U.S. Catching Former Nazis at Airports : Travel: The dropping of visa requirements for Germans lets possible war criminals enter the country. But a federal agency is waiting for them.

By RONALD J. OSTROW

March 25, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — The flight from Europe to America and the Florida cruise that he had won in a contest looked like the vacation of a lifetime to the West German.

But, when the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigation got word that the man had just landed at Boston’s Logan Airport, officials in Washington checked their computers and found that he had been a member of Hitler’s dreaded SS and was a designated war criminal.

So, instead of basking in the Caribbean sun, he was sent packing straight back to Germany.

The incident, one of a small but growing number of rejections at U.S. entry points, reflects a little-known aspect of the Office of Special Investigation, best known for stripping the U.S. citizenship of ex-Nazis linked to wartime persecution and deporting them.

The rejections are another means of “exacting some justice” against Nazi offenders, said the office’s director, Neal Sher.

Apprehensions of ex-Nazis at U.S. airports, while infrequent, are increasing because of a pilot program, begun in 1988, that allows citizens of West Germany and seven other countries to visit the United States without first obtaining a visa from a U.S. embassy abroad, as previously had been required.

The old procedure provided time for the person’s name to be checked against State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service “watch lists”--rosters of individuals who are barred from entering the United States--and for any questions to be resolved.

The pilot program was adopted to save resources, promote tourism and reciprocate with countries that do not require U.S. travelers to obtain visas.

Since last October, immigration authorities have turned back nine individuals at U.S. airports for Nazi-related activities, Sher said. But, with travel to the United States increasing, he expects the numbers to continue to rise.

The experimental visa waiver program, which runs until next year, has led to such airport incidents as that of the cruise-bound West German, who was called to Sher’s attention at 11 p.m., after the man had arrived at Logan Airport.

Sometimes, there is not enough time or information to turn back the traveler at the point of entry.

For example, Sher said that during last year’s Christmas holiday travel season he was called by INS authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York about another West German who was on a list of persons sought by the French for World War II activities.

The individual--Sher would not disclose names--admitted having belonged to an infamous SS unit responsible for massacring captured Canadian soldiers immediately after D-Day, when the Allied forces landed in France.

But the West German insisted that he had not joined the unit until August, 1944, two months after the massacre took place.

“We couldn’t verify immediately, so he was allowed in,” Sher said. Then Sher and his deputy arranged to interview the man, who had come to the United States to visit his son at Princeton University.

“It was an intense interrogation,” in which the ex-SS member finally admitted to having joined the unit before D-Day, Sher said. “He was carrying orders from one squad to another, and they discussed what was being done to the Canadians. It was vicious.”

When the man was notified that he had to cut short his visit and return to Germany, “he felt offended and just couldn’t understand why we were doing this after all those years,” Sher said.

To guard against such occurrences during the pilot program, a State Department spokeswoman said, foreigners are urged to apply for visas at U.S. embassies if they think questions might be raised about their entry.