Uncomfortable Realities: Drs. Erich Petschauer (1907–1977), Gerhard Bast (1911–1947), and Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007)

Abstract

‘Uncomfortable realities’ discusses Drs. Gerhard Bast, Erich Petschauer, and Kurt Waldheim and their different responses to National Socialism. It also highlights briefly the transgenerational effects of such a past, even on persons who understand the process. Bast committed to the Nazi movement early on, joining the SS and Gestapo as soon as possible; later during WWII, he commanded Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe. Although he escaped immediate justice, a local guide in 1946 murdered him during his attempt to escape Italy’s South Tyrol for Latin America. Petschauer joined the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) after his university studies and served as a SS-lieutenant in a relocation office in Northern Italy. While he questioned his role before the end of the war, the follow-up Nuremberg trials judged him a Mitläufer and he never fully moved beyond what he had accepted as a young man. Waldheim never joined the NSDAP nor any of its affiliated organisations. During the war, he served in the Wehrmacht in Yugoslavia and afterward rose to Austrian’s foreign minister, head of the UN, and Austria’s president. During the presidential race in the mid-1980s, the Austrian Socialist party falsely accused him of being a former Nazi, an accusation that was pursued by a leading US Jewish organisation. Even with their attempts to escape this past, their sons found themselves involved in it. While we cannot escape our past, we can attempt to make sense of it.