A former Nazi concentration camp guard who has lived in western Pennsylvania for more than 40 years had his American citizenship revoked by a federal judge. His attorneys plan to appeal. The Department of Justice had wanted Anton Geiser deported, saying he hid his service in the Waffen SS from U.S. officials when he immigrated in 1956.

“Individuals like Anton Geiser, who assisted the Nazis in their quest to extinguish the lives of millions of innocent men, women and children, do not deserve the benefits of U.S. citizenship,” U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said in a statement.

Geiser‘s attorneys said in a statement they planned to appeal.

Geiser, an ethnic German born in what is now Croatia, became an American citizen in 1962. The retired steelworker has lived in Sharon, about 60 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, since June 1960.

He served as an armed SS Death Head guard at the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin for much of 1943 and then was transferred to an SS officer training camp at Arolsen. There, he escorted prisoners to and from the Buchenwald camp, where tens of thousands of Jews and others were killed. He was at Arolsen until April 1945.

PH