An Ohio man charged with war crimes while serving as an SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp has voluntarily left the United States, ending deportation proceedings the U.S. Justice Department initiated in 1991.
The department announced Wednesday that Johann Hahner, 72, a German citizen who lived in the Cleveland suburb of North Olmstead, went to Germany.
In an agreement he signed with the Justice Department, Hahner said he would not contest the government’s charges that his “presence at Auschwitz” renders him “deportable” and agreed to leave this country permanently.
In an earlier sworn interview with the department’s Office of Special Investigations, Hahner admitted he had served as an armed SS guard at Auschwitz in 1942.
The OSI filed court papers in August 1991 to deport him.
OSI Director Neal Sher said Hahner wilfully concealed his service as a concentration camp guard and his membership in the Nazi SS Death’s Camp Battalion when he applied to immigrate to the United States in 1956 and again when he actually immigrated in 1958.
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