An 85-year-old Gwinnett County man accused of guarding people in concentration camps in Nazi Germany said Monday that the U.S. should not deport him.

Paul Henss addressed a throng of reporters at his home near Lawrenceville just hours after the federal government announced plans to expel him from the United States. The government says Henss trained attack dogs to kill people who tried to escape from two concentration camps during World War II.

Kimberly Smith/Staff

Paul Henss, 85, is accused of war crimes during the time he served in the German army during World War II. U.S. authorities want to deport him.

RELATED LINK: • Read the charges (PDF) • More Gwinnett news

"That was in 1942," the former SS member said on Monday afternoon. "I didn't know what they were doing with the people."

The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security allege that the German citizen guarded prisoners "at the notorious Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany."

The government says Henss "entered the United States in 1955 after concealing his concentration camp service."

Henss spoke over the occasional wailing of his wife, Else, after the two returned home from lunch at the Golden Corral. They seemed confused by the media attention and took turns sitting in a nearby chair to regroup.

"I was 19 years old," Henss said. "Everybody was with the Hitler youth."

Henss said he trained German Shepherds and Rottweilers to attack those who tried to escape the concentration camps. But he said he didn't know what was going on at the camps and had joined the SS primarily to fight on the front lines in World War II.

"I am not a war criminal," he said.

Henss admitted that he didn't list his service in the SS when arriving in New York more than half a century ago.

"I forgot about the war," he said. "I want to leave the war behind me."

The U.S. government's Office of Special Investigations has not forgotten. It has removed 106 participants in Nazi crimes since 1979.

The case against Henss is the first case in Georgia that the Office of Special Investigation has handled, said Jaclyn Lesch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington.

Authorities have not set a court date for Henss.

"Hundreds of thousands of persons were confined under horrific conditions at Dachau and Buchenwald on the basis of their race, religion, national origin or political opinion," Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said in a statement from Washington Monday.

"By commencing these proceedings against a man who participated in the victimization of those who were interned there, the Justice Department continues to make good on its pledge to ensure that the United States does not become a sanctuary for human rights violators."

Director Eli M. Rosenbaum of the Office of Special Investigations said in a statement that "the SS committed mass murder at Dachau and Buchenwald and subjected thousands of inmates to slave labor, starvation, grotesque medical experimentation, and torture.

"The brutal concentration camp system could not have functioned without the determined efforts of SS men such as Paul Henss, who, with a vicious attack dog, stood between these victims and the possibility of freedom."

Court documents allege that Henss joined the Hitler Youth organization in 1934 and joined the Nazi Party in September 1940. He volunteered guard dogs that were trained to "bite without mercy" anyone trying to escape and "literally tear prisoners to pieces if they tried to escape."

During an interview with federal investigators, court documents say, Henss admitted that he served as a concentration camp guard for a few months, that he guarded forced labor details and "instructed other SS personnel on dog-handling techniques."