The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded the immediate resignation of the governor of Austria's Tyrol province and other local politicians Thursday for throwing a 90th birthday party for a former Gestapo operative.

The Los Angeles-based group expressed "anger and frustration" that Gov. Herwig von Staa and other politicians had gathered to honor Ferdinand Obenfeldner. The former deputy mayor of Innsbruck oversaw the Gestapo in that city when atrocities against Jews were carried out during the 1938 "Kristallnacht" or "Night of Broken Glass" pogrom.

Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi hunter, said he was outraged "that individuals whose deeds during the Nazi period — who should be publicly repudiated — instead are honored by Austrian public figures who clearly should be acting differently."

Records on file at the Documentation Center of the Austrian Resistance show that Obenfeldner was a senior officer at the Gestapo headquarters in Innsbruck at the time of Kristallnacht.

In 1955, Obenfeldner was placed under formal investigation as a suspect in the World War II-era killings of two forced laborers from Poland, but the case was inconclusive and he was never convicted.

In a telephone interview Thursday from Israel, Zuroff told The Associated Press that the Simon Wiesenthal Center was unaware of Obenfeldner's Gestapo past until several Austrian teachers became aware of the birthday party and contacted the center.

" They were quite perturbed," he said.

Zuroff called on Von Staa to step down as well as the mayor of Innsbruck, Hilde Zach, and several regional leaders of the Social Democratic Party who attended the January party.

Neither Von Staa nor Obenfeldner was immediately available for comment, but Social Democrat officials in Tyrol defended Obenfeldner, who served as deputy mayor of Innsbruck from 1962 to 1985.

In a statement posted on its Web site, Tyrol's Social Democrats quoted party official Ernst Pechlaner as saying that concerning Obenfeldner's role from 1939-45, he "always stood on the side of democracy."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center recently has stepped up pressure on Austrian authorities to bring to justice aging WWII-era war crimes suspects before they die. It has launched Operation Last Chance to try to prosecute now-elderly suspects.

isfgate.com