Nazi guard flees U.S. for Germany

ATLANTA, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- An Atlanta man left the United States to avoid deportation on allegations he guarded Nazi concentration camps with attack dogs during World War II.

Paul Henss, 85, left the United States for his native Germany nearly a week before a scheduled deportation hearing Tuesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday.

His sudden departure prompted officials to add his name to a federal watch list preventing him from re-entering the United States.

It also halts his U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations case investigating Nazis living undetected in the United States.

"I am not a war criminal," he told reporters earlier. "I was 19 years old ... Everyone was with the Hitler Youth."

"The brutal concentration camp system could not have functioned without the determined efforts of SS men such as Paul Henss, who, with a vicious attack dog, stood between these victims and the possibility of freedom," OSI director Eli M. Rosenbaum said in a statement.