Ex-UN head Waldheim dies at 88

VIENNA, June 14 (Reuters) Kurt Waldheim, a former United Nations secretary-general and Austrian president whose reputation was tarnished by disclosures he had hidden his past in Nazi Germany's officer corps, died today 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 admitted concealing his service with Hitler's Wehrmacht 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 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,'' Ephraim Zuroff, Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre told Reuters. ''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 furore 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.

He said the intelligence services of major powers certainly knew about his past when he was UN leader from 1971 to 1982, but his economy with the truth was in retrospect ''a mistake''.

DECADE AS UN SECRETARY GENERAL 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.

Hans-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.

REUTERS GP RAI2330