The Karl Linnas Deportation Case, the Office of Special Investigations, and American Ethnic Politics
The deportation case against Karl Linnas, an Estonian war criminal who entered the United States in 1951 through the Displaced Persons Act, highlighted tensions between American politics and the American legal system. Linnas became a citizen in 1960, but in 1962 the USSR tried him in absentia and se...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2010
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| In: |
Holocaust and genocide studies
Year: 2010, Volume: 24, Issue: 1, Pages: 26-55 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The deportation case against Karl Linnas, an Estonian war criminal who entered the United States in 1951 through the Displaced Persons Act, highlighted tensions between American politics and the American legal system. Linnas became a citizen in 1960, but in 1962 the USSR tried him in absentia and sentenced him to death for crimes he committed at the Tartu concentration camp. In 1981 the US Department of Justice's new Office of Special Investigations initiated denaturalization hearings against Linnas. After he had exhausted the prolonged appeals process, Linnas was deported to Soviet Estonia in 1987, where he died in prison. The case provoked strong challenges by members of the Baltic-American community, many of whom perceived it as a test of the US policy of “non-recognition” of the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. |
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| ISSN: | 1476-7937 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Holocaust and genocide studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/hgs/dcq002 |