The U.S. Department of Justice has won a court order of deportation against a Michigan man who served as an armed Waffen SS guard at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps during World War II.
Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy found that Ferdinand Hammer, 75, participated in persecuting persons because of race, religion, national origin or political opinion.
In ordering Hammer’s deportation, Creppy cited German documents that confirmed his service in the Waffen SS at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen, and on prisoner transports between the two camps.
“This is a significant victory,” Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, said in a statement.
“The ruling reaffirms that those who helped the Nazis carry out their programs of murder and oppression may not claim the privilege of U.S. residence.”
Last May, the U.S. District Court in Detroit stripped Hammer of his U.S. citizenship on the grounds that the retired foundry supervisor lied about his wartime past when he applied for naturalization in 1963.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
