Michael Soffer > Quotes

“Though Springer recognized that there was no documentation that Kulle had personally committed an atrocity, she said that none was necessary. At the end of her forty-seven-page ruling, she rejected all of the various motions and applications for relief that Kulle had filed, and ordered him “deported from the United States to the Federal Republic of Germany.”9”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“wanted an opportunity to celebrate, to get to know each other better, and to plan for other ways to promote pluralism in the village.25 As far as they could tell, they were one of the first groups in the country to get”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“Kulle was taken into custody at his Brookfield home on Friday night, October 23, 1987. He spent the weekend at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago, awaiting his deportation. Though it had been ten weeks since the Circuit Court’s ruling, his attorneys had yet to file an appeal. Nixon was on vacation in Europe when he heard the news, and promptly returned for one final push, filing an emergency request to the Supreme Court asking for a stay of Kulle’s deportation, which Justice John Paul Stevens rejected without comment. On Monday, Kulle was taken to O’Hare International Airport and placed on a plane to Germany. He landed at 12:45 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and headed to a relative’s home in Lahr, the city he had left thirty years earlier. West Germany’s chief Nazi crimes prosecutor, Alfred Streim, announced that Kulle would not face charges; a preliminary investigation had turned up “no indications of a crime that can still be prosecuted.”34”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“Delius and a few friends were even discussing a call to the American Civil Liberties Union, which had defended Frank Collin in court, hoping that the organization would do the same for Kulle.6”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“The Board of Education has placed Mr. Kulle on “terminal leave of absence.” Mr. Kulle no longer works here, but will be paid every two weeks through June 30, 1984. Above action was taken because the Board found Mr. Kulle to be a former guard at a Nazi concentration camp and felt that former SS soldiers should not be employed at this school.23”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“officials would work with the retirement fund and Kulle’s lawyers to find the best possible solution for his family. They would do their best to take care of him. It was a compromise among the board and the administration, a way of satisfying those who wanted him gone and those who thought the school still owed him loyalty. And it would all be kept quiet. There would be no additional announcement or public statement. The board would be careful to discuss the topic only in closed session, and the notes from those meetings would be kept sealed for nearly forty years—one of the high school’s best kept secrets.15”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“Reporters and photographers from the Wednesday Journal had just left Drew’s house. Their puzzled looks seemed to suggest surprise that a Black, Catholic girl was so interested in Kulle. She wasn’t Jewish; why did he matter to her? The previous July, as she sat aimlessly watching television, her mother had handed her David Sokol’s history of Oak Park and asked, “Have you thought about your History Fair project?” Drew had flipped through the thin volume, looking for a topic that might best her older brother’s project on the Chicago Defender. “No way!” she had exclaimed, pausing on a small paragraph. A Nazi had thrived in her little liberal bubble. How had he made this place his home? How had this place let him in? What would it have been like to keep a secret for so long?”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“July 1, 1984, and is placed on terminal leave of absence effective January 25, 1984. Because the performance of his duties has given no legal cause to end his employment status or to cease compensating him, he will continue to receive his salary until June 30, 1984.”11”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil

“recent months,” Gignilliat began, “this board has devoted considerable time and attention to Reinhold Kulle’s employment in the district. Mr. Kulle was a Waffen-SS guard for two and one-half years at the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Nazi Germany during World War II.”
― Michael Soffer, Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil