The Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations announced Tuesday that it has filed court papers seeking the deportation of an Ohio man alleged to have served as an SS guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
A show-cause order was filed in Cleveland against Johann Hahner, 70, a German citizen and resident alien who has lived in this country since 1958. The order requires the alleged war criminal to demonstrate why he should not be deported.
The Justice Department claims that Hahner, a resident of the Cleveland suburb of North Olmsted, misrepresented his wartime experiences when he applied to immigrate to the United States and when he entered the country.
Hahner, an ethnic German born in Popovac, Yugoslavia, and raised in that country, served in the SS Death’s Head Battalion, according to OSI.
“Abundant evidence exists concerning the atrocities committed against thousands of civilians at Auschwitz during the period of Hahner’s SS service there,” OSI Director Neal Sher said in a statement.
The show-cause order states that Hahner first admitted his service at Auschwitz when he was questioned by an OSI attorney.
Since OSI was established in 1979, 35 Nazi persecutors have been stripped of U.S. citizenship, and 29 have been deported, extradited or have left the country voluntarily.
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