Nazis expelled from U.S. were paid millions in Social Security

Dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards collected millions of dollars in payments from the U.S. Social Security administration after being forced out of the country, according to an investigation by the Associated Press. The payments flowed through a legal loophole that gave the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave. If they agreed to go, or simply fled before deportation, they could keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal government records. Many lied about their Nazi pasts to get into the U.S. following World War II, and eventually became American citizens. Since then, the AP estimates the amount paid out has reached into the millions.

The matter of Social Security benefits eligibility was raised by defense counsel, not by the department, and the department neither used retirement benefits as an inducement to leave the country and renounce citizenship nor threatened that failure to depart and renounce would jeopardize continued receipt of benefits.

Peter Carr, U.S. Justice Department spokesman

Among those who benefited: Armed SS troops who guarded the Nazi network of camps where millions of Jews perished, and a German rocket scientist accused of using slave labour to build the V-2 rocket that pummeled London. He later won NASA’s highest honor for helping to put a man on the moon. The Justice Department denied using Social Security payments as a tool for removing Nazi suspects. But records show the U.S. State Department and the Social Security Administration voiced grave concerns over the methods used by the Justice Department’s Nazi-hunting unit, the Office of Special Investigations.

Americas