critics of His Waldheim Meeting

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl gave shunned Austrian President Kurt Waldheim the red-carpet treatment Friday and lashed out at the U.S.-based Jewish organization that six years ago exposed details of Waldheim’s service in Adolf Hitler’s army during World War II.

Kohl flew to Munich especially to see Waldheim, who was being honored by an obscure conservative foundation. The two leaders had lunch together in what Kohl’s office initially insisted was a purely “social” occasion and later described as an “unofficial working visit.”

The conservative chancellor testily dismissed the outraged response of Jewish organizations at home and abroad, saying: “Whom I meet with here in Munich . . . is for me to determine as chancellor. I don’t need any advice.”

Waldheim, a former U.N. secretary general, said nothing to reporters as the pair emerged from the palace where they had a private lunch with Bavarian state Gov. Max Streibl, who dismissed the “whole hullabaloo” as “nonsense.”

The 74-year-old Austrian, whose six-year term as president expires next month, has been ostracized by world leaders since the World Jewish Congress accused him of having had a role in Nazi war crimes in the Balkans during World War II.

Although Waldheim was never prosecuted, the United States determined that the evidence against him was convincing enough to bar him from ever again entering that country.

Waldheim has never been officially received in Germany, but Kohl has reportedly had contact with him during his annual vacations in Austria.

On Thursday, Elan Steinberg, executive director of the New York-based World Jewish Congress, denounced Kohl’s acceptance of Waldheim as a “gross insensitivity” reminiscent of the chancellor’s 1985 blunder at Bitburg.

Kohl drew sharp international criticism that year for taking then-President Ronald Reagan to lay a wreath at a military cemetery whose dead included 49 SS officers.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany also condemned Kohl’s meeting with Waldheim, saying it sent “the wrong political signal.”