John Hansl

Who was John Hansl?

John Hansl entered the Nazi Waffen SS in 1943, aged eighteen.

Born Johann Hansl in Donji Miholjac, Yugoslavia, in what is now part of present day Croatia, to ethnic German parents, he served as an armed SS Death's Head battalion guard of civilian prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, and later at the Natzweiler concentration camp in France.

After World War II he moved to Austria. He emigrated to the United States in 1955 and was granted citizenship in 1960. He became a U.S. citizen in 1966. Later his wife and family joined him. On April 8, 2005, a federal court working with evidence obtained by the Office of Special Investigations, revoked his American citizenship because of his service as a Nazi concentration camp guard. The judge ruled that "regarding his personal conduct as a Death's Head guard leaves no room for factual dispute whether he personally advocated or assisted in persecution". The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case.