DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Government: Deport alleged ex-Nazi guard

The Sharon man worked for Sharon Steel during the 1960s, '70s and ' 80s.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A man accused of having served as an armed guard at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II should be deported, the federal government said in a court filing Monday.
The Department of Justice has asked a federal court in Pittsburgh to revoke the U.S. citizenship of Anton Geiser, 79, of 411 Cedar Ave., Sharon.
The complaint alleges that Geiser served as a guard in the SS Death's Head Battalion at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany from January to November 1943, when he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
"These were notorious places of persecution where thousands of innocent civilians met their doom at the end of a gun or rope, or perished from malnutrition or the ravages of disease," Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the department's Criminal Division Office of Special Investigations, said in a statement.
Reached at his home by telephone, Geiser referred questions to his attorney but refused to say who was representing him, saying only that his attorney was located in Pittsburgh.
Past service
Geiser, born in what is now Croatia, joined the Waffen SS guard in 1942, came to the United States in 1956, and became a U.S. citizen in 1962, according to the Justice Department.
The Polk City Directory lists him as an employee of the Sharon Steel Corp. Works in Farrell during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as a lab technician and later as a furnace operator.
The complaint says that Geiser's alleged wartime service to Nazi Germany rendered him ineligible for a U.S. immigration visa, thereby rendering his citizenship unlawful.
"The privilege of American citizenship must not be enjoyed by those who were involved in the evils of the Nazi regime," U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said.
U.S. immigration laws were amended in 1978 to allow deportation of anyone who assisted or participated in Nazi acts of persecution. The amendment is known as the Holtzman Amendment.
Since 1979, the Office of Special Investigations has been investigating cases of former Nazis living in the United States and has won cases against 94 people.
In June, a federal appeals court ruled that the government could deport former Sachsenhausen guard Michael Negele of St. Peters, Mo., who settled in suburban St. Louis nearly 50 years ago.