Jakob Denzinger, a suspected former Nazi prison guard at Auschwitz and other camps, has died in his native Croatia. He was 92.
The death announcement by Denzinger’s family says he was buried Saturday at a local cemetery near Osijek in eastern Croatia. Local media said he died at hospital on Thursday.
Denzinger was born in present-day Croatia, which was part of Yugoslavia at the time. He started serving with the Nazi SS at the age of 18, in 1942, while Croatia was under a pro-Nazi puppet regime.
He was posted at several camps, including the Auschwitz death camp complex in occupied Poland.
Denzinger moved to the U.S. after the war, settling in Ohio where he became a successful plastics industry executive.
Years later, the Justice Department uncovered his past. In 1989, as U.S. prosecutors prepared their case to strip Denzinger of his citizenship, he first fled to Germany and later moved to Croatia.
Denzinger was among dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards who collected millions of dollars in U.S. Social Security benefits after being forced out of the United States. An Associated Press investigation into the issue resulted in a law in 2014 barring suspected Nazi war criminals from receiving U.S. government pension benefits.
Croatian authorities in 2014 opened an investigation of Denzinger’s World War II service, but he was never tried. He had refused to comment on the allegations.
(AP)
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One Response
It is mathematically impossible for someone his age to have collected a million in social security, even if he had 35 years employment at the maximum rate – which is unlikely given his career and history. At 92 he at most has been collecting social security for 27 years, and even at the top rate that would not come to even one million.
Perhaps the article refers to many individuals who collected small amounts that added up to millions. Remember the US was very inclined to protect Nazi war criminals if it helped the US in its cold war with the former Soviet Union – but these guys would not have had time to build up large social security accounts.