FACTBOX: The life of ex-U.N. head Kurt Waldheim

(Reuters) - Former United Nations Secretary General and ex-Austrian President Kurt Waldheim died at the age of 88 on Thursday.

Here are five facts about Waldheim:

* Waldheim was born at St Andrae-Woerdern, near Vienna, on December 21, 1918. He served 10 years as U.N. secretary-general (1972-81) after a career in the Austrian diplomatic service dating back to 1945.

* Waldheim was 19 when Germany annexed Austria into the Third Reich in 1938. His published accounts of his life had implied his career in the German army ended after an injury on the Russian front in 1941 and that he then devoted himself to studies in Vienna.

* In March 1986, however, the Austrian news magazine Profil published a copy of Waldheim's military registration card with endorsements suggesting he had belonged to the Nazi Brownshirts (SA), Hitler's quasi-military strong-arm street fighters.

* His 1986 campaign for the Austrian presidency was marked by allegations, mainly from the World Jewish Congress in New York, that he had been involved in war crimes by Hitler's army in the Balkans. Waldheim went on to become Austria's first non-Socialist president since World War Two. His victory in the second round of the poll sparked a storm of protest outside Austria.

* In 1996, Waldheim, in a long-awaited autobiography, conceded it was a mistake to conceal his Nazi war record in the Balkans but maintained his behavior was above reproach. In "The Answer", Waldheim recognized that failure to address his military record between 1942 and 1945 cast him in the role of political villain rather than elder statesman.