(Newswire.net — October 20, 2014) — Internal US Government records obtained by the Associated Press, revealed that Social Security benefits became tools to secure agreements in which Nazi suspects would accept the loss of citizenship and move out of the United States. Given that US Social Secrutity benefits are three times the monthly salary in some European countries, the US provided an excellent lifestyle to a number of Nazis.
“Someone receiving an American pension could live very well in Europe or wherever they settled,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “We, in effect, were rewarding them. It didn’t make any sense”, said Hier.
Former Auschwitz guard Jakob Denzinger, 90 years old, was among dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals who collected millions of dollars in Social Security payments for voluntarily leaving the United States, an Associated Press investigation found.
Since 1989, Denzinger has been living in Croatia (EU), where he collects about $1,500 in Social Security each month, more than double the salary of a well paid worker in Croatia. Denzinger’s son, who lives in the US, confirmed his father receives Social Security payments and said he deserved them.
Denzinger is among at least four living beneficiaries of US Social Security, including Martin Hartmann, a former SS guard at the notorious Sachsenhausen camp in Germany. He moved to Berlin in 2007 from Arizona. Hartmann lost his US citizenship but is still on the payroll of the United States Social Security program.
Since 1979, at least 38 of 66 suspects removed from the country kept their Social Security benefits, according to the Associated Press.
Peter Carr, a Justice Department representative, said in an email statement, that Social Security payments were never used to persuade Nazi suspects to depart the United States.
The State Department cared more about diplomatic niceties than holding former members of Adolf Hitler’s war machine accountable, said Neal Sher, a former OSI director. “The practice known as Nazi-dumping stopped, but the benefits loophole wasn’t closed”. Sher said
“It’s absolutely outrageous that Nazi war criminals are continuing to receive Social Security benefits when they have been outlawed from our country for many, many, many years,” said US Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, a senior Democratic member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Malony said she plans to introduce legislation to close the loophole, however, by the time the legislation passes there will be no beneficiary Nazis, who lived their life in plenty on account of US tax payers, still living.