ABSTRACT
The Kurt Waldheim and the Lucona affairs will most certainly enter go down in Austria's political history as landmark cases. They illustrate the deep structural changes that are taking place in Austrian political culture and have particular salience for the Viennese culture. The Waldheim case is well known internationally and needs no detailed introduction. During his 1986 presidential campaign, ex-UN General Secretary Waldheim denied any involvement in Nazi war crimes. The Lucona affair is less well known internationally than the Waldheim case. It has been roiling official institutions and private circles since the fall of 1988, when the major political parties agreed to form a hearing committee to investigate the involvement of prominent SPO and FPO politicians in an attempted fraud. Udo Proksch, who ran the internationally renowned Vienna coffeehouse Demel, was the central figure of the imbroglio.
