Sharon, PA - Judge Strips Ex-Nazi of Citizenship

Sharon, PA - A former Nazi concentration camp guard who has lived in Western Pennsylvania for about 50 years was stripped of his citizenship by a federal judge.

Anton Geiser, 81, of Sharon, Mercer County, has two weeks to hand over his certificate of naturalization, passport and any other documents indicating he is an American citizen, U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone ruled. His lawyers said they will appeal Cercone's decision to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
Federal prosecutors sought to have Geiser stripped of his citizenship and deported because he lied on his visa application in 1956 about serving in an SS Death's Head battalion. Had he made that admission then, they said, he would have been ineligible to become a naturalized citizen under the Refugee Relief Act of 1953.

Geiser admitted to being a member of the SS but said he had no choice. He said he never bought into the Nazi ideology. "What they were saying, it didn't penetrate my heart," Geiser told federal authorities. He said he never hurt or killed anyone.
Cercone, however, ruled that Geiser's actions amounted to persecution, according to his 12-page opinion. "The court finds that he personally assisted in the persecution of people because of race, religion or national origin," Cercone wrote. He vacated a March 1962 order by the Mercer County Court of Common Pleas which granted Geiser citizenship.
Geiser worked for 31 years at Sharon Steel and has lived on Cedar Street since 1960.

About 10,000 Nazis are believed to have come to the United States after World War II. The U.S. Department of Justice has brought cases against nearly 100.