Posted on 07/10/2004 4:37:15 AM PDT by AmericanMade1776
VIENNA (Reuters) - Film star-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) returned to his native Austria for the state funeral Saturday of his friend, President Thomas Klestil, who died Tuesday on the eve of retirement.
The California governor joined dozens of heads of state and foreign dignitaries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), at a requiem mass for Klestil in Vienna's St Stephen's Cathedral.
"He was a dear friend to me and will be greatly missed," Schwarzenegger said of Klestil in a statement Thursday. President Bush (news - web sites) chose Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican, to represent the U.S. government at the funeral.
Klestil, who died aged 71 of complications following heart failure, was to be buried at Vienna's Central Cemetery after the funeral service, led by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn.
Klestil, a career diplomat and a conservative like Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, would have stepped down from office Thursday.
His death overshadowed the inauguration of his successor, Social Democrat Heinz Fischer, who was sworn in to the largely ceremonial post at a ceremony trimmed to the bare essentials.
Klestil helped restore the presidency's image after a controversy dating back to the Nazi era that dogged his predecessor, Kurt Waldheim, who was also at the funeral.
Klestil won the respect of Austrians for repairing much of the damage caused to the country's international image by revelations about Waldheim's role in the German army under Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.
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A German friend of mine here in Bavaria just told me Arnond was in Austria. When I explained that the opposition to his election said he abused women and was probably a Nazi, he looked at me and said, "how can the people of California elect an Austrian?"
And we thought we had our Polish jokes, blonde jokes, etc.
Was he joking or have the Germans really become that brainwashed by their revisionist educations?
Germany has nothing to do with war movies or with WWll documentaries.
They are essentially a socialist left society which practices economic fascism i.e. the gubmint picks the winners, and all the rest get a Bismarkian nanny state.
Everything else except a God given right to drive fast and the soccer teams is negotiable, especially individuality, but by no means does this society reflect anything like the old movies.
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