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catbyte

(34,174 posts)
Mon Apr 20, 2020, 01:01 PM Apr 2020

Richard Wadani: Austrian Nazi deserter dies aged 97

An Austrian who deserted Nazi Germany's armies and switched to the Allied side in World War Two has died aged 97.

Richard Wadani was drafted into the German army but escaped on his second attempt in 1944, going on to serve in a British-led unit.

After the end of the conflict he campaigned for justice for all those who refused to fight for the Nazis.

"Through his death our country loses a great Austrian," President Alexander Van der Bellen said.

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Who was Richard Wadani?

Wadani was born in Prague in 1922. He moved to Vienna in 1938 - his mother's hometown.

After the German annexation of Austria that year, known as the Anschluss, Wadani was drafted into the Nazi forces. Talking to the BBC in 2014, Wadani said his mother gave him a white handkerchief shortly afterwards.

"She said this regime must go, and she supported me when we spoke about me deserting from the army. She gave me a white cloth, for safety, when I surrendered. I had it with me for years."

Wadani served as a lorry driver on the Eastern Front following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

As he was not on the front lines, he saw "a lot of things that people on the front didn't necessarily see: genocide, mass murder, terrible situations. And it became obvious that I couldn't keep on being part of it."

He tried and failed to desert in 1942 while serving in Russia. Only in 1944 did he manage to escape, crawling through barbed wire in northern France to surrender to Allied forces. He soon after joined the British-organised Czechoslovak Army in exile.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52353369
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Richard Wadani: Austrian Nazi deserter dies aged 97 (Original Post) catbyte Apr 2020 OP
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