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The United States deported a 95-year-old man to Germany after a federal investigation found he worked as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, the Justice Department said on Saturday.
Why is this important: Federal agencies said Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, participated in the Nazi-sponsored persecution in 1945 while serving as a 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 safe haven for human rights violators and war criminals,” ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson said in a press release.
- “We will never stop prosecuting those who persecute others,” Johnson added.
- “This case illustrates the unwavering dedication of the ICE and the Department of Justice to seeking justice and relentlessly hunting down those who participated in one of the greatest atrocities in history, no matter how long it takes.” .
Details: Berger has been the subject of investigation and prosecution by the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Senior Legal Advisor of the ICE (Memphis, Tennessee), the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center and the Homeland Security Investigations field 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 deported from the country under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act because his service as a camp warden in concentration was an aid to the persecution sponsored by the Nazis.
- At the time, Berger told the Washington Post, “I can’t understand how this can happen in a country like this.
- Court found Berger had served in a Neuengamme subcamp near Meppen, Germany, which held Jews, Poles, Russians, Danes, Dutch, Latvians, French, Italians and opponents policies of the Nazis as prisoners.
The presiding judge gave an opinion noting that Meppen prisoners were held during the winter of 1945 in “atrocious” conditions and exploited for forced labor in the open air, working “to the point of exhaustion and death”.
- The court found, and Berger admitted that he helped guard the prisoners to prevent them from escaping during their daybreak to dusk work day.
- The court determined that Berger had helped guard the prisoners during their forced evacuation to the main camp at Neuengamme as allied British and Canadian military forces advanced on Meppen in late March 1945.
- The forced evacuation lasted almost two weeks and claimed the lives of some 70 prisoners.
- The court also concluded that Berger had never requested a transfer from the concentration camp guard service and that he continued to receive a pension from the German government due to his employment in Germany, “including his war”.
The big picture: The Justice Department said Berger was the 70th Nazi persecutor deported from the United States to Germany.
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