John Hansl
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John Hansl (1925 – 29 June 2007 ) [1] was a German man from today's Croatia who entered the Nazi Waffen SS in 1943, aged eighteen.
Born in Donji Miholjac, Yugoslavia, in what is now part of present day Croatia to ethnic German parents, he served as an armed SS Death's Head battalion guard of civilian prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, and later at the Natzweiler concentration camp in France.
After World War II he moved to Austria. He emigrated to the United States in 1955 and was granted citizenship in 1960. He became a U.S. citizen in 1966. Later his wife and family joined him.
On April 8, 2005 a federal court working with evidence provided by the Office of Special Investigations revoked his American citizenship because of his service as a Nazi concentration camp guard. In this ruling the judge wrote "regarding his personal conduct as a Death's Head guard leaves no room for factual dispute whether he personally advocated or assisted in persecution". He maintained that he committed no atrocities during his service as a guard at concentration camps at Sachsenhausen and later at the French camp, Natzweiler ([1]).
The Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear an appeal of the lower court's ruling in the case. Hansl died in a nursing home in Des Moines, Iowa, aged 82, before the government could complete the procedures to deport him.
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