FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRM THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1996 (202) 514-2008 TDD (202) 514-1888 JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MOVES TO DEPORT FORMER NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP GUARD The Department of Justice initiated deportation proceedings against Ferdinand Hammer, a Sterling Heights, Michigan, resident, who concealed from U.S. authorities that he was an S.S. concentration camp guard during World War II, and a guard on inmate transports between Nazi camps. On May 22, 1996, United States District Court Judge Horace W. Gilmore stripped Hammer, 74, a retired foundry supervisor, of his citizenship within two hours of the conclusion of four-day denaturalization trial. In a subsequently-issued written judgment, the Court found that " . . . defendant was a guards at the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps . . ." and that he served as a SS guard on prisoner transports between camps. The Court specifically found that Hammer's trial testimony denying that he served as a guard was not credible. Captured Nazi documents offered in evidence by the Department's Office of Special Investigation (OSI) confirmed Hammer's service at the concentration camps and on transports between camps. "horrible mistreatment was meted out to inmates of these camps," Judge Gilmore noted. The Court concluded that Hammer made material misrepresentations about his wartime persecutive activities in association with Nazi Germany in applying for U.S. naturalization in 1963. The Court cited an affidavit that Hammer executed in support of his application for U.S. citizenship, in which he swore that he had served only in combat units, fighting the Soviets, and that he had never worked in a concentration camp. Judge Gilmore accordingly revoked Hammer's citizenship. Hammer did not appeal the decision. During Hammer's service as an armed guard at the infamous Auschwitz death camp complex in Nazi-occupied Poland and Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany, thousands of people were interned at those camps because of their race, religion, nationality or political beliefs and were subjected by guards to such forms of persecution as beating, whipping, torture, starvation and mass murder. During transports, guards subjected the emaciated prisoners to exposure to freezing temperatures and inadequate rations and shot prisoners who were unable to continue walking, as well as anyone who tried to escape. The Order to Show Cause filed today in U.S. Immigration Court in Detroit by OSI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) office in Detroit alleges that Hammer should be deported for his participation in persecution in association with the Nazi government as an armed concentration camp guard and as a guard on prisoner transports. OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum stated that "Judge Gilmore has already ruled that the evidence compellingly proves that Hammer served as an armed SS guard in at least two of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps and also as a guard on prison transports. We intend to seek Hammer's expeditious removal from this country." Rosenbaum said that the commencement of proceedings to deport Hammer is a product of OSI's ongoing efforts to identify and take legal action against former participants in Nazi-sponsored persecution who reside in the United States. 57 Nazi persecutors have been stripped of U.S. citizenship and 48 have been removed from the United States since the unit began operation in 1979. More than 300 persons are currently under investigation by OSI. ### 96-531