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US resident, 87, sought by Germany over war crimes
Source: Agencies |
September 24, 2012, Monday
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GERMANY has launched a war crimes investigation against an 87-year-old Philadelphia man it accuses of serving as an SS guard at Auschwitz, following years of failed US Justice Department efforts to have the man stripped of his American citizenship and deported.
Johann "Hans" Breyer, a retired toolmaker, admits he was a guard at Auschwitz during World War II, but says he was stationed outside the facility and had nothing to do with the slaughter of some 1.5 million Jews and others behind the gates.
The special German office that investigates Nazi war crimes has recommended prosecutors charge him with accessory to murder and extradite him to Germany for trial on suspicion of involvement in the killing of at least 344,000 Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in occupied Poland.
Experts estimate that at least 80 former camp guards or others who would fall into the same category are still alive today, almost 70 years after the end of the war.
Authorities in the Bavarian town of Weiden, who have jurisdiction, are currently trying to determine if the evidence is sufficient for prosecution.
Breyer acknowledged in an interview in his house in northeastern Philadelphia that he was in the Waffen SS at Auschwitz but that he never served at the part of the camp responsible for the extermination of Jews.
"I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody - and I don't even have a traffic ticket here," he said. "I didn't do anything wrong."
He said he was aware of what was going on inside the death camp, but did not witness it himself. "We could only see the outside, the gates," he said.
Breyer said he had recently suffered three "mini-strokes." But he was cogent and clear as he talked to an Associated Press reporter about his past for more than an hour, sitting in his living room.
For more than a decade, the Justice Department waged court battles to try to have Breyer deported. They largely revolved around whether he had lied about his Nazi past in applying for immigration or whether he could have citizenship through his American-born mother.
That legal saga ended in 2003, with a ruling that allowed him to stay in the United States, mainly on the grounds that he had joined the SS as a minor and could not be held legally responsible for participation in it.
He testified in a US court that he served as a perimeter guard at Auschwitz I, which was largely for prisoners used as slave labor, though it also had a makeshift gas chamber used early in the war. It was also the camp where SS doctor Josef Mengele carried out sadistic experiments on inmates.
But he denied ever serving in Auschwitz II, better known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. He also said he deserted in August 1944 and never returned to the camp.
In 1951, American military authorities in Germany carried out a background check on Breyer when he first applied for a visa to the US. The file from that investigation lists him as being with a SS Totenkopf, or "Death's Head," battalion in Auschwitz as late as December 29, 1944 - four months after he said he had deserted.
The document is significant because judges in 2003 said Breyer's testimony on desertion was part of what convinced them that his service with the Waffen SS after turning 18 might not have been voluntary.
Breyer said he would fight any attempts to take him from the US and his wife and family. "I'm an American citizen, just as if I had been born here," he said. "They can't deport me."
Johann "Hans" Breyer, a retired toolmaker, admits he was a guard at Auschwitz during World War II, but says he was stationed outside the facility and had nothing to do with the slaughter of some 1.5 million Jews and others behind the gates.
The special German office that investigates Nazi war crimes has recommended prosecutors charge him with accessory to murder and extradite him to Germany for trial on suspicion of involvement in the killing of at least 344,000 Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in occupied Poland.
Experts estimate that at least 80 former camp guards or others who would fall into the same category are still alive today, almost 70 years after the end of the war.
Authorities in the Bavarian town of Weiden, who have jurisdiction, are currently trying to determine if the evidence is sufficient for prosecution.
Breyer acknowledged in an interview in his house in northeastern Philadelphia that he was in the Waffen SS at Auschwitz but that he never served at the part of the camp responsible for the extermination of Jews.
"I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody - and I don't even have a traffic ticket here," he said. "I didn't do anything wrong."
He said he was aware of what was going on inside the death camp, but did not witness it himself. "We could only see the outside, the gates," he said.
Breyer said he had recently suffered three "mini-strokes." But he was cogent and clear as he talked to an Associated Press reporter about his past for more than an hour, sitting in his living room.
For more than a decade, the Justice Department waged court battles to try to have Breyer deported. They largely revolved around whether he had lied about his Nazi past in applying for immigration or whether he could have citizenship through his American-born mother.
That legal saga ended in 2003, with a ruling that allowed him to stay in the United States, mainly on the grounds that he had joined the SS as a minor and could not be held legally responsible for participation in it.
He testified in a US court that he served as a perimeter guard at Auschwitz I, which was largely for prisoners used as slave labor, though it also had a makeshift gas chamber used early in the war. It was also the camp where SS doctor Josef Mengele carried out sadistic experiments on inmates.
But he denied ever serving in Auschwitz II, better known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. He also said he deserted in August 1944 and never returned to the camp.
In 1951, American military authorities in Germany carried out a background check on Breyer when he first applied for a visa to the US. The file from that investigation lists him as being with a SS Totenkopf, or "Death's Head," battalion in Auschwitz as late as December 29, 1944 - four months after he said he had deserted.
The document is significant because judges in 2003 said Breyer's testimony on desertion was part of what convinced them that his service with the Waffen SS after turning 18 might not have been voluntary.
Breyer said he would fight any attempts to take him from the US and his wife and family. "I'm an American citizen, just as if I had been born here," he said. "They can't deport me."
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