Helmut Oberlander

Helmut Oberlander (15 February 1924 – 20 September 2021) was a naturalized Canadian citizen who was a member of the Einsatzgruppen death squads of Nazi Germany in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II. Oberlander was on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most wanted Nazi war criminals. Beginning in 1994, the Government of Canada made several attempts to revoke Oberlander's citizenship on the basis of his misrepresenting his involvement with Nazi war crimes. In 2017, after the fourth attempt by the government to strip him of his citizenship, he lost his appeal, as the Federal Court found this revocation "reasonable", and in 2019 the Federal Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed his motion to have his case re-opened. On 5 December 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear Oberlander's appeal, clearing the way for his deportation. In early 2020, however, Oberlander was still in Canada and had filed a new appeal against his planned deportation. He later lost his appeal, which had him face a deportation hearing. On or about 19 March 2021, the lawyer representing Oberlander filed a motion for a permanent stay of proceedings against his client. The motion was denied by judge Denis Gascon who ruled that a permanent stay of immigration proceedings would be "premature" and called for an administrative review by the Immigration Department of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.