Accused WWII Nazi in Kansas Shootout

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A man the Justice Department has accused of being a Nazi death camp guard shot at reporters and police outside his home Tuesday and was wounded in the leg when officers returned fire.

About 90 minutes before the shooting, the Justice Department filed papers in federal court seeking to strip Michael Kolnhofer, 79, of his naturalized U.S. citizenship. Officials alleged that he concealed his concentration camp ties when he applied for citizenship in 1952.

Kolnhofer’s attorney said the man denies being a concentration camp guard, but a television reporter said he had admitted it to her.

After one TV reporter walked away from him, Kolnhofer went inside his house and returned with a gun. He waved the gun at reporters, yelling at them to leave. When police were called to the scene, he fired and police shot back.

Kolnhofer was wounded at least once in the leg and taken to the University of Kansas Medical Center, where he was listed in serious but stable condition.

No other injuries were reported.

Robert DeCoursey, a local attorney, said Kolnhofer contacted him about 10 days ago to discuss his citizenship. Kolnhofer told DeCoursey that he was born in Croatia and conscripted into the German army during World War II.

Croatia was a puppet state of Nazi Germany during the war.

The Justice Department released information only about Kolnhofer’s alleged Nazi service, and nothing about his life in the United States. If his citizenship was revoked, the government could try to deport him.

The Justice Department alleges that Kolnhofer was an SS guard during World War II at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany. Citing captured wartime Nazi records, the Justice Department said Kolnhofer became a member of the SS Death’s Head Guard Battalion at Sachsenhausen, near Berlin, in 1943, serving as a guard for one year.

SS personnel records show that Kolnhofer was transferred in 1944 to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany.

A neighbor who witnessed the shooting said she knew the man only as Mike.

“I just hate to see all this happen, because he’s been so nice to us. . . . He was the first one to welcome us into the neighborhood,” said the neighbor, who gave her name only as Carol.