Helmut Oberlander

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Helmut Oberlander, born 1924 in Ukraine, is a Canadian resident whose citizenship has been revoked twice since 1995 ostensibly because he failed to disclose his wartme record as a translator for a Nazi-era German military anti-partisan occupation force during WWII from 1941-43 death squad when applying for immigation to Canada in 1954.

Oberlander is a retired Waterloo, Ontario developer. His Canadian citizenship was restored the first time by the Federal Court of Appeal.

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[edit] Legal proceedings

A federal judge ruled in 2001, on a balance of probabilities, that when he moved to Canada from Germany in 1954, Oberlander had lied about his unit membership.

The judge rejected three affidavits that citizenship applicants were not questioned about activities during the Second World War, but accepted the statement that no-one was granted a visa without a personal interview by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, as this was the RCMP's regulation at the time [1].

Oberlander faces deportation hearings, the government's next stage in its policy toward those suspected in involvement in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

[edit] Supporters

His supporters point out that he is not accused of participating in any war crimes, was not a Nazi party member or ever politically active, never attained a rank which put him in a position to affect the actions of his units or direct any of their wartime activities. They argue that Oberlander was just 17 when he was conscripted as an interpreter for German occupation units in Ukraine in 1941. They would point out that the judicial finding that he failed to disclose his wartime record when applying for immigration to Canada was based on a balance of probabilities that he was indeed likely to have been asked and likely gave a false answer rather than on any evidence that he actually did so. They point out that Oberlander has been a model citizen since coming to Canada, and that his removal or stripping of citizenship serves only partisan political purposes and unfairly targets a decent and innocent man who was himself a victim of forces well beyond his control before, during and after the second world war.

[edit] His Detractors Allege

Oberlander's critics say his contributions to the Nazi killing squad were significant and therefore worthy of action. Wartime documents reveal that Oberlander was an ethnic German from the vicinity of Zaporizhia in Ukraine, served in the Nazi Security Police and SD (the Security Service of the SS) from 1941 until at least 1944. The unit in which he served, Special Detachment 10a of Einsatzgruppe D, was comprised of 100 to 120 men and was responsible for annihilating all persons in its areas of operation who were considered "undesirable" by the Nazi regime, particularly the Jewish and Sinti and Roma (so-called Gypsy) inhabitants. They refer to a document later used at the Nuremberg trials, in which Einsatzgruppe D reported at the beginning of April 1942 that it had "executed" 91,678 persons since the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Other reports are cited which disclose that tens of thousands of these victims were Jews. During the summer of 1942, Special Detachment 10a was issued a poison gas van with which to carry out additional mass murders, which hitherto had been performed by shooting. In one report to Berlin, Einsatzgruppe D declared that "the Jewish problem has been solved" in the area in which Special Detachment 10a was then operating. In January 1943, Oberlander was awarded the War Meritorious Service Cross Second Class for his service in Special Detachment 10a and cite this as indicating a willing participation in the war crimes committed by this unit.

[edit] Legal response

His lawyer, Eric Hafemann, called the cabinet decision flawed, as was the first revocation, and predicts a second reprieve. Hafemann will ask for a judicial review of the citizenship decision.

[edit] Sources