The United States has deported a 95-year-old man to Germany after a federal investigation found he was working as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, the Justice Department announced Saturday.
Why it’s important: Federal agencies said Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, took part in the Nazi-sponsored persecution in 1945 while on guard in the Neuengamme concentration camp system in northern Germany.
What they say: “We are committed to ensuring that the United States does not serve as a refuge for human rights violators and war criminals,” Ie Acting Director Tae Johnson said in a press release.
- “We will never stop chasing those who chase others,” Johnson added.
- “This case exemplifies the firm dedication of the ICE and the Department of Justice in pursuing justice and relentlessly hunting down those who participated in one of the greatest atrocities in history, no matter how long it takes.”
Details: Berger was investigated and prosecuted by the Department of Human Rights and Special Processes Section of the Department of Justice, the ICE Senior Legal Adviser Office (Memphis, Tennessee), the Center for Human Rights Violators and War Crimes, and the National Security Investigation Office in Knoxville, Tennessee.
- After a two-day trial in February 2020, a judge found that Berger, who had lived in the United States since 1959, was withdrawn from the country under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act because his service as a concentration camp guard was an aid. in Nazi-sponsored persecution.
- At the time, Berger told the Washington Post, “I can’t understand how this can happen in a country like this. You’re forcing me out of my house.”
- A court found that Berger was serving in a subfield in Neuengamme, near Meppen, Germany, which had Jewish, Polish, Russian, Danish, Dutch, Latvian, French, Italian, and political opponents of the Nazis.
The presiding judge issued an opinion finding that Meppen prisoners were detained during the winter of 1945 in “atrocious” conditions and that they were exploited for forced labor in the open air, working “to exhaustion and death.”
- The court found and Berger admitted he helped protect the prisoners to prevent them from escaping during their morning-evening workday.
- The court determined that Berger helped protect the prisoners during their forced evacuation to the main camp at Neuengamme as British and Canadian allied forces advanced on Meppen in late March 1945.
- The forced evacuation lasted nearly two weeks and caused the lives of about 70 prisoners.
- The court also held that Berger never applied for a transfer from the concentration camp guard service and that he continues to receive a pension from the German government based on his work in Germany, “including his war service.”
The big picture: The Justice Department said Berger was the 70th Nazi persecutor deported from the United States to Germany.