Jun 23, 2007, 9:47 GMT
Vienna - A low-key funeral of former Austrian President and UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim began on Saturday morning in Vienna's St. Stephens cathedral according to the late politician's wishes with a requiem mass open for all those wishing to attend.
Waldheim, who was at the centre of controversy in the 1980s over revelations about a Nazi past which he had kept secret, did not receive a formal full state funeral since he was not the current serving president.
Under slightly adapted funeral protocol, heads of state were therefore not formally invited. The ceremony was attended members of the Austrian government and dignitaries from neighbouring Liechtenstein and South Tyrol.
The controversial former Austrian president will be laid to rest in the presidents' vault on Vienna's central cemetery after two commemorative ceremonies, one with members of the Austrian government and a second at Vienna's UN offices attended by Vienna UN head Antonio Maria Costa.
Waldheim had been internationally isolated due to his refusal to discuss his Nazi past. He always rejected claims of his involvement in war crimes, committed while his unit was stationed in the Balkans and Greece during WW II.
In a letter published after his death, Waldheim 'deeply regretted' that he 'took position on Nazi crimes fully and clearly much too late.'
The accusations against him had nothing in common with his thinking, he wrote, saying that his silence had nothing to do with his beliefs, but with his outrage over the extent of the accusations.
Your Talkback on this Story