Old Nazi Proximity

Former UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim, who was elected Austrian president despite an international scandal about his secretive military service for the Nazis, died today. He was 88.

In February 1988, a government-appointed international commission of six historians investigating his wartime service said it found no proof that Mr. Waldheim himself committed war crimes.

But it also made clear that his record was far from unblemished. The panel declared that Mr Waldheim was in "direct proximity to criminal actions".

Its report said that Mr Waldheim knew about German army atrocities in the Balkans and never undertook any action to prevent or oppose them. They admitted later they dropped a reference to Mr Waldheim's "moral guilt" for fear of overstepping their mandate with a "judgmental" statement.

----"Fear of overstepping" i.e. how much you give me for not saying that?

In direct proximity to Kurt is Arnold S. whose daddy also was in direct proximity as a Nazi party member. But shucks, give 'em the benefit of the doubt – not all acorns fall from birds of a feather as the twig is bent to grow the tree, or something like that.