Former Oak Park teacher's book tells story of Nazi who hid in plain sight as school custodian for nearly 30 years
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A suburban author brings to light a decades-old controversy that still resonates today. The author and his subject are from different worlds and different times, but their stories are strangely intertwined.
Author and history teacher Michael Soffer's first book, "Our Nazi: An American Suburb's Encounter With Evil" is a story about truth and deception, deep wounds and strongly-held beliefs.
It's the true story of a man named Reinhold Kulle, who came to the U.S. from Germany in 1957, and who for decades worked as a custodian at Oak Park and River Forest High School.
He cleaned the very classroom in which Soffer would teach decades later, and on a day in 2020, Soffer brought Kulle's story to his students.
"He's such a good custodian that within a few years he's promoted to the head custodian," Soffer said of Kulle.
But what no one at the school knew was a moral, ethical, and legal battle was about to explode, with their beloved custodian at the center.
"In late 1982, Reinhold Kulle was accused of having been a Nazi, a member of the SS, a guard at the Gross-Rosen slave labor camp," Soffer said. "If not the, it was among the most brutal of the non-killing centers, of the slave labor facilities."
How did Kulle get a job at Oak Park and River Forest High School?
"The paperwork that we had on Nazis was there, but it was not well organized. Background checks were difficult," Soffer said.
Kulle did not disclose in his paperwork the time he spent as a guard at Gross-Rosen.
"His constant line was, 'I did no wrong, I killed nobody,'" Soffer said. "Later, he will be asked if he had killed anyone, and he will say simply, 'I don't remember.'"
Things started to unravel in the summer of 1982, when the Justice Department brought him in for an interview.
Kulle had withheld vital information on his paperwork, which was grounds for deportation.
"At the consulate, they were supposed to list the organizations that they were in. … He doesn't list that he was in the SS," Soffer said. "He's not on trial for being a Nazi. He freely and openly admits that."
Soffer says Kulle even supplied a picture of himself in an SS uniform to the Justice Department.
"The court case was simple. Did he lie on his visa?" Soffer said.
As Kulle's deportation trial dragged on for months, Soffer said, "the moral argument and the legal argument were fused in the Oak Park board room."
How did this land in Oak Park, which considered itself inclusive, integrated, and diverse?
"There were people on both sides of this thing," Soffer said. "There's a group of people who were saying innocent until proven guilty, and until the trial is done, he should keep his job."
And there were people just as convinced on the other side.
"He was a Nazi camp guard. He clearly can't work in a public school. He's been lying for 40 years, and he did horrible things, he's gotta go," Soffer said.
That moral argument maintains the theme throughout Soffer's book – what does the school do with their custodian?
"It tore the board apart. It tore the school apart," Soffer said. "They were trying to figure out what pedagogical responsibilities, after all this is a school."
Joe Donlon: "It's interesting, the response from students who felt like it wasn't fair to Kulle. They said it wasn't fair to judge people by their past. 'He hasn't done anything to us.'"
Soffer: "There's a history teacher at the school who is saying, every day, kids come into the building, and our job as educators is to say 'What you do at 14, and 15, and 16, and 17, and 18; what you do matters. How can we then say that what Reinhold Kulle did at 19, and 20, and 21, and 22 doesn't?"
Donlon: "If Kulle had said, 'I'm sorry,' would that have changed anything?"
Soffer: "I don't think there's a world in which Reinhold Kulle would have said, 'I'm sorry for what I did,' because I don't think at any point Reinhold Kulle was sorry for what he did."
On Jan. 30, 1984, the District 200 business office issued Kulle a notice of employee separation.
"The 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," soffer said, reading from his book.
But the district paid Kulle every two weeks through the following June.
Soffer said he's not okay with how the school board handled it, because they didn't fire Kulle.
"They gave him a sweetheart retirement deal. They gave him benefits more than they had to. They gave him a severance package," Soffer said. "They rewarded him, and he should have been, I think, he should have been fired right away."
On Aug. 5, 1987, a federal appeals court ruled Kulle would be deported. He died in Germany in 2006, never having been tried for his actions in World War II.
Why was it so important to Soffer to write his book on Kulle, and take three years researching it?
"I had grown up in the Oak Park area, I had gone to the high school, I was teaching there. It was very very personally relevant," he said. "It was also relevant as a Jew, understanding what is the anti-semitisim? What does it look like?
Soffer recalled a telling comment from a student, who told him, "This guy was a literal Nazi. I can't imagine it took more than a few minutes to fire him, right Mr. Soffer? Right."
Donlon: "There comes a time when you have to reconsider your thoughts about someone when you learn what they've done in the past."
Soffer: "Yes, there does come that time.
But for many people, that time didn't come.
Soffer now teaches history at Lake Forest High School.
CBS News Chicago wants thank the University of Chicago Press for its help, and Temple Beth Israel in Skokie for hosting our interview at their library.
