He is the grandson of a Moravian blacksmith who moved to Austria.
His father was a teacher and school administrator in rural Austria.
He became secretary general of the United Nations in 1971 and was
reelected for five more years in 1976. In 1986 he became president
of Austria. This is the "success story" of Kurt Waldheim.

Yet even as he campaigned for the presidency in 1986, the dark
side of Waldheim's career emerged. An article planted by his
political opponents in the Viennese journal, Profil, on 9 March 1986
revealed that Waldheim had served as an intelligence officer with
Germany army units that were involved in war crimes in Yugoslavia
and Greece consisting of the murder of Yogoslavian civilians, the
execution of captured British commandos, and the deportation of
Jews to concentration camps. In his memoirs Waldheim carefully
avoided any mention of his wartime service in the Balkans, and
has repeatedly lied about it to his closest co-workers in the U.N.
Secretariat. ¹ These revelations triggered an investigation by the
World Jewish Congress that unearthed evidence of his involvement
in Yugoslavia and Greece and charges of war crimes filed by
Yugoslavia with the U.N. War Crimes Commission in 1948. ²
Nevertheless, following these revelations and the extensive publicity
about them in Austria and abroad, Waldheim won the election for
president.

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