Possible Nazi war criminals fled to the US from Europe after World War II, became naturalized citizens, and then fled back to Europe to avoid persecution after they were outed, according to the AP. If true, this would mean that American taxpayers are unwittingly supporting fugitive Nazis overseas. Congress has finally tuned into the problem and will be voting to end the loophole this week. But is it 70 years too late?
With Friends Like These…
The subject of suspected Nazi war criminals caught the world’s attention after Jakob Denzinger, a naturalized American citizen and former Auschwitz guard, was found living in Croatia on taxpayer expense. Although his son defends the payments on the grounds that his father paid into the system, Denzinger himself said – quote – “I don’t want to say anything” and refused to comment further on the matter.
The AP report says that the State Department and the Social Security Administration accuse the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, or OSI, of pursuing a policy called ‘Nazi Dumping’. What that boils down to is finding suspected Nazis and pressuring them to leave the US for another country in exchange for continuing their social security benefits. Apparently, the world’s ‘global policeman’ doesn’t want to police itself or selected international criminals residing on its territory, choosing instead to shoo them off to become someone else’s problem, specifically EU member states. As they say, with friends like these…
Legal Loopholes
The AP report also points out that over $1.5 million dollars had already been doled out to over 28 suspected Nazis by March 1999. Only 4 of the 66 suspects are still alive, with all of them living in Europe and still receiving social security. There was a legislative initiative 15 years ago to close the legal loophole that allowed this happen, but apparently, the OSI opposed it. Justice Department spokesperson Peter Carr wrote in an emailed statement that the office was against the legislation because it would have undermined the mandate to remove the Nazis to countries where they could be prosecuted.
But why can’t Washington simply prosecute them? After all, if they can unilaterally take out foreign leaders like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, what’s a lowly Nazi prison guard against the US legal apparatus? ‘Legal loopholes’ may be preventing some aspects of the US government from pursuing these Nazis, but the fact that Social Security had been doling out payments to them for all these years indicates that logic loopholes might been an even larger problem. Let’s hope that true bipartisanship can finally end this madness.
