![1938 times man of the year 1938 times man of the year](https://www.oddee.com/wp-content/uploads/_media/imgs/articles2/a99659_time-person-of-the-year-cover-collection-ken-adelman.jpg)
The wedding was in April, a month after Waldheim had been publicly accused of lying about his wartime past. Schwarzenegger invited Waldheim to his 1986 wedding to Maria Shriver, then anchorwoman of the “CBS Morning News” and a niece of President Kennedy. Waldheim was accused of having covered up his involvement in Nazi atrocities committed during World War II. And critics have seized on Schwarzenegger’s public association with Kurt Waldheim, the former president of Austria and former secretary general of the United Nations. He worked as a police officer in Austria until his death in 1972.įor years, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been dogged by his father’s past. The Austrian archives also include the papers, part of a so-called de-Nazification process, that in 1947 determined he could work for the postwar state because no specific war crimes had been attributed to him. Although they were police units, many served as combat troops, always on the front line, and were used to suppress civilian populations for the advancing German army.Īccording to the records, Gustav Schwarzenegger received a great deal of medical attention, and may have been wounded.
![1938 times man of the year 1938 times man of the year](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3a1c517/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1564x1174+0+0/resize/840x631!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F42%2F3a%2Ff8cb7f2248899f4121756b0b96ff%2Fla-me-dry-autumn-front-page-38storm-artboard-6.jpg)
Gustav Schwarzenegger was made a master sergeant with the Feldgendarmerie, the military police known by the nickname Chained Dogs, apparently from the metal links they wore around their necks as part of the uniform. “He was in the heart of hell,” Berenbaum said. Michael Berenbaum, a Holocaust scholar who has written 14 books on the subject, said that based on the records, Gustav Schwarzenegger appears to have been “in the thick of the battle during the most difficult times” when some of the “most horrific military and nonmilitary killings” occurred. But there is no way to know from the documents whether he played a role. The Austrian documents also show that Gustav Schwarzenegger served with German Army units that saw some of the most brutal bloodshed of World War II, including the invasions of Poland and France and the German rampage through Russia and the siege of Leningrad.Īs a military policeman, he appears to have been in theaters of the war where atrocities were committed by the army. At the same time, she noted, one had to apply to join the SA, unlike, say, the German army, which Austrian males were required to join after their country was annexed in 1938.
#1938 TIMES MAN OF THE YEAR ARCHIVE#
Without further documentation, it is difficult to draw conclusions about what Gustav Schwarzenegger did with the SA, said Ursula Schwarz, a researcher with the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance. And, with the exception of Kristallnacht, the force had lost its position of dominance to the SS as far back as 1934. The records contain no other information about his activities with the SA. One document in particular shows that Gustav Schwarzenegger was indeed a member of the Sturmabteilungen, also known as the “storm troopers” or “brownshirts.” He joined the SA on May 1, 1939, according to the entry in the archive file - about six months after the storm troopers helped launch Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, when Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were attacked across Germany and Austria and thousands of Jews were hauled off to concentration camps. Hier said the documents were unavailable to the center’s researchers when they investigated the matter. Nor had the Wiesenthal Center found any evidence that the senior Schwarzenegger belonged to any of Germany’s notorious paramilitary units, such as the Sturmabteilungen (SA) or the Schutzstaffel (SS), which were populated by some of Adolf Hitler’s most ardent supporters.īut documents in the Austrian State Archives in Vienna, reviewed by The Times this week, show that Gustav Schwarzenegger had a deeper involvement in Hitler’s regime than the Wiesenthal Center had uncovered. But there was no evidence that he was a war criminal.
![1938 times man of the year 1938 times man of the year](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/qXgAAOSwQGtd7LJy/s-l300.jpg)
And it was an institution that Schwarzenegger had financially backed over the years.Īfter a two-month investigation, in which Simon Wiesenthal was involved, the verdict was in: Gustav Schwarzenegger was indeed a member of the Nazi party he voluntarily applied for membership in 1938. “ ‘I don’t know if it’s good or bad, and I’d like you to find out.’ ”Īsking the Wiesenthal Center to handle the investigation was a logical choice: The center, named after the famed Nazi hunter, had the resources to conduct such a probe. “ ‘I don’t know much about my father’s past,’ ” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Center, recalled Schwarzenegger’s telling him.
#1938 TIMES MAN OF THE YEAR MOVIE#
In July 1990, following news reports that his father was a Nazi, movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger approached his friends at the Simon Wiesenthal Center and asked that they find the truth.