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News Article: Expelled Nazis got millions in Social Security

Bamaro

Bamaro

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OSIJEK, Croatia (AP) -- Former Auschwitz guard Jakob Denzinger lived the American dream.

His plastics company in the Rust Belt town of Akron, Ohio, thrived. By the late 1980s, he had acquired the trappings of success: a Cadillac DeVille and a Lincoln Town Car, a lakefront home, investments in oil and real estate.

Then the Nazi hunters showed up.

In 1989, as the U.S. government prepared to strip him of his citizenship, Denzinger packed a pair of suitcases and fled to Germany. Denzinger later settled in this pleasant town on the Drava River, where he lives comfortably, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. He collects a Social Security payment of about $1,500 each month, nearly twice the take-home pay of an average Croatian worker.

Denzinger, 90, is among dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards who collected millions of dollars in Social Security payments after being forced out of the United States, an Associated Press investigation found.

The payments flowed through a legal loophole that has given the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave. If they agreed to go, or simply fled before deportation, they could keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal government records.
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_NAZI_SOCIAL_SECURITY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
 
B

Bodhisattva

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The payments flowed through a legal loophole that has given the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave. If they agreed to go, or simply fled before deportation, they could keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal government records.
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So, arresting Nazis is not an option? WTH? We know who you are; here's a nice severance package?

And this was done intentionally by our government. Not incompetence. No one gamed the system. This was a government plan. Nice. SMH.

Government bureaucracy is awesome. We should have more of it. :rolleyes:
 
Crimson1967

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If he paid into Social Security I would say he is entitled to it.

Why he isn't in prison is another matter altogether. Our government's position was to just let them leave?
 
TIDE-HSV

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Crimson1967 said:
If he paid into Social Security I would say he is entitled to it.

Why he isn't in prison is another matter altogether. Our government's position was to just let them leave?
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Actually, we have very few laws meting out criminal punishment for crimes committed abroad, much less laws applicable to persons before they became US citizens. OTOH, Germany has pretty stiff laws against war crimes, along with a no-jury, lower burden of proof system. It would be very difficult to successfully prosecute these guys here, anyway. Most of their victims are dead or very, very old. Even with the greatly lower burden for deportation, many of these cases have dragged on for years. The Demjanjuk case left a sour taste in a lot of lawyers' mouths, the identifications were so vague and questionable, he was finally extradited on a technicality - that he had lied on his admission papers. Even Germany couldn't prosecute him, so we gave him to Israel.

As the alleged culprits have died off, the division of the DOJ devoted solely to the tracking down of NAZIs has become more and more desperate. In their waning years, they have overreached, IMO, time and time again to maintain their funding and relevance. In their zeal, they came to resemble more and more what they detested. BTW, I'm pretty much beyond accusations of antisemitism, having had a Jewish law partner for over 30 years (might be a reason to turn anti-semite) and attended NYU, where I was one of about 10% who weren't Jewish.

I'm just pointing out that the situation is a helluva lot more complex than it seems on the surface, and there're very good reasons our government has made the bargains and tradeoffs on SS and the like. One ironic comeuppance has been the sinking of the dollar against the Euro, with its attendant effect of devaluing pensions being paid in dollar amounts. That's a whole 'nother story...
 
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Bodhisattva

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TIDE-HSV said:
Actually, we have very few laws meting out criminal punishment for crimes committed abroad, much less laws applicable to persons before they became US citizens. OTOH, Germany has pretty stiff laws against war crimes, along with a no-jury, lower burden of proof system. It would be very difficult to successfully prosecute these guys here, anyway. Most of their victims are dead or very, very old. Even with the greatly lower burden for deportation, many of these cases have dragged on for years. The Demjanjuk case left a sour taste in a lot of lawyers' mouths, the identifications were so vague and questionable, he was finally extradited on a technicality - that he had lied on his admission papers. Even Germany couldn't prosecute him, so we gave him to Israel.

As the alleged culprits have died off, the division of the DOJ devoted solely to the tracking down of NAZIs has become more and more desperate. In their waning years, they have overreached, IMO, time and time again to maintain their funding and relevance. In their zeal, they came to resemble more and more what they detested. BTW, I'm pretty much beyond accusations of antisemitism, having had a Jewish law partner for over 30 years (might be a reason to turn anti-semite) and attended NYU, where I was one of about 10% who weren't Jewish.

I'm just pointing out that the situation is a helluva lot more complex than it seems on the surface, and there're very good reasons our government has made the bargains and tradeoffs on SS and the like. One ironic comeuppance has been the sinking of the dollar against the Euro, with its attendant effect of devaluing pensions being paid in dollar amounts. That's a whole 'nother story...
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Good information Earle. Thanks.

But, just to go completely non sequitur, based on this and another current thread, it appears that it is better to be a Nazi than a guy who sits at home and looks at cartoon porn.
 
TIDE-HSV

TIDE-HSV

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Bodhisattva said:
Good information Earle. Thanks.

But, just to go completely non sequitur, based on this and another current thread, it appears that it is better to be a Nazi than a guy who sits at home and looks at cartoon porn.
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It's a closer to home situation for us who live in HSV. I lived next door to a NAZI party member for nine years. Nice guy and a good father. There were many reasons to join, just as there were reasons to join the Communist Party in the USSR. Advancement of career probably led the whole pack. I hope to God I never live in a country where people can be rounded up and shot because of beliefs alone. It seems strange to me to call for less federal government and then espouse summary execution, but that's just me.

I saw your blue font stuff. I'm still scratching my head over that one. That would appear to be the perfect "victimless" crime. I haven't quoted the AL statute at length in my attempts to complete Boston's education, but it contains lengthy standards by which a minor's age may be ascertained. I don't know how to apply that to an imaginary cartoon...
 
crimsonaudio

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TIDE-HSV said:
Not sure what "active forces" means...
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Those who actively served the military, as in those at the camps, etc.

Standard front-line soldiers didn't know about all the stuff the NAZIs were doing behind the scenes, only heard rumor. Those at the camps deserve no quarter.
 
Tide1986

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crimsonaudio said:
Those who actively served the military, as in those at the camps, etc.

Standard front-line soldiers didn't know about all the stuff the NAZIs were doing behind the scenes, only heard rumor. Those at the camps deserve no quarter.
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Well, I disagree. The "no quarter" standard should apply to a very few in my opinion. Just because one worked at a camp shouldn't mean automatic execution in my opinion.
 
TIDE-HSV

TIDE-HSV

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crimsonaudio said:
Those who actively served the military, as in those at the camps, etc.

Standard front-line soldiers didn't know about all the stuff the NAZIs were doing behind the scenes, only heard rumor. Those at the camps deserve no quarter.
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That's better, but I tend to agree with 1986. It was exhausting, but each and every defendant at Nuremberg was given separate consideration as to his guilt and complicity. That's the only way to do it. When you start rounding up a bunch of suspects and gunning them down, then they've succeeded. We are then down on their level - subhuman - except that we won. I consider it a great experience to have had one of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials as my criminal law professor in law school. Occasionally, he would get off into reminiscences of the trials. Fascinating stuff...
 
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