Helmut Oberlander (born 1924) is a Canadian citizen who has been at the center of a Canadian government process regarding his Canadian citizenship. As an ethnic German born and living in Ukraine during World War II, he was conscripted into the German forces at the age of 17 to serve as an interpreter for the EK10A (Einsatzkommando) when they entered Ukraine in 1941. His duties included listening to and translating Russian radio transmissions, acting as an interpreter during interactions between the military and the local population, and the guarding of military supplies.
After immigrating to Canada with his wife Margaret in 1954, he ran a construction business and lived in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. He became a Canadian citizen in 1960. In 1995 the Government of Canada initiated a denaturalization and deportation process against him. On February 28, 2000, Judge Andrew MacKay reported his findings: he concluded that there is no evidence that Oberlander was involved, directly or indirectly, in committing any war crimes or any crimes against humanity. However he might not have disclosed his wartime record during his immigration interview in 1953 in Karlsruhe, Germany. The Canadian government determined that withholding this information was sufficient reason to strip Oberlander of his Canadian Citizenship. Andrew Telegdi who was Helmut Oberlander's Member of Parliament, and who was at the time parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Citizenship of Immigration resigned from that position in objection to this decision, arguing that the issue of deportation should be one decided by the courts; not by parliament.
In October 2008, the government revoked his citizenship.
In November 2009 the Federal Court of Appeal struck down this decision thus reinstating his citizenship.
His supporters say that he was not a German citizen during World War II, a Nazi Party member or ever politically active, and never attained a rank which put him in a position to affect the actions of his unit or direct any of its wartime activities. They say that Oberlander was just a 17-year old student when he was forced by threat of death to serve as an interpreter for German occupation units in Ukraine in 1941. They state that the judicial finding that he failed to disclose his wartime record when applying for immigration to Canada was based on the balance of probabilities and that he was not likely to have been asked. They also show that Oberlander has been a model citizen since coming to Canada in 1954, and that his removal or stripping of citizenship serves only partisan political purposes and unfairly targets an innocent man.
Oberlander's critics say that even though his contributions to the German forces were minor, the government was justified in proceeding against him because the unit he was conscripted into committed war crimes. Wartime documents show that Oberlander was an ethnic German from the vicinity of Halbstadt in Ukraine, and served in the SD (the Security Service of the SS) from 1941 until 1943. The unit in which he served, Detachment 10a of Einsatzgruppe D, was composed of 100 to 120 men and was responsible for annihilating persons in its areas of operation who were considered "undesirable" by the Nazi regime, particularly the Jewish, Sinti and Roma (so-called Gypsy) inhabitants. There is no evidence that Oberlander participated or was present at any war crimes.