page_title: Elisabeth Waldheim
section_title: References
hierarchical_section_title: Elisabeth Waldheim / References
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Dr. Kurt Waldheim (UNO ambassadeur Oostenrijk) voorgedragen als secretaris-generaal VN, Waldheim en echtgenote en drie kinderen
context_page_description: Elisabeth "Sissy" Waldheim was an Austrian political figure and the wife of Kurt Waldheim, the UN Secretary-General and President of Austria. She was the First Lady of Austria from 1986 to 1992.
  She was born in Vienna as the eldest of three sisters to Wilhelm Ritschel and his wife Hildegard. Her paternal grandfather was a military official in the imperial army. After the fall of the Habsburg empire, he became an entrepreneur. Elisabeth was named after the former Austrian empress of the same name and nicknamed "Sissy".
  Waldheim decided to study law at University of Vienna, where she first met Kurt Waldheim. On 19 August 1944, in the middle of the Second World War, the couple married in Vienna. Their first daughter, Lieselotte, was born in 1945. According to her husband's New York Times obituary, "[s]he was an ardent Nazi who before the war had renounced her Roman Catholic faith and joined the League of German Maidens, the young women’s equivalent of the Hitler Youth. She applied for Nazi Party membership as soon as she was old enough, and was accepted in 1941".
  She gave up her own job in order to support her husband's diplomatic and political career.
context_section_description: Media related to Elisabeth Waldheim  at Wikimedia Commons
  Kandell, Jonathan (15 June 2007). "Kurt Waldheim, Former U.N. Chief, Is Dead at 88". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  Senta Ziegler: "Österreichs First Ladies". Wien. Ueberreuter 1999
  Meldung auf der Website des ORF vom, orf.at, 28 February 2017.
caption: Waldheim with family c. 1971
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