15 November 2007
An 85-year-old man accused of being a Nazi dog handler has returned to Germany rather than fight to stay in the US. Paul Henss was accused of training and handling attack dogs at the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. A US Immigration Judge ordered him deported after a hearing on Tuesday conducted without Henss or an attorney on his behalf present. An attorney with the Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations told the judge that Henss had left for his native Germany the previous week.
According to federal authorities, Henss joined the Nazi Party in 1940, entered the Waffen SS in 1941 and volunteered the following year to become an SS dog handler, serving from 1942 to 1944 at the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. At the camps, Henss instructed other guards in the use of trained attack dogs to guard prisoners and prevent their escape, and personally guarded prisoners and forced-labor details to prevent escapes, authorities allege. SS regulations during Henss' time of service said dogs were to be trained "to 'bite without mercy' and to literally tear prisoners to pieces if they attempted to escape.
