PrintJune 17, 2007
Not the bad kind of Nazi
The United Nations was once run by a crypto-Nazi. That inconvenient truth is not exactly the principal message of the New York Times' farewell to Kurt Waldheim. The Times obituary of Kurt Waldheim defies belief. It delivers a one-two punch, soft-peddling the record of this Nazi officer who hid his disgraceful past.
Early in the piece (5 paragraphs down in a full-page obituary), It exonerates Waldheim of actual technical war crimes:
"Kurt Waldheim did not, in fact, order, incite or personally commit what is commonly called a war crime," wrote Prof. Robert Edwin Herzstein of the University of South Carolina, a historian whose archival research was crucial in uncovering Mr. Waldheim's Nazi past.
"But this non-guilt must not be confused with innocence. The fact that Waldheim played a significant role in military units that unquestionably committed war crimes makes him at the very least morally complicit in those crimes."
All true to be sure. But this is only to soften the hearts of readers. The obit goes on to contend that Waldheim was just an ordinary man caught up in the maelstrom of war. The last line is a stunner:
"It took hundreds of thousands of ordinary men-well meaning but ambitious men like Kurt Waldheim-to make the Third Reich possible".
Well-meaning? One of hundreds of thousands? Just another ordinary guy in the wrong spot at the wrong time, trying to make a living?
If Kurt Waldheim had been an ordinary man, he would not have risen in the Nazi hierarchy to his officer position, nor risen so high in Austrian politics or at the United Nations. He was man of ambition who used his intelligence and drive for evil purposes just in order to get ahead. The Times attempts to whitewash his past so that its political agenda can get ahead.
Certainly this is not the first, nor will it be the last, time the New York Times displays such insensitivity when dealing with subjects that might interest its Jewish readership.
Ed Lasky is News Editor of American Thinker.
Ed Lasky is News Editor of American Thinker.
