Prominent Nazi forces deserter dies

An Austrian who deserted Nazi forces before campaigning decades later to rehabilitate those who refused to fight for Hitler has died at the age of 97, his group said Sunday.

Richard Wadani, denounced as a traitor and coward long after his return home from serving in the British army, died at the weekend, according to the campaign group he co-founded.

The group, "Justice for the Victims of the Nazi's Military Judiciary," paid tribute to Wadani, who was born in Prague in 1922 but moved to his mother's hometown of Vienna in 1938.

"It is thanks to his tireless efforts over decades that the deserters of the Nazi armed forces and all other victims of the Nazi's military judiciary are legally rehabilitated," the group's president Thomas Geldmacher said in a statement.

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said the country had lost a "great Austrian" with Wadani's death.

After a failed desertion attempt in 1942, Wadani joined Allied forces in 1944 near Aachen in Germany.

After the war, .