Former U.N. leader Waldheim dies at 88

VIENNA (Reuters) - Kurt Waldheim, a former United Nations chief and Austrian president whose reputation was tarnished by disclosures he hid his past in Nazi Germany's officer corps, died on Thursday aged 88.

The Austrian presidency and a Waldheim family spokesman announced his death following a short illness. The domestic APA news agency said he had died of heart failure, quoting Waldheim's son-in-law.

Waldheim was head of the United Nations for much of the 1970s before becoming Austrian president, a largely ceremonial role.

Waldheim admitted concealing his service with Hitler's army in the Balkans but always denied knowing of Nazi war crimes committed there at the time, including deportations of thousands of Greek Jews.

Most Austrians did not believe Waldheim was linked to Nazi atrocities. In fact, the accusations, made after he left the United Nations, boosted his poll ratings as president. But they also made him persona non grata in many countries and he made almost no state visits during his tenure.

"Kurt Waldheim left this world with a huge question mark about his past and his activities during World War Two," said Ephraim Zuroff, Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. "He was in a position to know about Holocaust crimes and didn't do anything to stop them, and loyally served the Nazi regime."

Waldheim said later the furor over his 1986-92 presidency had in fact forced Austrians to face up to the fact that they were not all passive victims of Nazi Germany, which annexed Austria virtually without resistance.

"The election victory of Kurt Waldheim certainly sparked a lot of debate, especially with regards to Austria coming to terms with its past," Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said. Flags flew at half mast at the Austrian presidency.

A significant number of top Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, were Austrian.

"If my life story has contributed to a new approach to history (in Austria), then it is positive -- of course at the price of damage to me personally," Waldheim said in an interview with Austrian daily Der Standard in January 2006.

Ronald Lauder, World Jewish Congress and former U.S. Ambassador to Austria said the country had learnt from the row.

"The death of Kurt Waldheim closes a chapter in the history of a troubled era. Fidelity to the truth requires we never forget the details of the Waldheim controversy, but it must also be acknowledged that Austria and her people have done much to move on even before this day."

Waldheim said the intelligence services of major powers knew about his past when he was U.N. leader from 1972 to 1981, but his economy with the truth was in retrospect "a mistake".

U.S. BAN

During Austria's 1986 presidential election, news magazine Profil published his old military registration card with stamps suggesting he had belonged to the Nazi Brownshirts, Hitler's paramilitary street force, before World War Two.

Profil said it had also found evidence Waldheim had served in the Balkans in 1942-45, much of this under General Alexander Lohr, who was executed for war crimes in 1947.

Waldheim's published accounts of his life had implied his Wehrmacht career had ended in 1941 after he was wounded on the Russian front.

Waldheim denied knowing that thousands of Greek Jews were deported from the port of Thessaloniki, just six km (four miles) from where he was based for many months.

Asked by Austria's government to investigate, an international historians' commission concluded in February 1988 that he knew about war crimes although was not involved in them.

The United States added Waldheim's name to its immigration "watch list" of people to be refused entry to the United States because of past associations with Hitler's regime.

He became unwelcome in many countries and undertook virtually no state visits, except the Vatican, where he went twice during his term, and to Arab countries.

Heinz-Christian Strache, head of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, said Waldheim had been subject to a smear campaign.

"Those responsible should be ashamed of the themselves to this day," Strache said in a statement.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he "learned with sadness" of the death of Waldheim, who he said "served the United Nations at a crucial period in (its) history".

Former World Jewish Congress executive director Elan Steinberg, a key player in a campaign against Waldheim that ended with his being barred from the United States, said, "The sad thing is that he could not confront the truth even at the end. Now he is before God and cannot lie."

(Additional reporting by Avida Landau in Jerusalem and Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations)