Karl Linnas ran a Nazi concentration camp in Estonia. He was one of the highest-ranking Nazi collaborators ever found in the United States. His orders to execute Jews at the Estonian camp provided the basis of the denaturalization and deportation case against Linnas: “As the head Estonian in the camp, he ordered guards to fire on prisoners kneeling along the edge of an anti-tank ditch; the dead fell directly into their graves.”1 The Office of Special Investigations became involved in 1979 and filed its first legal documents in November of that year. Although he did not contest the accusations, Linnas did not cooperate with the investigation. He considered depositions of Soviet witnesses to be unreliable because they were taken with Soviet officials present. In addition, he refused to answer certain questions when he was deposed and failed to submit evidence that would contradict the government’s case. In 1982 Linnas’s citizenship was revoked, and he was deported five years later. How was Linnas able to enter the United States in the first place? How and when was he able to obtain U.S. citizenship? What led to the discovery of his real past? Who was Karl Linnas?
In many respects Karl Linnas was an enigma. Not much is known about his early life. What is known is that Karl Linnas was Estonian. He was born on 6 August 1919, in Estonia, possibly in Tartu. Located on the Baltic Sea, Estonia has had a checkered past. Prior to the eighteenth century Estonia found itself under the control of Denmark, the German Knights of the Livonian Order, and Sweden.2 The Russians incorporated the small Baltic state into their empire in the eighteenth century. Although they desired control over their own land, Estonians did not gain independence until the cracks in the Russian Empire, which commenced with revolution in 1917, resulted in collapse in 1918 after World War I had ended. The Treaty of Versailles guaranteed the independence of the Baltic states—Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. For the next two decades, Estonia struggled to define itself politically as it vacillated between democratic and autocratic governance. Born in 1919, Linnas grew up during this contentious political period of Estonian history. Government upheaval and uncertainty influenced his outlook and perhaps shaped the decisions that he made during World War II.
As Estonia struggled to define itself politically, Europe encountered different difficulties in the 1930s. There were multiple flashpoints and unrest that threatened Estonia’s independence from outside. To the east Russia had undergone a communist revolution and now had a new name: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the USSR. First Lenin and then Stalin had instituted rapid change—in industry, in agriculture, and in the military—and this resulted in purges of the intelligentsia and the officer corps. To the west Adolf Hitler’s ascension to power unleashed a series of challenges to political autonomy and nationhood, as well as to certain ethnicities.
Within Germany Hitler and the Nazis targeted Jews by limiting types of employment available to them, boycotting their businesses, and passing the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which restricted them in other ways, including marriage. Nazi persecution of Jews during this period culminated in a campaign of mob violence known as Reichskristallnacht (Reich Crystal Night). In addition, Jews were forced to wear a yellow Star of David. Furthermore, the Nazis took steps to control Christian churches within Germany and negotiated an agreement with the Vatican in which they pledged to maintain the traditional rights of the Catholic Church—although they would not hesitate to violate that pledge if it suited their purposes. They also targeted the physically and mentally handicapped and non-Aryan groups. Hitler and the Nazi Party did not, however, limit their aggressive persecutions to religious or political groups within Germany. It didn’t take long for them to turn their gaze beyond their own borders.
In 1936 German troops entered the Rhineland, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Emboldened by the lack of response from his country’s European neighbors, particularly France, Hitler embarked on a plan of expansion while everybody nervously watched. In 1938 he orchestrated the Anschluss, and Austria became united with Germany. Next he set his sights on the Sudetenland, the industrial region of Czechoslovakia that bordered Germany. In September 1938 at the Munich Conference, the prime ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy acquiesced to Hitler’s request and, without permission from Czechoslovakia, handed control of the Sudetenland over to Germany. Europe breathed a sigh of relief. They had avoided war. As Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had so famously announced, they had achieved peace for all time. After all, they had Hitler’s assurances that Germany would not engage in further aggressive action. Six months later, however, the agreement would be broken, when German troops crossed the border and proceeded to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia. Abandoned and betrayed by its European allies, Czechoslovakia could not go it alone against Germany and did not put up much resistance. This period of uncertainty shaped Linnas’s world view. As Linnas reached maturity, tensions in Europe came to a head.
“Could things get any worse?” the Estonians must have wondered. As they watched, things did indeed get worse. Rhetoric from Berlin suggested that the Polish government was oppressing that nation’s German minority and made much of Europe nervous about what would happen next.3 Like Estonians, they would soon find out, when a startling announcement was made on 23 August 1939. Germany and the Soviet Union had reached an agreement—the Molotov-Ribbentrop, or the Soviet-Nazi, Non-Aggression, Pact—which, among other provisions, allowed the two nations to acquire spheres of influence in central and eastern Europe. Unbeknownst to Estonians, the Germans agreed not to oppose the Soviets’ reacquisition of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Tensions in Europe intensified. Soon Europe would be ablaze, and Estonians would ask themselves several questions. Could Estonia stay out of it? How would Estonians respond? Which side would they support? Furthermore, Karl Linnas would have to decide what he would do. Where did his loyalties lie? As events unfolded and he had to take a side, whose cause—Nazi Germany’s, the Soviet communists’, or Estonia’s—would he embrace?
On 1 September 1939 German troops invaded Poland. Thus World War II began in Europe. Although other European nations would quickly, but reluctantly, enter the fray, Estonia chose another path—complete neutrality—or at least that was the plan. The Soviet Union would force a change in Estonia’s stated neutrality, and it wouldn’t take long. Less than three weeks after German troops invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union honored its part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Soviet troops entered Poland from the east; moreover, a large number of additional Soviet troops were concentrated on the Soviet border with Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Estonians, including Karl Linnas, held their breaths, not sure what their government would do. Would Estonia be able to stick to its stated complete neutrality, or would the nation bow to pressure from the east?
It did not take the Soviet Union long to impose its will on Estonia. Using the presence of their troops on the border and threats of military force, the Soviets pressured the Baltic nation to sign a “so-called mutual military assistance pact” on 28 September 1939. Under one of the provisions of the pact, the Soviets established military bases in Estonia. Furthermore, the Soviets coerced Latvia and Lithuania to sign similar agreements. Although the Baltic nations were perhaps tempted to resist, the Soviet invasion of Finland persuaded them that resistance was futile. Despite hope to the contrary, things actually got worse. Citing authority granted under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union, after occupying them, “forcibly annexed” the three Baltic countries the following summer.4 Soviet occupation brought Estonia’s status as a free nation to an end, and the nation would not reclaim it for over fifty years. It was not until 1992 that Estonia regained its independence.
Uncertainty was the order of the day in Estonia beginning on 1 September 1939, when the first German troops entered Poland, and continuing with Soviet occupation. The situation in Estonia took another turn after 22 June 1941, when Operation Barbarossa—the German invasion of the Soviet Union—commenced. Soon pressure on the Baltic nations would come from multiple sides. Occupying Soviet troops would no longer pose the only threat to Estonians. Less than a month after the commencement of Barbarossa, the first German troops assaulted Estonia. The German onslaught forced Soviet forces to retreat. Shortly thereafter occupation by German troops, which would last until 1944, began. During the period of German occupation, the Nazis executed approximately eight thousand citizens or residents of Estonia. In addition, they housed over twenty thousand Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, and other “undesirables” in prison camps in Estonia. Many of these prison internees did not survive German occupation.5
Advancing along with German combat forces were mobile killing units—Einsatzkommandos—that had specific tasks. Einsatzkommandos were divided into battalions called Einsatzgruppen, which received orders to implement policy, particularly policy with regard to the Jewish population and other “undesirables,” such as communists, in Estonia and other occupied territories. The Einsatzgruppen elicited and received help in carrying out their duties from the Estonian Home Guard—the Selbstschutz—with some success. According to captured German records,
Einsatzgruppe A, aided by the Selbstschutz, successfully achieved one of its major objectives. By mid-January 1942, the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service was able to report that Estonia was “judenfrei” (free of Jews) and that the execution of Jews had been handled in such a manner so as to minimize public attention to the fact of the German extermination process (Record at 58, GX-6). While Jews were shot solely based upon the determination of their religious ancestry, Communists were shot only if they were active in the party, with the balance either being set free or detained in concentration camps (Record at 56).6
Where does Karl Linnas fit into this story? As the Germans occupied Estonia and persecuted Jews, communists, and others, what was Karl Linnas doing? Between 1940 and 1943 Linnas lived in Tartu, Estonia, during which time he was supposedly a student at the university, or at least that is what he indicated on his application to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 1959. While it is true that Linnas attended the University of Tartu, by 1 July 1941 he was no longer enrolled there or at any other university. Evidence exists, however, that shortly after the German occupation in July 1941, Linnas became a member of the Selbstschutz. There is also evidence that he joined, for almost two years, another organization during this time—the Omakaitse (Estonian Self-Defense), a paramilitary group working with the Nazis to arrest, imprison, abuse, and execute civilians.
On 10 July 1941 the first German troops arrived in Tartu. By the twelfth Maj. Friedrich Kurg, “leader of the forest brothers in Southern Estonia,” issued orders for the arrest of all Jews in the area.7 Recognizing that provisions had to be in place to house the arrested Jews, even if only temporarily, Field Cmdt. Maj. Hans Gosebruch requisitioned the Kuperjanov Barracks as the temporary holding center. Within a month, however, a more permanent facility—a concentration camp—was established. Even before the camp was finished, Linnas had joined the staff at Kuperjanov Barracks.
Although subordinated to Maj. Walter Scheichenbauer, the commander of the military police (Feldgendarmerie), Capt. Juhan Jüriste, as camp commandant, was in charge of hiring camp guards at the barracks. After interviewing prospective guards, he made his recommendations to Roland Lepik, who had the ultimate hiring authority. On 1 August Jüriste was replaced as camp commandant by Lepik; he had another task. Lepik’s new title was “chief of the Special Department of the Tartu Concentration Camp’s Commandantur.” Jüriste and Linnas were tasked with supervising the construction of the Tartu concentration camp. Upon completion of the construction, they subsequently supervised the transfer of Jews and others from Kuperjanov Barracks to the new concentration camp. Once the camp was up and running, Linnas was based there until at least May 1942. He wore a second lieutenant uniform, and his position at the Tartu concentration camp allowed him to wear a sidearm. Things gradually settled down into a routine—one that involved the execution of Jews.8
According to Jüriste,
In late afternoon, the officer with special tasks Koolmeister arrived at the concentration camp and instructed about 8–10 guards on the square. After some time, a closed truck drove up to the death barrack. The guards led by Koolmeister, as well as Lepik, Chief of the special department, also arrived. The door of the death barrack was open. Lepik stood at the door with a list, as did one of the guards who was at the disposal of the special department. Lepik read the name of a detenus, and the guard standing beside him stepped behind the detenus. This way, all the 8–10 detenus were brought out of the barrack, their hands were tied with a rope and they were placed in the truck. Before they were brought out, the people to be executed had been undressed in the barrack, they were brought to the truck in their underclothes and without shoes. After an attempted escape, the executees were also tied together with a rope.9
Until February 1942 the executions occurred at an antitank ditch called the “Jalak (or Jalaka) line,” which was adjacent to the Tartu-Riga Road.10
In October Linnas recruited Olav Karikosk to be a concentration camp guard. In the Tartu area, there were two concentration sites—first the exhibition grounds and then the Kuperjanov Barracks. According to Hans Laats, who supervised the guards at Kuperjanov Barracks, Linnas was a guard at the exhibition grounds before becoming “chief of the relocated concentration camp at the Kuperjanov Barracks.” Camp guards were also members of the Selbstschutz (Estonian Home Guard).11 According to Karikosk and Laats, detainees marked for execution were housed in special barracks: “Laats confessed to his own presence at one execution conducted at an anti-tank ditch (known as the ‘Jalaka Line’) outside Tartu. This excavation had been converted by the Einsatzkommandos into a mass grave site for the victims of their extermination process. In recounting a portion of Jalaka Line execution, he stated that Linnas was the individual who had announced the death sentence and had commanded the guards to fire on the prisoners who were kneeling at the ditch’s edge.”12 Although he did not witness the execution described by Laats, Karikosk, who also identified Linnas as the concentration camp chief, claimed that his boss ordered his presence at an execution.
Additional eyewitness testimony places Linnas at the Kuperjanov concentration camp barracks. Oskar Art transported prisoners—Jews and non-Jews—via bus to the Jalaka Line for execution on three occasions. According to Art, Linnas supervised the loading of the prisoners onto the bus. Another witness, Elmer Puusepp, crossed Linnas’s path in a different context—that of prisoner. A Soviet political officer, Puusepp was arrested by Selbstschutz in the summer of 1941 and imprisoned at Kuperjanov Barracks along with forty other prisoners, half of whom received assignment to the special barracks. Puusepp testified to Linnas’s participation in an incident at Kuperjanov Barracks. “This incident occurred in the City of Tartu when Linnas helped direct Jews being ordered from a Jewish school onto a red bus which had been used on occasions to remove prisoners from the death barracks at the concentration camp. Linnas was seen helping a little girl ‘5 or 6 years old’ with a doll as large as she was onto the bus. Puusepp noticed a guard carrying the little girl’s doll to storage that very same evening together with clothing and other personal effects taken from those persons who had just been executed.”13
In addition to eyewitness accounts, documentary evidence places Linnas at the Tartu concentration camp. After the war the Soviets discovered four documents, dated between November and December 1941. Each of these documents was signed by Karl Linnas over the title “Chief of Concentration Camps” or “Chief of Tartu Concentration Camp.” “The documents concerned the routine operation of the camp” and consisted “of orders and correspondence pertaining to prisoners” and other camp matters.14 In addition, they support the notion that Linnas had a supervisory role at the Tartu concentration camp and suggest that he was a member of the Selbstschutz.
Later charges against Linnas stemmed from the mass executions that occurred during his time as camp commander. Primary responsibility for organizing mass executions fell under the auspices of the Department of Special Affairs, which established a specific protocol.
Under the direction of the DSA, the executions proceeded as follows. A small red bus came to a “death barracks” for the condemned. These turned in their clothing and possessions before boarding. Their hands were tied behind their backs, and in many cases the group was tied together with a long rope. Witnesses indicated that the condemned were treated with unusual cruelty, including beatings and in some cases rape. Guards rode with the victims, usually were very drunk, and abused the condemned along the way. As prisoners were loaded onto the bus, remaining inmates of the death barracks were ordered to lie on the floor and not look out the windows. But the guards, preoccupied with the condemned, were unable to enforce this prohibition. Other prisoners and guards observed the activities and testified about them later.15
The execution site was the antitank trench, approximately three miles from the camp proper. A guard escorted each prisoner from the bus to the trench, where a sentence was read, though for Jews this might simply be “worthless race.” The guards then shot their victims. When Linnas supervised killings, he inspected the bodies to be certain there were no signs of life, following up with a final shot when necessary. Despite this, witnesses testified that at least some victims were buried still alive. According to the witnesses most of the shooters were volunteers.16
By May 1942 Linnas had moved on to military service and served with several groups that were part of the German army. First, he joined the Estonian Schutzmannschaft, or Auxiliary Police, and served in the capacity of a junior lieutenant. Between 1942 and 1944, after his service in the Estonian Schutzmannschaft, Linnas joined the Thirty-Eighth Estonian Police Battalion by July. On 3 August 1944 he suffered a shrapnel wound to his right shoulder and arm.17 With the Soviet advance westward into Germany, German forces retreated back into their homeland, and Linnas and his wife, Linda Saks, whom he had married a month earlier, and other collaborators went with them.
Although he initially moved around, Linnas ultimately established residence “in or near Neuberg” in West Germany, where he established contact with U.S. military authorities. On 22 August 1945 he received an American Expeditionary Force Registration Record, or DP-2 (Displaced Persons) card. Approximately a year later Linnas filed a sworn questionnaire with the “Third United States Army at Geretsried Displaced Persons Camp in Germany.” When he submitted the questionnaire, which was completed in Estonian, he was questioned by authorities about his information. In response, Linnas claimed “that during the years 1941 and 1942, his occupation was as a temporary draftsman and student.” When questioned about his military and political activity from 1936 to 1946, Linnas, downplaying his wartime work, stated, “that his only service was in the Army of the Democratic Estonian Republic, 1938 to 1940, as a sergeant, and in an Estonian security battalion in Tartu, Estonia, 1943 to 1944, as a sergeant.” On 5 July 1947 Linnas received an American Expeditionary Force Registration Record, or DP-3 card, from U.S. military authorities.18
Linnas and his family remained in Neuberg until the United States opened a door to another option on 25 June 1948, when Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act (DPA), which established a limited window during which certain displaced Europeans could obtain permanent residence status in the United States. In particular, Congress envisioned the DPA helping “those individuals who were victims of persecution by the Nazi government or who were fleeing persecution” or those “who could not go back to their country because of fear of persecution based on race, religion or political opinions.”19
For Linnas, the key protected group included individuals who could not return to their native countries because they faced persecution. With his homeland reoccupied by Soviet troops, it was too hot to go home. After all, among the groups targeted during his tenure at the Tartu concentration camp were communists. In Linnas’s case, however, the grounds for persecution or prosecution were war crimes, not race, religion, or political opinions; therefore, he decided to take advantage of the new U.S. legislation. Doing so, however, would mean being less than completely honest when he made his case for relocation and hoping that U.S. officials would not look too deeply into his wartime past. Linnas was banking on the fact that, because so many people would apply for displaced-persons status, staffs handling these cases would be so overworked that they would not scrutinize applications too closely. He might—just might—escape detection.
Those requesting admittance to the United States under the Displaced Persons Act had to follow a three-part process. “First, a refugee filed an application for International Refugee Organization, or IRO, assistance.” An IRO eligibility officer interviewed the applicant about his personal and family history, particularly during the war, to determine his qualifications under the established guidelines. “The primary source of background information inevitably came from the applicant himself.” If the applicant met the criteria, he was granted IRO assistance. The next step was “to qualify as an eligible displaced person under the DPA.” The basis for the Displaced Persons Commission determination was the IRO report. After conducting a security check on the applicant’s background and determining eligibility, the case analyst would issue “a report certifying that the applicant was a person eligible for admission into the United States under the DPA.” At that point the case analyst would forward the applicant’s file, which included the “preliminary IRO certification and the Displaced Persons Commission report to the appropriate American Consulate.”20
The possibility of obtaining permanent residence status in the United States under the DPA was an appealing one for Linnas, who by this time had a family to support. He had married Linda Saks on 7 July 1944 in Estonia. After escaping to Germany, the couple had two daughters—Anu (in 1945) and Tiina (in 1947). Remaining in Germany was not the safest option for Linnas. Because he now had a family, Linnas realized that escaping detection by Soviet investigators was becoming increasingly difficult. Although he lived in West Germany, only a porous border between West and East Germany protected him from his enemies to the east. Consequently, if he could move to the United States, he would then be farther from the reach of the Soviets, who were aggressively pursuing perpetrators of war crimes. Linnas chose, however, to pursue the displaced-persons avenue through a circuitous route. In February 1948, August Linnas, Karl Linnas’s father, filed a signed and sworn application for assistance with the Preliminary Commission for the IRO. His request was for himself and his family, including his son, whom he characterized as a university student and technical artist from 1940 to 1943. The elder Linnas’s application did not, however, include his daughter-in-law, Linda, or his granddaughters. Linda Linnas submitted an “IRO Resettlement Registration Form” for herself and her children in December 1949.21
During that same month Linnas overcame the first hurdle, when the IRO, based on false information, certified his eligibility for a displaced-persons and refugee designation. The IRO then forwarded Linnas’s file to the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission for review, and James McDonald became his case analyst. As part of the background check, Linnas was interrogated by members of the U.S. Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). By this time he really had his “story” down pat. During the interrogation Linnas confirmed the information that his father had provided. He could not do anything but confirm it. From 1940 to 1943 he was a university student in Tartu, Estonia. He “had never served in the German army.” He had not held membership in any political group or organization. He did admit, however, that after being drafted, he had served in the Estonian army from 1 July 1938 until June 1940. Drafted a second time by the Estonian army, he served with the “Estonian Home Guard, Kreis Tartu” from 22 May 1943 until August 1944, when he was wounded. Linnas could not do anything but confirm these facts. To tell the truth at this stage would derail his efforts to move to the United States with his family, at the very least. He had no way of knowing if criminal charges could be filed against him if he spilled the beans under CIC questioning. He could not go down that road; therefore, maintaining the lie was crucial to his plan for his future—and, by extension, for his family’s future.22
The CIC did not seem to recognize the apparent contradiction between Linnas’s statement and the narrative provided by his father and confirmed by Linnas. Whether or not the CIC took steps to verify Linnas’s testimony is not known. What is known, however, is that the CIC passed Linnas with flying colors. Consequently, on 27 April 1951 McDonald confirmed his eligibility for consideration for admission to the United States. Hurdle two passed. A few weeks later, with evidence of his official displaced-persons status in hand, Linnas went to the U.S. consulate in Munich, where he “filed a signed and sworn Application for Immigration Visa and Alien Registration” form and immediately received an immigrant visa. Four days later, on 21 May, Walter Ziemak, an INS officer, questioned Linnas to assess the validity of his application. Linnas also signed two copies of INS Form I-144, the contents of which Ziemak thoroughly explained. By signing the form Linnas confirmed that he had “never advocated or assisted in the persecution of any person because of race, religion or national origin.” He was almost home free. Linnas and his family arrived in the United States three months later, and on 17 August 1951 he swore that the INS Form I-114 with his signature was accurate.23
Linnas initially found employment first as a draftsman and then as a surveyor in New York State, when he got a job with Norton Brothers in Sayville, where he worked for approximately six years. In 1957 he got a job with Lockwood, Kessler & Bartlett in Syosset. A year later he bought a home in Greenlawn, New York, which was closer to his new job and where he and his family lived quietly until 1961.24 Linnas was living the good life. He had put his past behind him, or so he thought. Little did he know that his past was about to catch up with him. His life would begin to unravel, and he would be unable to stop the collapse of the fictitious narrative that had provided the backdrop for his new life in the United States. Before the unraveling began, however, Linnas started the process to make his life in the United States permanent.
After moving to Greenlawn Linnas took steps to legitimize his residence in the United States by filing a naturalization petition with the INS on 4 July 1959. As part of the review process, an INS officer met with Linnas on 14 December 1959 to discuss his responses to questions on the application. As was customary, the interview of Linnas was “conducted under oath. Linnas attested the accuracy of the information included in his application at that time.” It does not appear that, beyond the interview, the INS investigated the validity of Linnas’s application. If the INS had investigated further, however, the officers did not unearth any information that contradicted Linnas’s statements on his application. Relying on the INS assessment and with no access to contradictory information regarding the Estonian’s wartime activities, the supreme court of Suffolk County, New York, conferred citizenship on Linnas on 5 February 1960.25 Linnas was home free—or—was he?
While Linnas might have assumed that the Soviets would eventually give up trying to find him, he would soon discover that the contrary was true. Unsuccessful in locating him through his parents because they were also in the United States, they pursued another angle—Linda Linnas’s parents, who still resided in Estonia. Under questioning, Jaan Saks, Linda Linnas’s father, provided his Soviet interrogators the information they sought—Karl Linnas’s address: 21 Goldsmith Avenue, Greenlawn, New York. It is possible that Saks did not communicate this information to his son-in-law, who would be blindsided a short time later.
Little did Linnas know, when he left for work on 23 May 1961, that his world was about to fall apart. That morning, a New York Times article indicated that the Soviet Union had charged six Estonians for crimes related to their associations with the Tartu concentration camp. None of the six lived in the Eastern Bloc, and the Soviets planned to take steps to bring them there for trial. One of those identified in the article was Karl Linnas, who was listed as warden of the camp. Either he had not read the New York Times that morning or had not done so carefully. The morning of 23 May 1961 seemed like any other when he joined his usual carpool companion and coworker, Richard Siebach.
Siebach, who had always lived on Long Island, regularly read a local daily, Newsday, which had picked up the New York Times article. That morning Newsday had published a sensational article—“Reds Accuse LIer [Long Islander] of Nazi War Crimes.”26 When he read the paper before leaving for work that morning, Siebach was startled to see that one of the accused was Linnas. As they rode to work, Siebach brought up the article and pressed his coworker. When questioned by a colleague, Linnas admitted to being a guard, but not a supervisor, at the camp, a fact that he had omitted from both his displaced persons and his citizenship applications.
In October the USSR filed a formal petition with the U.S. government, requesting Linnas’s extradition. There was immediate opposition to granting the request, primarily on the grounds that the Soviet occupation of Estonia was illegal. Despite the U.S. refusal to comply with the request, the Soviets “charged Linnas with having taken an active part in the killing of 12,000 persons during the war” and tried him in absentia for war crimes committed at the Tartu concentration camp. The three-day trial commenced in Tartu on 16 January 1962—after the verdict had been rendered and announced a month earlier. Linnas was convicted and sentenced to death. Linnas was not the only Estonian defendant on trial in Tartu that day. Capt. Juhan Jüriste and Ervin Richard Adolph Viks were also accused of the killing of twelve thousand civilians interned in the Tartu concentration camp. Like Linnas, both Jüriste and Viks were convicted and sentenced to death in absentia. Although in all likelihood he would not be shown mercy, Jüriste pled guilty. Fortunately for Viks, he was living in a country—Australia—that declined to extradite him to the Soviet Union for a trial.27
As indicated earlier, although the Soviets first requested extradition in October 1961, the U.S. government refused the request and did not initially pursue the issue further for a couple of reasons. Now part of the Soviet Union, as it had once been part of the Russian Empire, Estonia was not an ideal location for the deportation of Linnas. The announcement of the conviction and sentencing of Linnas guaranteed that deportation could very well result in Linnas’s death. Deporting Linnas to the Soviet Union during the Cold War could have multiple ramifications for the United States, particularly in terms of foreign relations. A fellow Estonian American contacted Secretary of State Dean Rusk to voice his support for Linnas and to campaign against his compatriot’s extradition. For this Estonian American, as was the case with other members of the Baltic American community, his opposition was grounded in one particular issue—“the illegality of the Soviet Union’s continued occupation of Estonia” and the other Baltic states.28 He argued that if the United States allowed the extradition to move forward, then the government was in effect recognizing the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union. Consequently, it was better to let the matter fade away and die, but it eventually resurfaced. It is important to note, however, that well into the 1980s the issue of deportation to Estonia was a recurring “political conundrum.”29
The Department of Justice did not initiate an investigation of Linnas until 1979, after the creation of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). There were three reasons for the delay. Because of strained Cold War relations, the Kennedy administration was reluctant “to deport naturalized citizens to the USSR regardless of any wartime offenses.” In addition, the Department of Justice had no mechanism in place to prosecute war criminals. That became possible only with the establishment of the OSI. Finally, prior to 1978 U.S. law made it easier to fight deportation.30
The Linnas case was one of the first taken up by the Office of Special Investigations shortly after its establishment. In November 1979, after reviewing the case, the OSI filed denaturalization proceedings against Linnas, who then learned that he was on the Department of Justice’s radar. Because the Department of Justice was taking steps to strip him of his citizenship, Linnas knew that his life was about to change—dramatically. He had to decide what to do. Could he successfully fight the Department of Justice? What did denaturalization mean? If he lost his citizenship, was the next step extradition to the Soviet Union? With his life turned upside down, Linnas had to devise a strategy that would thwart the legal case against him. Unfortunately for Linnas, the Department of Justice—particularly the newly created OSI—had a new weapon in its arsenal to use against alleged criminals like Linnas: the Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which closed a loophole. The government could now deny “discretionary relief” to anyone who allegedly lied about criminal wartime activities to enter the United States. Reasons for discretionary relief included marriage to a U.S. citizen, exhibition of good moral character while in the United States, or the inability to get a fair trial in the Soviet Union. Because he had already been convicted and sentenced to death, Linnas could definitely argue the latter. Because of the Holtzman Amendment, however, that argument no longer mattered in the Linnas case.31
The OSI scheduled its first deposition of Linnas on 15 December 1980, but he skipped the meeting and sent his attorney to claim his “Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”32 He chose not to participate in the deposition of the witnesses who testified against him. Like Andrija Artuković, he argued that the presence of Soviet officials during the questioning tainted the witnesses’ testimony. Linnas repeatedly pled the Fifth and refused to answer any questions. In addition, he produced no evidence to refute the government’s case. A month later Judge Jacob Mishler ordered Linnas to answer questions within ten days. For the judge refusal to answer the questions was tantamount to acknowledging that the government’s claim was valid. At the end of the day, refusal to answer questions did not prevent a trial.
Beginning on 16 June 1981, Mishler sat in judgment over a trial that lasted for three days. Rodney G. Smith and Martha Talley presented the government’s case, while Ivars Berzins represented Linnas. A Latvian American, Berzins established his career by “defending alleged Nazi offenders.” After highlighting the defendant’s failure to cooperate with the OSI investigation and to obey the judge’s order, Talley presented the government’s position in a nutshell. According to Talley, “to become a U.S. citizen, the law required one to be of ‘good moral character’ and to have entered the U.S. legally; by lying about his wartime record, Linnas had made himself ineligible for immigration into and citizenship of the U.S.” Consequently, the court must, Talley argued, revoke Linnas’s citizenship.33 In presenting the defense’s case, Berzins failed to live up to his later reputation. Not all the witnesses that he called provided information that was germane to the case. In many respects Berzins did not seem to have his head in the game, nor did his strategy necessarily appear sound. Rather than trying to exonerate his client, Berzins attempted to discredit the witnesses and evidence presented by the government’s attorneys. After the defense attorney had complained on multiple occasions that he had not had time to read all of the government-provided documentation, Mishler reminded Berzins that he had had five months in which to examine the documentary evidence. The crux of the defense’s strategy was to refuse to “accept any Soviet evidence against Linnas, arguing that it was all prima facie unreliable.” At the end of the day, Judge Mishler did not buy it.34
Two weeks later, on 30 June 1981, Mishler “denaturalized Linnas, citing two major reasons in his rulings.” Because he had lied to the CIC and to INS, Linnas had been admitted to the United States unlawfully. In addition, Mishler asserted that, because of his actions at the Tartu concentration camp, Linnas “lacked the requisite moral character” to enter the United States.35 Although Linnas appealed the decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Mishler’s ruling six months later, when on 25 January 1982 Judge Wilfred Feinberg denied the defense request to have the Soviet documents thrown out. Linnas’s lawyer continued to file appeals on his client’s behalf. On 5 April the Second Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Linnas’s request for another hearing. As a result the INS began the deportation process on 25 June, but Linnas and Berzins were unwilling to throw in the towel. They were dealt another blow when the Supreme Court on 4 October decided against hearing the case.
To give him credit, Berzins, although he seemed to display some incompetence in the first trial, continued to fight for Linnas. He filed another appeal in immigration court. Judge Howard I. Cohen reviewed the entire case—including documentation and transcripts from the denaturalization trial and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision—and issued a ruling on 19 May 1983. The judge stated that “deportability [was] established by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence.” Furthermore, in issuing his decision, he referenced a previous decision in Fedorenko v. Inus (1981). In that case, Cohen ruled that “service as a concentration camp guard, whether voluntary or not, disqualified a person for a U.S. visa.” Based on the evidence presented at the denaturalization trial, Cohen reaffirmed Mishler’s ruling that Linnas, because of his wartime record, was not eligible for DP status. Since DP status was a prerequisite for immigration and citizenship, Linnas was not entitled to those privileges either. Linnas received deportation notification two years after Mishler’s ruling was upheld. Then began the fight over where to deport him. Not only did this play out diplomatically, but it also resulted in additional litigation.36 Things were not yet over.
Interestingly, when the deportation order was issued, Linnas received an order to identify where he wanted to be deported. Not one to give up easily, Linnas provided an answer that was sure to delay his deportation. He chose the “free and independent Republic of Estonia.” To prevent any confusion, Linnas emphasized that he did not mean the country “with the puppet government formed by the Soviet occupiers of Estonia.” The way in which Linnas referenced Estonia also reflected two realities. First, as late as 1984 the United States recognized not the Soviet-controlled Estonia but the “free and independent Republic of Estonia,” which in effect meant the émigré-led government-in-exile that operated in New York City. Second, Linnas recognized what it would mean to be placed into Soviet hands. Sending him to Estonia in 1984 would do just that, and the end result would be the loss of his life.37 In the court’s opinion it had two options—Estonia or the Soviet Union. Cohen chose the Soviet Union because in 1983 Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. Emphasizing Cold War tensions and problems, Linnas and his supporters turned to the court and the general public to challenge the ruling. In addition, on 14 June 1983 his daughters sent a letter to the Estonian community, in which they suggested that Soviet-backed activists had infiltrated the U.S. government. They connected the creation of the OSI, which had a pro-Soviet agenda, to discrimination against anticommunists. “The persecution of so called ‘war criminals,’ 40 years after it supposedly happened, is just an attempt to silence anti-communist groups by leading Soviet style court cases in the U.S. and to promote communism in the free world. The denaturalization of our father . . . by [a judge] who accepted Soviet supplied ‘witnesses and documents’ in U.S. courts is only the continuation of the 1962 Soviet ‘show trial.’ . . . As a final measure, the immigration judge . . . also accepted the Soviet ‘information.’”38
In this heated atmosphere, the Board of Immigration Appeals weighed in. While Linnas raised numerous issues in the appeal heard by the BIA, at the end of the day only one mattered—that of where Linnas was to be deported. On 31 July 1984 the BIA rendered its decision. While it upheld the majority of Cohen’s ruling, the BIA called into question the judge’s decision to deport Linnas to the Soviet Union, particularly since the U.S. government had yet to recognize the Soviet annexation of Estonia. Ordering a new hearing, the BIA ordered Cohen to “consider the implications of the United States’ refusal to recognize the Soviet annexation of Estonia, [to] designate a country of deportation pursuant to the appropriate [statutory] provisions . . . and [to] articulate the statutory basis for selection, whichever country is designated.” The BIA had an underlying concern that had to be addressed. If the ultimate decision was to deport Linnas to the Soviet Union, would that undermine the current nonrecognition policy of the United States?39
What was clear to Linnas was that he was to be deported. What was not clear was where he would be sent. Linnas could only hope that the process of finding him a host country would be a long and drawn-out one. The longer it took, the longer he could stay in the United States with his family and—perhaps—the less likely it was that he would be sent to the Soviet Union. Going to the Soviet Union was not a life-prolonging option, and Linnas still hoped to avoid paying the piper.
The OSI now had to find a new home for Linnas. What better place to look than his previous place of residence. Because he had lived in West Germany from 1945 to 1951, the U.S. government attempted to send Linnas there, but to no avail. The West German government “remained steadfast in the position it had adopted” in an earlier case. “It would only admit German citizens.” Because he had never applied for German citizenship, Linnas did not qualify. Consequently, the United States could not send him to West Germany.40 The OSI had to find another solution. While the OSI endeavored to find another possible host country for Linnas, the BIA gathered information to allay its concerns about sending Linnas to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately for Linnas, being deported to the Soviet Union was still a possibility.
Even the Department of State, which did not think that deporting Linnas to the Soviet Union was the best option for the United States, joined the fray. The State Department tasked its embassies to put out feelers in seventeen countries to determine if any would be a viable alternative to the Soviet Union. The list of countries included “Brazil, Columbia, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, the Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and the USSR.” The OSI also contacted Canada, Germany, Israel, and the Soviet Union. To Linnas’s dismay, the only country that was willing to accept him was the very country that he hoped to avoid—the Soviet Union. The Department of State contacted the White House and then prepared a statement for the deportation judge that addressed the BIA’s concern about jeopardizing existing U.S. policy. Noting the futility in finding a country other than the Soviet Union to accept Linnas, the Department of State asserted that deporting Linnas to the Soviet Union “would not as a matter of law contravene the longstanding and firmly held United States policy of nonrecognition of the forcible incorporation of Estonia into the USSR.”41
Linnas’s heart must have dropped when he heard the news. Now it was up to Judge Cohen to follow the BIA directive and officially designate the deportation country. The statement from the State Department eliminated his and the BIA’s concerns about shipping Linnas to the Soviet Union. Linnas vehemently argued against being sent to the Soviet Union. He reminded the court that he had been sentenced to death in absentia by the Soviets in 1962—before the trial had even occurred—and asked the court to reconsider sending him to the Soviet Union, where he would most certainly be executed. Confident that the earlier conviction and sentence would not be enforced, the OSI argued that, as early as 1984, the Soviet Union had promised the U.S. government that they would give Linnas a new trial. Hearing this did not bring comfort to Linnas, who was equally certain that a new trial would not be a fair one and would have the same outcome.
On 9 April 1985 Cohen was ready to give his decision. According to Cohen, “Linnas could be deported under either of two provisions out of the seven that the INS designated as warranting deportation.”42 He reiterated that under the law the best option was to deport Linnas to the country where he was born—Estonia. If, however, that was not possible, then he could be deported to any country that would take him. Only one country fit that bill—the Soviet Union. The OSI had won their case. In an effort to cut further appeal off at the pass, the BIA held a second hearing on 16 October 1985 but ruled against Linnas’s request for a review of Cohen’s decision. Persuaded by the OSI contention that the Soviet Union was the only country willing to accept Linnas, the BIA, in effect, upheld Cohen’s 9 April ruling.
One would have thought that at this point Linnas had exhausted all of his appeals. As might be expected, he was not ready to give up, nor was Berzins. After all, Linnas was fighting—quite literally—for his life. During this time his daughters continued to write letters “to the U.S. Baltic community and to public officials” on his behalf. They contacted anyone who could possibly help. They even wrote to President Ronald Reagan. In addition for requesting support to stay their father’s deportation, the daughters solicited financial contributions to defray court costs, which amounted to over $300,000 by July 1986. Berzins filed an appeal of the most recent decision in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.43
Judge Frank Altimari of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case in March 1986. Rudolph Giuliani presented the government’s case. While the case was being heard, the OSI became concerned that Linnas was a flight risk—that he was laying plans to flee to Canada using an “underground support network.”44 The OSI took steps to prevent Linnas from leaving the country, if that was indeed his plan. Cooperating with the OSI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office contacted Berzins and requested a meeting with him and his client. The purpose of the meeting was a discussion of custody in the event the court ruled against Linnas. When Berzins and his client arrived for the meeting, Linnas was placed under arrest.
This unexpected turn of events was a harbinger of things to come. Judge Altimari was ready to render his decision. Linnas and his family, Berzins, OSI representatives, Giuliani, and concerned citizens arrived in court and waited for Altimari to issue his ruling. First addressing the request to be deported to the “free and independent Republic of Estonia”—in New York—Altimari suggested that Linnas had wasted a chance of finding a legitimate deportation site. The judge was not amused, nor did he take the request seriously. Although he noted that under certain conditions the court could intervene, Altimari denied that such a case was before him. He stated, “The foundation of Linnas’ due process argument is an appeal to the court’s sense of decency and compassion. Noble words such as ‘decency’ and ‘compassion’ ring hollow when spoken by a man who ordered the extermination of innocent men, women and children kneeling at the edge of a mass grave. Karl Linnas’ appeal to humanity, a humanity which he has grossly, callously and monstrously offended, truly offends this court’s sense of decency.”45 Linnas and his family could see where this was going even before the judge gave his final ruling. Altimari upheld Cohen’s order of deportation to the Soviet Union.
Linnas and his lawyer—his new lawyer, Ramsey Clark—continued to fight his deportation, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. In requesting that the high court hear the case, Clark, who had been President Lyndon B. Johnson’s U.S. attorney general, argued “that the pending death sentence in the Soviet Union made it an improper destination for deportation.” The Department of Justice countered with assurances from the Soviet Union that there was a “strong likelihood” that Linnas would receive a new trial.46
While the Supreme Court considered whether or not to hear the Linnas case, the OSI, confident that the ruling would be the desired one, commenced planning for deportation. The lack of direct flights to the Soviet Union was a complication. The concern was that Linnas would request asylum during a layover. Believing that Eastern European countries would not accept such a request, the OSI started contacting the Soviet-satellite countries. With an agreement to allow a layover in Czechoslovakia, the OSI’s plans began to jell. Things were coming together, but the OSI could not relax until Linnas was on the plane to the Soviet Union, and that would not happen until there was a decision from the Supreme Court.
In the meantime pressure was mounting. Attorney General Edwin Meese received a memo on White House letterhead from Patrick Buchanan, President Reagan’s communications director. While not mentioning the Linnas case directly, Buchanan noted that almost fifteen thousand cards, letters, and phone calls regarding “the denaturalization, deportation and prosecution of suspected war criminals” had landed on his desk.47 In general, these communications were supportive of the policy, but many did express some concerns. Buchanan’s memo sparked a meeting between Meese and members of the émigré community and resulted in a promise from the U.S. attorney general to investigate alleged OSI improprieties. This appeared to be a roundabout way to circumvent the order for Linnas’s deportation. There was even discussion within the OSI about whether or not deporting Linnas to the Soviet Union was the right thing to do. There was also a flurry of activity during this time, as all sides continued to pursue possible alternative countries for the Linnas deportation destination. At the end of the day all avenues failed. Linnas’s fate remained in the hands of the Supreme Court.
Although the Supreme Court “rejected a petition to hear the Linnas case” in January 1987, the Manhattan Federal Appeals Court agreed to a deportation delay on 2 April to allow Linnas’s lawyers to appeal to the highest court one more time. A few days later “Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall blocked the deportation of alleged Nazi war criminal Karl Linnas to consider, one final time, whether the United States should deport Linnas to the Soviet Union, where a Soviet court had sentenced him to death in absentia.”48
On 20 April, however, Chief Justice William Rehnquist presented the majority opinion, in the six-to-three decision. The “Supreme Court vacated the Marshall stay,” which opened the way to Linnas’s deportation to the Soviet Union the next day. Because of his declining health, the Soviet government did not implement the execution punishment decreed in January 1962, but he was incarcerated in Tallin prison. In June prison officials transferred Linnas to a Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) hospital, where he had two operations. The operations failed to prolong the sixty-eight-year-old’s life for long. Linnas died on 2 July 1987. His long battle to escape his past was over.49
For the Soviets, bringing Karl Linnas back to the Soviet Union to face justice was a high priority. While the U.S. government was not on good terms with the Soviet Union and was conflicted about deporting an alleged war criminal to a country where his fate was predetermined, the Department of Justice was under pressure to do the right thing. There was irrefutable evidence that Karl Linnas had entered the United States and obtained citizenship through illegal means. That alone warranted denaturalization and expulsion. Evidence of the crimes perpetrated by Linnas also stacked the deck against him. For multiple reasons, however, it took the U.S. Department of Justice, in conjunction with the Office of Special Investigations (after its founding in 1979), over twenty years to deport Karl Linnas to the Soviet Union for justice to be served. Although he died approximately two months after he arrived in the Soviet Union, Karl Linnas was not executed. Consequently, the families of those who died in the Tartu concentration camp between 1941 and 1942 might legitimately question whether or not justice was served. After all, Linnas died from poor health, not execution. At the end of the day, did he pay the price for his role in the execution of twelve thousand innocent people?