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John Hansl, 82; ex-Nazi guard whose U.S. citizenship was revoked

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From Times Wire Reports

John Hansl, 82, whose citizenship was revoked because he served as a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II, died Friday of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Des Moines, Iowa, his daughter said.

Hansl was born in 1925 in what is now Croatia and was recruited by the Waffen S.S. when he was 17. He maintained that he committed no atrocities during his service as a guard at concentration camps at Sachsenhausen, near Berlin, in 1943 and Natzweiler, in France, in 1944.

He immigrated to the United States in 1955 and was granted citizenship in 1960.

His wife and children became citizens the following year, and he lived in Des Moines for more than 40 years.

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The U.S. Justice Department filed a complaint in 2003 seeking to revoke Hansl’s citizenship, asserting that he did not qualify for a visa to enter the country because he had not revealed that he had been a concentration camp guard.

A federal judge revoked Hansl’s citizenship in April 2005.

A federal appeals court in St. Louis upheld the ruling in March 2006, and in October 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

That decision meant the government could begin the process of deporting Hansl.

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