LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Federal authorities have begun deportation
proceedings against an 85-year-old suburban Atlanta man
who they say served as a Nazi guard and trained and handled
attack dogs at the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration
camps.
The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security
allege Paul Henss, a German citizen who lives in Lawrenceville,
about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, entered the U.S. in
1955 after hiding his concentration camp service.
The Department of Justice announced the action against Henss
on Monday; federal authorities filed an immigration document
making the allegations Sept. 4.
On Monday, in his driveway in a tidy, middle-class neighborhood
where the streets are named after tennis stars, Henss said
he had been an SS soldier and had trained German shepherds
and Rottweilers during World War II, but he angrily denied
being a war criminal.
"I didn't commit no crimes," Henss said in a thick
German accent. "I didn't hurt nobody. Otherwise I wouldn't
have come to the United States."
Henss called the Holocaust "a catastrophe" and
said: "Everybody in Germany knows that wasn't right."
According to federal authorities, Henss joined the Hitler
Youth organization in Germany in 1934 as a 12- or 13-year-old
boy and joined the Nazi Party in 1940.
He entered the Waffen SS in 1941 and volunteered the following
year to become an SS dog handler, serving from 1942 to 1944
at the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps in Germany,
the immigration document states.
There, Henss instructed other guards in the use of trained
attack dogs to guard prisoners and prevent their escape,
and personally guarded prisoners and forced-labor details
to prevent escapes, authorities allege.
SS regulations during Henss' time of service said dogs were
to be trained "to 'bite without mercy' and to literally
tear prisoners to pieces if they attempted to escape," the
document states.
Henss admitted in a sworn statement March 13 that he served
as an SS guard at Dachau and Buchenwald for two to three
months each as a dog handler, according to the charging document.
On Monday, he acknowledged training dogs but said he fought
in Russia and never set foot inside Dachau or Buchenwald.
"The training of dogs was no crime," Henss said
with his wife sobbing next to him outside their well-kept
one-story brick house. "I was not training them to hurt
people."
Henss said that when he came to the U.S. 33 years ago, he
did not tell immigration officials about his military service
in Germany and was not asked.
"I forgot about the war," he said. "I wanted
to leave the war behind me."
After coming to America, he worked in the packing industry,
he said. He added that he does not know why his wartime service
is being questioned more than six decades later.
A message left Monday for Henss' attorney, Douglas Weigle,
was not immediately returned.
The deportation case was filed after a review of German
records, prosecutors said. Jaclyn Lesch, a Justice Department
spokeswoman, said the government does not plan to file criminal
charges against Henss.
Henss is hard of hearing, has had some heart problems and
uses a walker. He said he has lived in Georgia for 10 years.
"We couldn't even imagine that Mr. Henss could do that," said
Nuzzu Syed, who lives two doors down. "They're such
a nice, elderly couple."
Rabbi Ronald Bluming, the spiritual leader of the county's
oldest synagogue, said the news was "disturbing."
"I hate to rush to judgment. If it's going through
the courts, we need to wait for more information," said
Bluming, who has led Temple Beth David for six years. "But
it seems he's in denial. He seems surprised this came to
light, a little taken aback about being discovered."
The Office of Special Investigations, which handles cases
against people accused of being former Nazis, began operations
in 1979. Authorities said it has won cases against 106 participants
in Nazi crimes.
Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi
hunter, said in a telephone interview from Israel that it
probably took decades to identify Henss' alleged connection
to the Nazis because of the time necessary to obtain records.
"There were so many perpetrators, so many people who
played a role, it takes a very long time to carry out a comprehensive
... reference of all of the individuals who in any way participated
in the crimes of the Holocaust," he said.
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