German Expert Tells Court ID Photo Is Definitely Demjanjuk

A West German identification expert testified today his analysis left him without the “slightest doubt” that the photograph on a Nazi identification card matched the face of retired U.S. auto worker John Demjanjuk.

Reinhardt Altmann, 46, of Wiesbaden, told the court hearing the case against the man accused of being the feared Nazi death camp guard “Ivan the Terrible” that he found a wealth of similar facial features between Demjanjuk, 67, and the young man pictured in the ID card purportedly issued from the Trawniki Nazi SS training camp for prison guards in wartime Poland.

“For me, there is not the slightest doubt that these photographs show one and the same person,” Altmann said, referring to the ID card photo and recent photographs of the accused.

Altmann told the court there are 12 to 20 features on a person’s face that can lead to their identification with a very high probability. He said he places a picture of one-half of a person’s face in a special machine that superimposes it over another picture of the same half of a face to see if the two fit.

Defense lawyers contend the ID card--provided to prosecutors by Soviet authorities--is a KGB forgery. Altmann said earlier in the trial, now in its 10th week, that he found 24 common features between the 1942 ID card photograph and seven photographs of Demjanjuk taken between 1941 and 1986.

Among the characteristics were ears that stick out and a broad, rounded chin. Altmann said between 12 and 20 common features could identify a person from photographs with “a very high level of probability.”