The US Department of Justice Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations has petitioned a federal court to strip an Illinois resident of his citizenship claiming the man is a former Nazi concentration camp guard. Christopher A. Wray, Acting Assistant Attorney General, made the announcement of the petition saying that Joseph Witte, a Romanian native, served during World War II in the Waffen SS as a concentration camp guard in Germany.

According to the Justice Department's complaint, Wittje was born in Romania, entered the SS in July 1943 and served as an armed guard of prisoners in the SS Death's Head Guard Battalian (Totenkopf-Wachbataillon) at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp outside Berlin. He was assigned there until February 1945. Thousands of camp inmates including political prisoners, Jews and other civilians from across Europe died in the camp from starvation, disease, summary execution (including hanging, shooting and gassing) and medical experimentation.

In February 1945, Wittje is said to have transferred to a combat unit and served in that unit until the end of the war. In 1950, Wittje then allegedly obtained a US visa in Austria after hiding his Nazi past. Serving as a concentration camp guard would have made Wittje ineligible for a US visa. It would also have prevented him from getting his citizenship in 1959.

OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum said, “The Department of Justice will not relent in its efforts to identify Nazi persecutors such as Joseph Wittje and to ensure through legal action that they be stripped of their illegally obtained U.S. citizenship.”

Wittje would be the 71st such person to be stripped of their citizenship if the Justice Department succeeds in its complaint. Stripping a person of their citizenship is necessary before an individual can be deported.