Nazi unit leader dies at 100 in Minnesota
A RETIRED carpenter living in the US who was exposed as a former commander of a Nazi-led unit has died.
Michael Karkoc, whose family maintained that he had never been a Nazi or committed any war crimes, lived quietly for many decades in an Eastern European neighbourhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In 2013, a review of US and Ukrainian records by AP uncovered his Second World War activities, prompting investigations in Germany and Poland.
Mr Karkoc’s involvement in the war surfaced when the Nazi hunter Stephen Ankier came across his name. The subsequent investigation used a range of interviews and documents, including German military payrolls and company records, US Army intelligence files, Ukrainian intelligence findings and Mr Karkoc’s own self-published memoir.
The records showed that he had been a commander in the Ukrainian Self Defence Legion, which took direct orders from the SS intelligence agency.
His unit allegedly attacked a Polish village in 1944, killing dozens of women and children. It was also claimed that he lied to the American authorities about his military service to get into the United States after the war.
A second report by AP included testimony by one of Mr Karkoc’s own soldiers, who said he had ordered his men
Michael Karkoc pictured in 2014
to attack the village in retaliation for the killing of an SS major.
German prosecutors scrapped a case against him in 2015 because he was not fit to stand trial.
Public cemetery records show the 100-year-old died on December 14 last year, but news of his death was only reported in the US press this week. When contacted by an AP reporter, his son Andriy hung up the telephone without confirming his father’s death.
In a Ukrainian-language memoir published in 1995 and available at the Library of Congress, Mr Karkoc said he helped found the Ukrainian SelfDefence Legion in 1943 in collaboration with the SS.