Former WL resident charged with Nazi past

By Cliff Newell

The West Linn Tidings, Jul 24, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

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The federal government is charging that Peter Egner is a Nazi war criminal. His friends in West Linn cannot believe it.

It came as a shock to them last week when the Department of Justice issued an announcement that it is requesting that Egner’s citizenship be revoked for lying about his service with a notorious SS mobile killing unit.

The charges listed in the DOJ complaint are of the utmost severity: During Egner’s service in the organization in 1941 and 1942, the Einsatzgruppe was responsible for the deaths of more than 17,000 Serbian civilians — Jewish men, women and children, communists, suspected communists and Gypsies.

In the announcement, acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said, “The Nazi unit in which Peter Egner is alleged to have participated was responsible for countless deaths and unimaginable human suffering. By bringing this action today, we again declare our unwavering commitment to the principle that participants in Nazi crimes should not be afforded the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship.”

To Egner’s friends in West Linn, where he lived from 1981 to 2006 before moving to Bellevue, Wash., this war criminal description does not fit.

“When I heard about it I didn’t believe,” said Russell Wilson, who lived in the same West Linn condominium complex as Egner for 15 years. “The Peter I know would not do such a thing as this.”

Wilson, a World War II Navy veteran, said he never talked about the war — or even politics — with Egner during their frequent conversations in the complex parking lot.

“The only thing he ever told me was that he got wounded,” Wilson said. “Peter was a great guy, a sweet old guy, so cheerful and positive.”

Robert Anderson, also a resident of the complex, knew Egner even better and his disbelief about Egner’s guilt is even stronger.

“I was totally shocked,” said Anderson, who added that Egner was one of the first people he met when he moved to the complex. “Peter was a fantastic guy, a great American. I don’t believe anything about him harming anybody. Everybody here loved him.”

Increasing Anderson’s alarm for Egner is that at age 86 he may lose his citizenship and be deported back to Serbia, possibly to stand trial for war crimes. Egner has been a U.S. citizen since 1966, according to the DOJ.

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