On Oct. 26, 1957, Reinhold Kulle and his family departed on the MS Italia from Cuxhaven, Germany, destined for a new life in America.
But as Michael Soffer reveals in “Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil” (University of Chicago Press), Kulle carried a dark secret.
Throughout World War II, Kulle had not only been a member of the Nazi’s Waffen-SS, but had worked at Gross-Rosen concentration camp where 40,000 Jews died.
Kulle was one of around 10,000 Nazis who entered the US after the war and, like others, blended into his community, his neighbors oblivious to his past.
Born in 1921, Kulle was a member of the Hitler Youth before volunteering for the combat wing of the Waffen-SS in 1940.
“Other boys in the Hitler Youth were wary of joining the SS, alarmed at the prospect of committing atrocities,” writes Soffer.
“Kulle was undeterred.”
Having joined the army, Kulle was injured fighting the Russians and was transferred to Gross-Rosen in his native Silesia, excusing him from frontline action.
Gross-Rosen was meant to be a labor camp, not a killing center like Auschwitz-Birkenau or Treblinka.
But it wasn’t so.
“A compromise was forged among Nazi leadership: they would murder the old, the young, the sick and weak, and any Jews who remained capable of exploitation would be sent to labor camps like Gross-Rosen,” he writes.
“Then they, too, would be murdered.”
Kulle rose through the ranks at Gross-Rosen, overseeing the construction of a new crematorium.
But by spring 1944, overcrowding meant there were over 40,000 prisoners instead of a maximum of 13,000.
“The sewage system was overwhelmed, and fecal matter flowed into the stream that supplied prisoners’ drinking water,” writes Soffer.
“Even the new crematorium couldn’t keep up.”
When the war ended in 1944, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act (DPA) in 1948, making access to America easier for immigrants.
Kulle saw an opportunity.
After being granted a visa, Kulle, wife Gertrud and children Ulricke and Rainer, were granted permission to enter the States.
After they docked in New York in 1957, they headed to Oak Park, near Chicago, where, in 1959, he took a job as custodian at Oak Park and River Forest (OPRF) high school.
He was the perfect employee.
Reliable and hard-working, nothing was too much trouble for Kulle and in 1963 he was promoted to chief night custodian.
“At the high school, Kulle was indispensable,” writes Soffer. “He was every faculty member’s go-to.”
Soon, Kulle and his family moved into a bungalow. “He slipped into obscurity, just another blue-collar worker in Middle America with a thick accent and an untold past,” adds Soffer.
He wasn’t the only neighborhood Nazi.
Albert Deutscher lived in nearby Brookfield.
During the war, Deutscher “had shot and killed hundreds of unarmed Jews, including children,” adds Soffer.
“His neighbors never suspected a thing.”
In December 1981, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), established to expel Nazi war criminals, formally accused Deutscher of war crimes and falsifying his visa application.
Hours later, Deutscher stepped in front of a train.
While Deutscher’s neighbors expressed disbelief, Kulle knew the net was closing in.
In the summer of 1981, OSA investigators began “DORA” (“dead or alive”) checks on suspected Nazis, including “a former camp guard from German Silesia: Reinhold Kulle.”
In July 1982, Kulle, now 61, received his first OSI correspondence and when he met with prosecutor Bruce Einhorn, he knew the game was up.
They had everything, from Kulle’s personal SS file to his handwritten marriage application detailing his Nazi credentials. “They even had photos of Kulle in his SS uniform,” adds Soffer.
Kulle maintained all he did was escort prisoners around Gross-Rosen and he had never killed anyone.
But he had lied on his visa application.
That alone was grounds for deportation.
When, on Dec. 4, 1982, the Chicago Sun-Times ran the story: “Deportation Bid on Suburb Man”, the game was up. “After decades of practiced quiet, Kulle’s secret was now public,” writes Soffer.
As the story reverberated around the community, many wanted him gone.
But surprising numbers defended him.
The school board even received an anonymous letter, seemingly from faculty members, requesting Kulle remain.
After much deliberation, Kulle was placed on terminal leave of absence on Jan. 24, 1984.
“For now, there was no longer a Nazi working at the school,” says Soffer.
In November 1984, meanwhile, Judge Olga Springer ordered Kulle’s deportation but it would be nearly three years before the decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
On Oct. 26, 1987, Kulle was taken to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and boarded plane to West Germany.
“He landed at 12.45 a.m. on Tuesday morning and headed to a relative’s home in Lahr, the city he left thirty years earlier,” writes Soffer.
Kulle lost touch with most friends he made at Oak Park.
The only reminder of his time there came via a monthly pension check from Illinois Metropolitan Retirement Fund. “He almost lived long enough to face charges,” adds Soffer, “but those pension payments stopped in 2006 when he died in Germany, still a free man.”
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