A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was deported to Germany from Tennessee, authorities said Saturday.
Freidrich Karl Berger, who is a German citizen, was ordered to be expelled from the US in February last year for participating in “Nazi-sponsored persecution” while guarding prisoners at a concentration camp in the United States. Neuengamme concentration camp system in 1945, according to a statement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Berger was a guard in a Neuengamme subcamp near Meppen, Germany, where prisoners were held in the winter of 1945. During a two-day trial last February, Berger admitted to guarding prisoners to prevent them from escaping.
Following the trial, an immigration judge in Memphis found that in the winter of 1945 inmates at the camp were held in “dire” conditions and forced to work “to the point of exhaustion and death.”
Berger helped guard prisoners when the Nazis left the camp in late March 1945 as Allied British and Canadian forces advanced, ICE said. The nearly two-week journey resulted in 70 deaths.
The decision also noted that he continues to receive a pension from Germany based on his job for the country, “including his wartime service”.
According to the Department of JusticeBerger is the 70th Nazi persecutor to be removed from the United States.
Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson said in a statement that Berger’s removal “ demonstrates the commitment of the Justice Department and its law enforcement partners to ensuring that the United States is not a safe haven for those who participated in Nazi crimes against the United States. humanity and other human rights. abuse. “
“In this year in which we have the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg convictions, this case shows that even the passage of many decades will not stop the ministry from pursuing justice on behalf of the victims of Nazi crimes, ”the statement said.