Posted on 07/10/2004 3:15:32 PM PDT by El Conservador
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian-born film star-turned- politician Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) joined a big gathering of heads of state Saturday at the funeral of Austrian president Thomas Klestil, who died this week two days before completing his term.
The California governor attended a requiem mass for Klestil in Vienna's St Stephen's Cathedral along with Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), Spain's Crown Prince Felipe, former Czech president Vaclav Havel and other foreign dignitaries.
Klestil, son of a Vienna tram driver who became a career diplomat, 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 state funeral.
He died Tuesday aged 71 of complications following heart failure.
"We were very good friends," Schwarzenegger told the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who led the service, outside the cathedral.
Schwarzenegger first met Klestil in 1969, when Klestil was Austria's consul general in Los Angeles. President Bush (news - web sites) chose Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican, to represent the U.S. government at the ceremony.
Monarchs and presidents sat with Klestil's family near his flag-draped coffin, in the biggest gathering of heads of state in Austria since World War II. German President Horst Koehler, Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustav were among the guests.
Klestil, 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's veiled widow, Margot Klestil-Loeffler, watched as his coffin was driven from the cathedral to Vienna's sprawling, tree-lined Central Cemetery, where a military parade brought his remains to the Presidents' Tomb. The cemetery is also the resting place of the composers Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms.
Klestil raised the eyebrows of many traditionalists in the Catholic country when he began a relationship with Loeffler, then one of his aides, prompting his wife of 37 years, Edith, to leave him in 1994. Edith attended the funeral.
Loeffler knelt at the open grave before mourners lined up to leave bouquets of roses in Austria's colors of red and white.
Klestil won the respect of Austrians for repairing much of the damage caused to the country's international image by revelations about his predecessor Waldheim's role in the German army under Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.
Schwarzenegger had no choice.
It was a must attend issue since Schwarzenegger is an Austrian national and Klestil had really heaped the praises on his star citizen over the past 8 months.
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