5
The pre-war years for Waldheim alternated between academic studies and the military.
He was self-motivated and ambitious having defended his vocational decisions with his family.
10
Following the end of his formal schooling in 1936 at age eighteen, Waldheim entered
compulsory military service volunteering for Austria’s cavalry followed by reserve duty. In
1937, he was admitted into the Vienna University and the Consular Academy to prepare for a
career in diplomacy and law. Waldheim comments that he was “convinced that the greatest
impetus for choosing a diplomatic and political career was provided by the circumstances and
events in the era in which I grew to manhood.
11
” He would lose his academic position a year
later at the time of his father’s arrest. A fellow student of the time commented that Waldheim
was known to be an active liberal Catholic and an anti-Nazi.
12
Yet Waldheim would become a
member of the National Socialist Student League (in his words, a youth athletic association), and
was called up into active duty in 1938 in the German army. He would complete his consular
program at the Vienna Academy and pass basic legal examinations in 1940 before serving in a
reconnaissance unit in France, and then to the Eastern Front where he was wounded in battle and
medically discharged to resume doctoral law studies in 1941.
Waldheim’s autobiographical accounts of his wartime service end with his repatriation
and medical discharge. He writes about his studies, his marriage in 1944, the birth of their
daughter, and the complications experienced by the family resuming normal life after the war’s
end. The following are Waldheim’s remembrances of military service.
It was impossible to escape military service. I was called up, along with my brother just as
World War II began. Actually, at that period, a soldier was better off than a civilian if his
politics were questionable.
13
Anti-Nazi literature was circulated (in the army) clandestinely and I read it all. I found several
colleagues who shared my views and our long discussions gave us a chance to air our feelings.
Sunday Mass was well attended…provided us with a rallying point and means of manifesting our
opposition to the notoriously anti-religious policies of the regime.
14
Convention