Justice Department Withholds Deportation of Ex-nazi After He Gives Up His U.S. Citizenship

The Justice Department agreed yesterday to withhold deportation proceedings for the time being against Otto Albrecht von Bolschwing, a former Gestapo official involved with Adolf Eichmann in the liquidation of Jews, who voluntarily gave up his U.S. citizenship, acquired illegally in 1959 by concealing his Gestapo connection.

Allan Ryan who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), said deportation was waived for the present because von Bolschwing, 72, has a health problem which impairs his ability to assist in his defense. The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, California, must be approved by the court to be final.

Von Bolschwing was one of II former Nazis residing in the U.S. against whom denaturalization proceedings were underway before he relinquished citizenship. In doing so, he admitted only to membership in the Nazi Party. But his Gestapo associations have been documented in “Nazi War Criminals in America: Facts … Action” by Charles Allen Jr. and Rochelle Saidel-Wolk, published this year.

According to the writers, he worked as an agent for Eichmann’s office in the SS subsection of the Reich Central Security Office, Jewish Affairs. He provided intelligence on Jewish organizations and their leaders to prepare for deportations in implementing the “Final Solution.” Court papers filed against him last May stated that he participated in Nazi persecutions of Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, notably as the head of the Gestapo’s intelligence section in Rumania.

Ryan said von Bolschwing claimed publicly that he became a U.S. intelligence agent after World War II but that such claims did not influence the Justice Department in suspending deportation proceedings.