Richard Wadani
Wehrmacht deserter who joined the Allies and later fought the view in Austria that he was a traitor
RICHARD WADANI, who has died aged 97, deserted from the Wehrmacht during the Second World War to fight the Allies; he later led a successful campaign in his native Austria to change public opinion which viewed him and his ilk as traitors.
Twenty thousand Austrians are thought to have deserted, most in the final few weeks of the conflict. A further 1,500 were executed by the regime for offences which included refusing to fight. After Wadani changed sides in 1944 his mother was sent an official letter stating that he had betrayed the German people.
Returning to Vienna in 1946 in a British uniform, Wadani considered himself a liberator. Instead, he was subjected to abuse. The attitude that the Wehrmacht were Austria’s “war heroes” prevailed for the next 50 years.
Few admitted to having been Nazi supporters. Wadani often encountered those who claimed to have been in “the Resistance”, the outline of their Party badges still visible on their jackets. Even former concentration camp guards faced few obstacles to resuming their lives and careers. Meanwhile, the likes of Wadani experienced difficulties stemming from Nazi-era judicial rulings that they had been lawbreakers.
In about 2000, a more open debate began. Wadani became the voice and face of a committee set up to represent the victims of Nazi military justice. At first he had to conceal his identity and be photographed in shadow.
Gradually, many Austrians came to regard what had been seen as acts of betrayal and cowardice instead as ones of bravery and resistance. There was much opposition to this change from the veterans’ association, for instance, after the city council was persuaded to stop honouring the grave of the pronazi fighter ace Walter Nowotny.
In 2007 Wadani became the first Austrian deserter to be given a medal for his contribution to the country’s liberation. Two years later, the national assembly passed an act quashing Nazi judgments and rehabilitating the reputations of those convicted.
A memorial to the deserters was inaugurated in 2014 opposite the Chancellery. Unveiling it, the then president of Austria, Heinz Fischer, saluted the “moral courage” of those who had, in the words inscribed on it, been “all alone.” Wadani observed that he could not forgive and forget but was glad he had lived to see the acts of conscience acknowledged.
He was born Richard Wedenig on October 11 1922 in Prague to Austrian parents. His father Paul, who had fought in the Great War, worked as a mechanic at the New German Theatre.
By the time Richard was 16, and a Young Communist, his parents had separated. Following the Anschluss, he, his brother and their mother Wilma were classed as German citizens and compelled to return to Vienna. The family agreed that they did not want to fight for the Nazis, but when Richard began to work at a roofing company he was advised that if he did not want to be conscripted into the infantry he should volunteer for the Luftwaffe.
As a driver and mechanic, he served in Russia. There, he witnessed acts of genocide and tried to help the civilian population by secretly handing out Wehrmacht stores. His first attempt to cross the lines was frustrated when he was picked up by an army patrol.
After two years working at an interpreters’ school, Wadani was posted to woods around Aachen as an infantryman in October 1944. Two nights after he arrived, he was given guard duty. At four o’clock in the morning he prised apart barbed wire with a branch and began crawling on his stomach through a plantation towards the American positions.
His mother had years before given him a white handkerchief to use for the purpose, and this he held aloft on a stick while shouting: “Don’t shoot!” The first Americans he came across were asleep, so he shouted louder.
As there was no Free Austrian unit in the British forces, he joined the Czechoslovak forces in England. He learnt of the end of the war while in Southend, but was only able to return to Vienna in November 1945. There, he found his mother, who had been bombed out and weighed just 5st.
Wadani joined Austria’s Communist Party in 1946 and got work as a driver for its publisher; he later broke with the party over the suppression of the Prague Spring. Having become a PE teacher, he was eventually coach of the national volleyball team.
He is survived by his wife Sieglinde and their son.