The sunny market square in Wiener Neustadt, 30 miles south of Vienna, is a reassuring vision of small-town tranquillity. Leathery-faced farmers and their wives sell vegetables and wurst from stalls. The local citizenry--some of the men dressed in lederhosen, the women in dirndls--greet one another with elaborate courtesy, a scene that evokes the continuity of old traditions. In fact, the town square's ancient buildings were ruins 41 years ago, flattened by Allied bombing, and were later lovingly reconstructed.
From a side street into the marketplace walks Kurt Waldheim, 67, the tall, gaunt former United Nations Secretary-General, now in the last stages...
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