Suspected Nazi gets another reprieve
A 92- year- old Ontario man who has been fighting deportation for 20 years over his link to a Nazi killing unit has won another reprieve.
Ottawa began legal proceedings to strip Helmut Oberlander, a retired Waterloo developer, of his citizenship in 1995. But Oberlander has successfully fended off deportation through multiple appeals. Last week, the Federal Court of Appeal sent his case back to Ottawa for reconsideration over questions about the level of his complicity in war crimes.
On Monday, Shimon Koffler Fogel of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said the man was “contriving to abuse the judicial system to avoid responsibility.”
“Oberlander was a member of one of the most savage Nazi killing units. … That he clearly lied about his wartime past to fraudulently gain entry into this country is not in question,” he said.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre put Oberlander on its list of Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals for having served in the Nazi Einsatzkommando 10a, which is estimated to have killed 23,000 civilians, mostly Jews.
Ronald Poulton, Oberlander’s lawyer, said Monday his client’s role in the German unit was “limited and forced.” Oberlander’s daughter, Irene Rooney, has told reporters her father is not a Nazi war criminal and wants his good name restored.
Oberlander, who was born in Ukraine, became a Canadian citizen in 1960.
In 2000, a federal judge found Oberlander had obtained his citizenship after falsely representing or knowingly concealing his wartime past, prompting the federal cabinet to revoke his citizenship in 2001.
But the Federal Appeal Court set aside that decision in 2004 and sent it back to cabinet to reconsider. Cabinet was unmoved and in 2007 revoked his citizenship again. In 2009, the Federal Appeal Court overturned that on the basis of Oberlander’s claim he was forcibly conscripted. In 2012, cabinet found the defence of duress had not been established and revoked Oberlander’s citizenship a third time. Federal Court Judge James Russell upheld that decision in 2015.
But last week, the Federal Appeal Court sent the matter back to Ottawa on the grounds Russell had erred by failing to take into account a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that changed the standard for complicity in war crimes.
Oberlander had been found to be complicit in war crimes on the principle of “guilt by association,” his lawyer said. But the Supreme Court overruled that principle, creating a new standard that says a person has to have made a significant and knowing contribution to a group’s crime or criminal purpose.