Austria the End of an Electoral Agony

By Frederick Painton.

The sunny market square in Wiener Neustadt, 30 miles south of Vienna, is a reassuring vision of small-town tranquillity. Leathery-faced farmers and their wives sell vegetables and wurst from stalls. The local citizenry--some of the men dressed in lederhosen, the women in dirndls--greet one another with elaborate courtesy, a scene that evokes the continuity of old traditions. In fact, the town square's ancient buildings were ruins 41 years ago, flattened by Allied bombing, and were later lovingly reconstructed.

From a side street into the marketplace walks Kurt Waldheim, 67, the tall, gaunt former United Nations Secretary-General, now in the last stages of his quest for Austria's presidency. For his fellow citizens, he has inadvertently become a symbol of the wartime generation that was caught up in Nazi Germany's military machine. The storm over his war record is proving as painful a reminder for most Austrians today as the sight of rubble once was on the country's streets.

Flanked by aides from the conservative People's Party, Waldheim moves easily among the townspeople, handing out autographed photographs of himself. With little more than a week to go before the vote on June 8, the emotion has drained from the bitterest political campaign in Austria's postwar history. The dominant issue is raised only obliquely. "It's a good thing you have strong nerves," a Waldheim supporter tells the candidate. He is referring to three months of allegations, mainly founded on disclosures by the New York- based World Jewish Congress (W.J.C.), that Waldheim may have been a war criminal.

The candidate nods appreciatively and smiles. He expects victory, and that allows him to relax a little. In the first round of balloting on May 4, Waldheim, with 49.7%, fell short of an absolute majority by only 16,500 votes. His Socialist opponent, former Health and Environment Minister Kurt Steyrer, received 43.7%. Two minor candidates who got the remaining votes are not participating in the runoff.

Opinions about Waldheim run strong. His opponents blame the former Secretary-General for denying knowledge of atrocities committed while he was a first lieutenant on the staff of German Army Group E in the Balkans from 1942 to 1945. While there is no proof that Waldheim was guilty of war crimes, the evidence indicates that he had to be aware of criminal atrocities and was flagrantly misleading in describing his wartime career. At a bar in the village of Spittal, a young workman blurts out, "I just don't want a liar for a President."

Belatedly, Waldheim has made some conciliatory gestures toward Jews. Addressing People's Party functionaries and the press last month, he spoke for the first time of the enrichment that Austria has derived from "this small but so important Jewish community, which we would not wish to miss." Recognizing that "special grief has come through the Nazis to the Jews of Europe and our Jewish countrymen of Austria," Waldheim called on his fellow citizens "not to tolerate any new anti-Semitism in our country."

Waldheim has received some unexpected help from Simon Wiesenthal, 77, the Vienna-based international hunter of Nazi war criminals. He told U.S. newspapers that he has seen no evidence to implicate Waldheim. But Wiesenthal, along with most other Austrians, does not doubt that Waldheim knew of the details of reprisals taken by the German military against Yugoslav partisans, as well as the deportation to death camps of more than 40,000 Jews from the Greek city of Salonika.

Despite the strong views against Waldheim, he appears to be on the road to victory. Many Austrians have rallied to his cause, feeling that through him they are all being portrayed as unrepentant Nazis. Waldheim's supporters forgive his faulty memory because of, as one backer in Wiener Neustadt puts it, the "position he's in." Fresh charges that Waldheim initialed interrogation reports of captured British soldiers who were sent to their deaths, and the release by the W.J.C. last week of a U.N. document accusing Waldheim of murder and putting hostages to death have not changed the prevailing view in Austria.

Waldheim has some other things going for him in the election. After 16 years of Socialist government, even Chancellor Fred Sinowatz admits that his party has grown overly complacent in office. Waldheim seems to have benefited from a conservative upswing in Austria, a reflection of a more general European turn to the right that was seen in recent elections in France and the Netherlands. Finally, the electorate appears to be tired of the whole controversial campaign. Says a discouraged Socialist Party official: "Let's get it over with."

For some Austrians who dislike Waldheim, his victory is preferable to a defeat that would make him a political martyr. However, one of the country's leading authors, Peter Handke, is saddened by the prospect of a Waldheim presidency. The reason, Handke explains, is not Waldheim's war record but that "he is morally inadequate." Says Handke: "The mistake the people of Austria make is to think Waldheim is one of them. He is not."

When Waldheim began his campaign, his posters carried the message A MAN THE WORLD TRUSTS. Perhaps the world does not trust Waldheim now, but many Austrians feel that as a matter of national pride, they must make him their own.

With reporting by Gertraud Lessing/Vienna