Shalikashvili’s Father Tied to Nazi Unit : Military: The man Clinton called a ‘Georgian army officer’ when nominating his son for Joint Chiefs post was said to be a Waffen SS major.

WASHINGTON —  The father of John M. Shalikashvili, the Army general nominated by President Clinton to become America’s chief military commander, served as an officer in an elite Nazi military unit during World War II, according to information released Friday by a Jewish research institute.

The late Dimitri Shalikashvili, referred to by Clinton simply as a “Georgian army officer” when the President announced the nomination earlier this month, became a major in the Waffen SS in 1944, according to Rabbi Marvin Hier, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Information compiled by the center, which collects historical data to help track down Nazi war criminals, indicates that the elder Shalikashvili’s association with the Nazis began after the family fled Poland in 1939 ahead of the Soviet Army’s westward advance.

On the basis of the father’s own unpublished memoirs--on file at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution--Hier said it appeared that the senior Shalikashvili began collaborating with the Nazis in 1941, and perhaps as early as 1939, after the Georgian-born officer was released from a German POW camp in Poland. Following his release, he began organizing the Georgian Legion, a force of expatriates intent upon liberating Georgia, with German aid, from Soviet control.

The allegation appears to hold little risk of derailing the nomination of Shalikashvili to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--a rise through the ranks that Clinton hailed as “a great American story.”

But it could raise questions about how the family was able to enter the United States in 1952, and how much Clinton knew about the senior Shalikashvili ‘ s wartime activities when he named his son to the nation’s top military post on Aug. 11.

“What is relevant is that Gen. Shalikashvili has done a great job at NATO and that he’ll make a magnificent chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Sen. Carl Levin, (D-Mich.), a lawmaker noted for his efforts to promote awareness of the Holocaust, said Friday. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Levin will be a key supporter of Shalikashvili’s nomination.

It was not immediately clear whether the White House knew the full details of the father’s wartime service when Clinton decided to nominate Shalikashvili to succeed Gen. Colin L. Powell. Officials acknowledged that they knew the senior Shalikashvili had served in the German army, but rejected suggestions that he was an active Nazi sympathizer.

White House spokeswoman Ricki Seidman, echoing Levin’s remark, declared Friday that the younger Shalikashvili’s “record stands on its own, and his father’s history is not relevant.” Defense Secretary Les Aspin, in a statement released by the Pentagon, praised the nominee’s “superb record of achievement” and added that “allegations about his father’s history are not relevant to Gen. Shalikashvili’s nomination.”

Gen. Shalikashvili’s office in Belgium could not be reached for comment on when his father died. According to Hoover archivist Anne Van Camp, the elder Shalikashvili’s widow donated the manuscript in 1980, some years after her husband’s death. Van Camp confirmed that Hier’s account of the memoirs accurately reflects their contents.

Hier emphasized that in releasing details of Dimitri Shalikashvili’s memoirs, the Wiesenthal Center does not oppose the nomination of his son, whom he called a “patriotic American” who deserves to be judged on his own merits and deeds.

“Going after 8-year-old refugee boys is not what we’re after at all,” Hier said in an interview. “We respect very much the fundamental American principle that every person should stand on his or her own deeds and accomplishments, and should not be held liable for the actions or misdeeds of their parents or anyone else.”

According to his own account, Dimitri Shalikashvili became a member of the Waffen SS in 1944, when the Georgian Legion was subsumed into the elite Nazi organization. Until then, the legion, one of several national units organized and armed by the Nazis, had been under the command of the regular German army. The consolidation followed a key attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life, Shalikashvili wrote.

The Waffen SS was the most trusted arm of Hitler’s army in World War II. Hier said that several of the foreign units that operated under Nazi command committed terrible atrocities during the course of the war. Collaborating units of Ukrainians, Latvians and Lithuanians assisted in rounding up Jewish and other prisoners and, in some cases, in murdering them. But Hier stressed he had no evidence that the Georgian Legion engaged in atrocities.

After World War II, the U.S. government officially barred the immigration of individuals who had knowingly cooperated with the Nazis--a prohibition that would probably have blocked the entry of the Shalikashvilis into the United States. The policy is known to have been waived in many cases where Nazi collaborators had special technical or military knowledge that could prove useful to the United States in its prosecution of the Cold War.

Recounting his efforts to enter the United States after the war, the senior Shalikashvili made clear that because of his activities, he probably would have been turned away if he had applied to the International Refugee Organization for entry into the United States. “I made no effort to get a visa through the IRO, as we had relatives in the United States, and they were willing to help us,” wrote Shalikashvili.

After an American cousin offered a sworn statement on the family’s behalf, the Shalikashvili family settled in Peoria, Ill., when John Shalikashvili was 16. Six years later, the younger Shalikashvili’s U.S. military career began, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army and trained as an artilleryman.