Associated Press
Paul Henss, 85, answers questions from the media as wife, Else, buries her head against him at their home in Lawrenceville, Ga.
Click photo for optionsThe Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security have filed a charging document making the allegations against Paul Henss, a German citizen who lives in Lawrenceville. Authorities say he entered the U.S. in 1955 after hiding his concentration camp service.

Mr. Henss denied any wrongdoing, when asked about the allegations Monday by news reporters.

The Department of Justice announced the action Monday. The charging document, filed by the by the Justice Department's Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is dated Sept. 4.

According to the document, he joined the Hitler Youth organization in Germany in 1934 as a young boy and joined the Nazi Party in September 1940. In February 1941, the document says, he entered the Waffen SS. The following year, it says, he volunteered to become an SS dog handler and served from 1942 to 1944 at Dachau and Buchenwald.

According to the charging document, Mr. Henss admitted on March 13 that he served as an SS guard at Dachau and Buchenwald for two to three months each as a dog handler.

In an interview in his driveway Monday, Mr. Henss angrily denied committing war crimes.

Mr. Henss said that as an SS soldier he did train German shepherds and Rottweilers during World War II, but said he never set foot inside Dachau or Buchenwald and never used attack dogs on prisoners in concentration camps.

"I didn't commit no crimes," Mr. Henss said in thick German accent. "I didn't hurt nobody."

He called the Holocaust "a catastrophe" and said, "Everybody in Germany knows that wasn't right."