Karl Linnas (August 6, 1919 – July 2, 1987) was an Estonian who was sentenced to death during the Holocaust trials in Soviet Estonia in 1961–1962. He was later deported from the United States to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1987. Linnas was tried ''in absentia'' and sentenced to death by a Soviet court in 1962 on charges that during the German occupation, between 1941 and 1943, he was the commandant of a Nazi

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

and had personally shot innocent civilians—men, women and children. After Soviet armies forced the Germans out of Estonia, Linnas fought with the German army and was wounded in 1944. Then he stayed in Displaced Persons camps in Germany until emigrating to the U.S. in 1951. He became an American citizen in 1960.

Deportation from the United States

Linnas worked as a land surveyor living in Greenlawn, New York, until 1979, when U.S. immigration officials charged him with making false statements to gain entry to the United States. The Office of Special Investigations of the U.S. Justice Department prosecuted Linnas. In 1981, the Federal District Court in Westbury, New York, stripped Linnas of his American citizenship for having lied to immigration officials 30 years earlier about his

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

past. Linnas's crimes, the judge said, "were such as to offend the decency of any civilized society." A 1986 federal appeals court decision upheld the order for his deportation, ruling that the evidence against the defendant was "overwhelming and largely uncontroverted." In April 1986, as Linnas awaited the outcome of his final appeal, a federal judge ordered him imprisoned to prevent him from fleeing the country. On April 20, 1987, the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

refused to hear Linnas's final appeal. At that point, he was flown to the

. He yelled and fought with federal officials as he was escorted onto the plane. Linnas died nearly three months later, on July 2, 1987, at a prison hospital in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. He was the second formerly naturalized American to be deported to the Soviet Union, after Feodor Fedorenko, who was executed several weeks after Linnas died. Shortly after Linnas's death, it was discovered that the Soviet government had commuted his death sentence to life in prison due to his poor health. Linnas was reported to have been suffering from "heart disease, circulatory problems, internal hemorrhaging and cirrhosis of the liver" shortly before his death.

References

Cited sources

* Ashman, Charles and Wagman, Robert J. The Nazi Hunters. New York: Pharos Books, 1988.
Henry Kamm. Estonian deported by U.S. arrives in Soviet

Articles about Karl Linnas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linnas, Karl 1919 births 1987 deaths People from Tartu Estonian collaborators with Nazi Germany Estonian people who died in Soviet detention Estonian emigrants to the United States Estonian prisoners sentenced to death Nazis convicted of war crimes Nazi concentration camp commandants who died in prison custody Soviet Union–United States relations Loss of United States citizenship and deportation by prior Nazi affiliation Holocaust perpetrators in Estonia Romani genocide perpetrators People extradited from the United States Foreign nationals imprisoned in the United States People extradited to the Soviet Union People from Greenlawn, New York People convicted of treason against the Soviet Union Prisoners sentenced to death by the Soviet Union Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government