Feds: Bellevue Man Was In Nazi 'Mobile Killing Unit'

[struggle4progress]

Source: KIRO TV

POSTED: 2:52 pm PDT July 15, 2008
UPDATED: 3:29 pm PDT July 15, 2008

Federal authorities say an 86-year-old Bellevue man participated in the mass murder of thousands of Serbians during World War II, and they want a judge to revoke his U.S. citizenship.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle said Peter Egner joined the Nazis in German-occupied Belgrade, Serbia, in April 1941, and was part of a "mobile killing unit" that claimed more than 17,000 victims, mostly Jewish men, women and children, in 1941 and 1942.

Egner's unit took women and children from a concentration camp outside of Belgrade, forced into a van where they were asphyxiated with carbon monoxide gas and taken to a mass burial site.

"The Nazi unit in which Peter Egner is alleged to have participated was responsible for countless deaths and unimaginable human suffering," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich in a news release. "By bringing this action today, we again declare our unwavering commitment to the principle that participants in Nazi crimes should not be afforded the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship" ...

Read more: http://www.kirotv.com/news/16892148/detail.html

[pnwmom]

1. Wow. I wonder if his relatives had any idea. n/t

[alfredo]

2. Those lampshades from the old country might not be as nice

a gift as they first thought.

[Indenturedebtor]

3. Yikes tasteless n/t

[struggle4progress]

6. Not such a funny joke for living people who have tattooed numbers on their arms

[alfredo]

7. It was just a statement on his mindless brutality.

[provis99]

4. the article isn't clear as to whether he was a Nazi party member

If he was, he is ineligible for U.S. citizenship, and it can be revoked and he be deported. But I suspect the author of the article knows he wasn't a Nazi member, since it only refers to him joining a "Nazi unit", a typical euphemism for anyone who served in the German armed forces in WWII.

If he wasn't explicitly a Nazi Party member, they have no cause for revoking his citizenship, even if he were to be convicted of war crimes.

[struggle4progress]

5. Gotta link for your legal theory?

[Xithras]

8. I almost hate to post this here...

Especially after participating in the other discussion about that other Nazi, BUT I think this should be taken into consideration here.

I've been loosely following this story for a while now, and there are a few things worth mentioning here. First, Peter Egner was not an SS soldier (Serbs weren't welcome in the SS because Tito and another large Serb group had an active rebellion going on and the Nazi's were paranoid about spies...so the Yugoslav SS was almost entirely Croats and Bosniaks who really didn't like the Serbs anyway), a death camp guard, or an executioner. He was a non-officer in the Security Police. His job? Guarding jail cells and translating. People tend to talk about his unit, but it was a very large unit and his job was a bit more mundane.

Which begs an interesting question. Typically, we have always arrested and deported people who were involved in the commission of war crimes directly. Concentration camp guards and that sort of thing. Nobody is accusing Egner of that sort of crime, but the position of the government (and the Simon Weisenthal Center) is that he should be deported simply because he was stationed in a unit that WAS associated with those sorts of crimes...even though all sides admit that Egner himself probably had no real role in them. That's actually a new position for the government to take, and if it succeeds will open the door for the deportation of tens of thousands of refugees and immigrants in the U.S., including child soldier refugees. The old standard was "those with responsibility for war crimes get deported". The new standard would be "those who had any association with war crimes get deported". It's a slippery slope, since many people can become "associated" indirectly or even against their will.

The clincher for me, when I read about this guy, was when I discovered what would happen if he actually were deported. Nothing. Apparently Serbia isn't interested in prosecuting him because (drumroll) there is no evidence that he was directly involved in any war crimes. Israel isn't interested in getting involved either, because there is no evidence that he was directly involved in the genocide against Jews (though he certainly knew what his fellow unit members were doing). His role apparently had to do with translating in the interrogations of political prisoners, not Jewish detainees, so Israel could care less about his fate.

[struggle4progress]

9. DOJ complaint asserts he hid facts in his 1965 naturalization petition,

lied about his activities during the war, and escorted prisoners to an execution site

<pdf DOJ complaint via Seattle PI:>http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/seattle911/library/alleged_nazi_complaint.pdf

I am unfamiliar with the case: feel free to provide links