16 years after escaping deportation, Nazi guard found hiding in Michigan

JTA ^ | 7-7-03 | Matthew E. Berger

[SJackson]

WASHINGTON, July 7 (JTA) — U.S. federal officials have arrested a Nazi guard who escaped deportation 16 years ago and was found hiding out in a secret compartment underneath the stairs of his former Michigan home. Johann Leprich, 77, was stripped of his citizenship in 1987 after a federal court judge found that he served as an armed SS Death´s Head guard at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in 1943 and 1944.

But Leprich´s attorney said he had fled the United States for Canada before he could be officially deported.

After an exhaustive search, agents from the Department of Homeland Security´s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement found Leprich on July 1.

"We caught him on a visit," said Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department´s Office of Special Investigations.

Rosenbaum said federal officials had received numerous reports of Leprich´s visits to the United States over the years, including one trip to Michigan to renew his driver´s license.

Investigators believe that Leprich spent most of the time after his citizenship was revoked in Canada, and it was easy for him to cross the border back into the United States, even without a passport.

Neighbors described Leprich, who apparently spent considerable time in the United States, as a "good man," who gave tomatoes from his garden to people, according to the Associated Press.

Rosenbaum said he hopes Leprich will receive an abbreviated deportation trial because of his previous conviction, and that Canada will refuse him entry.

Investigators were aided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Rosenbaum said.

"This arrest makes clear that those who participated in the atrocities of the Holocaust will not escape the determined reach of U.S. law enforcement, regardless of how much time has passed," Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a news release.

"Nazi collaborators will not find safe haven in the United States."

Leprich, who was featured on television´s "America´s Most Wanted" in 1997, immigrated to the United States in 1952, and became a naturalized citizen six years later. During his time at Mauthausen, inmates were used as slave laborers in a quarry located at the camp, and inmates were starved, beaten, tortured and killed by numerous methods, the court that prosecuted him said.

The Office of Special Investigations and Department of Homeland Security claimed in court papers filed last week that Leprich should be deported because of his service at Mauthausen and because he failed to comply with a statute requiring aliens residing in the United States to report their address to federal authorities.

Since 1979, 71 Nazi persecutors have lost their U.S. citizenship and 57 have been removed from the country.

[Ahban]

and some people say that the first person to use "nazi" in an argument automatically loses. Does Ashcroft automatically lose this one?

[Sir Gawain]

Or do you just follow TLBSHOW's on websites

He's gone and you're still talking about him. LOL

[A Citizen Reporter]

Wouldn't surprise me that you would miss him though.

[Fred Mertz]

Ashcroft is a loyal party member.

Sound familiar?

[MarkL]

Being a guard is a bad thing?

Yes it is, according to G. Gordon Liddy.

I guess it depends more on where you're a guard... Of course, I'm sure that this guy was really a nice guy when he was a guard at Mauthausen. Don't ya know, those Deaths Head SS guards were all angels?

Mark

PS, some of the photos were from Russian camps. Scroll down to the barracks photo from Mauthausen.

[Sir Gawain]

Wouldn't surprise me that you would miss him though.

You're the one that mentioned him on an unrelated thread. It's called projecting.

[Fred Mertz]

Can't the guy reform? After 60 years?

[ffusco]

Are you familiar with the Nuremberg trials?

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Fred, dear, you're losing your grip! Evil today is evil yesterday, and tomorrow. No passes on inhumane behavior just because it is older than the inhumane behavior of Vietnam, or Korea. This guard was only doing what he was ordered to do, but I guess if you are part of the evil done, you get to pay the price. What would you have done? Be part of the evil or defy your commanders? Actions have their consequences, now, then and forever.

[Poohbah]

Why don't you give the guy a break, J. Edgar Ashcroft?

I'll gladly givem a break. I'll give him LOTS of breaks. One per bone in his body.

[Skywalk]

LOL NO!!

Jeez, I guess if Osama reforms it's all well and good.

I'm still pissed that William Calley is breathing. No, certain crimes are never forgiveable, especially in light of the fact that just fading into obscurity is not at all a sign of redemption. Surely, if that was his goal and he felt terrible he'd have done something long ago that would have been proof that he repented.

[MarkL]

Can't the guy reform? After 60 years?

Ahhh... So are you saying that we should release all murders from prison, once they've "reformed?"

The guy never "reformed." Reforming means that you fessed up to what you did and accepted the punnishment. He never did that. He falsified his immigration documents, then fled when caught.

It seems that he had escaped justice for many years, and now that it's caught up to him, you're of the belief, "well, the poor guy was nice to his neighbors!"

Mark

[A Citizen Reporter]

"Ashcroft is a loyal party member. Sound familiar?"

Well how cute, Fred. On the one hand, you are trying to smear Ashcroft as being a loyal party member, but on the other hand you are trying to imply that by arresting a Nazi, Ashcroft is wrong.

"That was 60 years ago. Who is Ashcroft pandering to? Yes, I know the answer. 7 posted on 07/07/2003 11:05 PM CDT by Fred Mertz"

"This arrest makes clear that those who participated in the atrocities of the Holocaust will not escape the determined reach of U.S. law enforcement, regardless of how much time has passed," Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a news release.

[ffusco]

Reformed? how by fleeing justice for 16 years?

[Fred Mertz]

Yes, I'm familiar with the Nurnberg trials...and the Clinton impeachment not-a-trial too.

[SJackson]

Prisoners were forced to climb the 186 steps of the Wiener Graben with large blocks of granite on their backs. Often the blocks would fall, crushing limbs and bodies of those following, sometimes killing. The SS guards invented competitions betting on which prisoner would make it to the top first. Those surviving the ordeal would then be forced to jump from the edge of the quarry to their death below. This particular spot at the edge of the quarry was known “The Parachute Jump”.

“...in 1944 ....The SS led fourty-seven Dutch, American, and English officers and flyers, barefooted, to the bottom. On their first journey up the 186 steps they forced the men to carry twenty-five kilogram stones on their backs. On each successive journey they increased the weight of the load. If a prisoner fell, he was beaten. All fourty-seven died of the treatment”. [1]

[1] Konnilyn Feig, 1979, Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness, New York: Holmes and Meier. p. 121

==============

47 Dutch, American, and English flyers (forget the 2,000 or so Jews). This bozo's only punishment for his part is to return home. I shed no tears.

[MarkL]

Sorry, there was something else I meant to add... This guy was party to the murder of approximately 150,000 people. That's 50 times the number murdered at the World Trade Center. Are you sure that you want to offer this guy clemency?

Mark

[cookcounty]

"If you enjoy kicking down a 77 year-old man, have at it. "

A. He's an illegal alien. So at least it's a start.

B. He's going back home to Germany, where he'll end up, at worst, doing 5 years in a spiffy white-collar dormitory "prison."

Dry your tears.

[Fred Mertz]

I'm still pissed that William Calley is breathing.

Have you visited his jewelry store in Columbus, GA? I have.

[cookcounty]

"If you enjoy kicking down a 77 year-old man, have at it. "

A. He's an illegal alien. So at least it's a start.

B. He's going back home to Germany, where he'll end up, at worst, doing 5 years in a spiffy white-collar dormitory "prison."

Dry your tears.