Waldheim’s Successor Is Inaugurated

Kurt Waldheim’s controversial presidency ended Wednesday, six years after he was elected amid allegations that he was involved in war crimes.

He expressed regret at “not having found the right words” appropriate to the immensity of World War II atrocities in which “unfortunately not a few Austrians” collaborated with the Nazis.

In a somber inauguration ceremony, his successor, Thomas Klestil, pledged that Austria will not shirk the burden of its Nazi past as it looks to future challenges.

Klestil, 59, a veteran diplomat, appealed for citizens to “again be proud of Austria,” saying the country now faces its most important years since regaining independence from the victorious World War II Allies in 1955.

He said Austria must move rapidly to join the European Community and think over its neutrality to participate actively in European security policy.

He added that in orienting itself within a dramatically changed continent, Austria must face up to unpleasant aspects of its past. “A society without history is a society without a future,” Klestil declared.

Waldheim, 73, who took office on July 8, 1986, has never been proven to bear responsibility under criminal law for war crimes, but an international historians’ commission concluded in 1988 that he had covered up his service as an intelligence officer in a German army unit that deported Jews and others to death camps.

Klestil, who made no direct mention of the Waldheim affair, cautioned that “whoever forgets their history is condemned to repeat it.”

Klestil is a former ambassador to Washington and to the United Nations. He won 57% of the vote on May 24, running, as Waldheim had, with the support of the conservative People’s Party.