VIENNA : Post-Waldheim Era

Thomas Klestil, a virtual unknown when he began his political campaign barely a year ago, will be sworn in Wednesday as Austria’s president, thus closing the books on the controversial six-year term of his predecessor, Kurt Waldheim.

Waldheim’s refusal to deal forthrightly with questions about his actions as a junior officer in Hitler’s Wehrmacht during World War II exposed him and his country to repeated condemnation and accusations of refusing to face the past.

In his inauguration speech, Klestil, 59, has promised to specifically refer to Austria’s past under Hitler and to urge that appropriate lessons be drawn.