Washington – Judge Orders Deportation of Ex Buchenwald Nazi Guard to Austria

Washington – A US judge on Tuesday ordered the deportation of former Nazi concentration camp guard Anton Geiser to Austria.

Geiser, 85, immigrated from Austria to the United States in 1956 and became a naturalized US citizen six years later, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

“As a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II, Anton Geiser must be held to account for his role in the persecution of countless men, women and children,” Assistant Attorney General Breuer said in a statement announcing the removal decision by US Immigration Judge Charles Honeyman in Philadelphia.

“The long passage of time will not diminish our resolve to deny refuge to such individuals.”

Geiser is a resident of Sharon, a town in western Pennsylvania.

During a federal investigation that led to Geiser’s US citizenship being revoked by a court order in 2006, “Geiser admitted under oath that he served as an armed SS Death’s Head guard at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, near Berlin, Germany, for most of 1943,” the department said.

He also admitted to serving as a guard at Buchenwald Concentration Camp and its subcamp Arolsen from November 1943 to April 1945.

Geiser’s duties included escorting prisoners to slave labor sites and standing guard from the camp’s watch towers, and he was “under orders to shoot anyone attempting to escape,” according to the department.

“Without Anton Geiser and other members of the SS Death’s Head guard battalions, the Nazi concentration camp system could not have accomplished its diabolical objectives,” said Eli Rosenbaum, Director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy in the newly created Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

It remained unclear when Geiser would be deported, or exactly what charges he might face in Austria.

The case is part of a continuing US effort to bring Nazi fugitives and other human rights violators to justice, following the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which targets those who assisted Nazi-sponsored persecution.

The expulsion order came just over a year since John Demjanjuk was deported from Cleveland, Ohio to Germany to face charges of helping murder 27,900 Jews as a guard at a Nazi death camp.

Demjanjuk, now 90, is in the midst of his trial in Munich. While doctors judged him fit to stand trial, Demjanjuk’s family says he is suffering from a litany of health complaints and will likely not survive the court proceedings.

He was taken to hospital on Tuesday after complaining of heart problems, a court spokesman said.