We lived next door to a NAZI in our quiet UK street & had no idea…he came to family parties & we considered him a friend

A GARDENING-loving pensioner who "blended in" to suburbia was a 'Nazi SS' soldier living a double life, The Sun can reveal.

The man was a teenager when he joined the ranks of Hitler's most die-hard fanatics, documents suggest.

Now 97, and with the help of an acclaimed Nazi hunter, we tracked him down to a Nottingham care home.

His family say he is "profoundly deaf" but "very much alive".

Remarkably, when we confronted his nearest and dearest about his past, they had no idea.

His daughter told The Sun: "I know he left Ukraine when he was 16.

"I'm not sure if he fought for the German Army. Did he?"

Documents suggest he fought for the feared Waffen SS Galizien in World War II.

A combat arm of Hitler's death squads, the unit consisted of volunteers plucked from southeast Poland and western Ukraine, then the Soviet Union.

Neighbours in the unassuming suburb where he lived since the late 1980s were shocked when we revealed his background.

They recalled a "quiet" man who "blended in" with the community and attended parties.

One said: "He was alright, he liked gardening. He had lots of visitors from his home."

But it appears the ex-SS soldier may have constructed an elaborate backstory to cover up his past.

One resident said: "The only thing he ever told me was that he worked with the allied forces after the war as an interpreter in Poland."

'A LOVELY MAN'

Another recalled: "He said he was in the French Resistance."

He told some residents he was Polish while others believed him to be Ukrainian and a prisoner of war.

Others were so convinced by their neighbour's story they erupted in fury when approached by The Sun.

One fumed: "It's a rubbish allegation I can tell you that.

"I don't know his past, I know he was in the war, he stayed here after it had finished but that is all I know. He is not one for talking about it. He is a lovely man.

"He used to be an engineer. We were friends but we were just neighbours. We used to look after the house when he and his wife went away."

Ukraine was caught between fighting for Hitler or Stalin during World War II.

Many saw the Führer as a ticket to an independent Ukraine away from Soviet rule.

In 1944, a Galizien unit slaughtered an estimated 1,200 innocent Polish inhabitants in what became known as the Huta Pieniacka massacre, in modern-day Ukraine.

I always thought to myself I wonder if he was engaged in something like that early on. Things didn't tie up so well

Neighbour

Alongside SS (Schutzstaffel) Galizien police regiments – later merged into the 1st Galizien battle unit – the Ukrainian SS are alleged to have rounded up villagers in their barns and burned them alive.

By May 10, 1945, two days after VE Day, the Galizien surrendered and were shipped as prisoners of war to Rimini, Northern Italy.

It is unclear when the now-elderly man first stepped foot on British soil but 8,500 Galizen arrived here between May-June 1947.

They were dispersed into UK camps and a few years later into civilian life.

There is no suggestion the man we tracked down, or many Galizien for that matter, are criminals - most were simply Nazi collaborators.

But historians suggest war criminals were in their midst.

Despite what many neighbours on his street believed, one said he had his suspicions.

They explained: "I always thought to myself I wonder if he was engaged in something like that early on.

"Things didn't tie up so well. He told me he killed a German with a spade.

"He said his father was to do with the government there, mayor or something, and they shot him. So he fled.

"He said he joined the French Resistance. They are supposed to have got him out here, they had him for a bit, interrogated him, and then dropped him back in what he said was a resistance group."

NOT THE ONLY ONE

Remarkably, the gentlemen is not the only SS soldier still alive in Britain.

The Sun also found a 96-year-old in a care home just 40 minutes away in Newark, Notts.

A Holocaust researcher told The Sun: "There were others who came to the UK and who hid their collaboration with the Nazis but only a very few were probably involved in war crimes."

A member of Nottingham's Ukrainian community said many "didn't have a choice" and were "forced" into the SS, despite it being a voluntary force.