US Sending 94 Year-Old Nazi Back To Germany

A Tennessee man who served as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp at Neuengamme has been sent back to Germany. 

Friedrich Karl Berger was ordered by judge Rebecca L. Holt on Thursday to return to his home country, where he is still a resident and continues to receive a pension 'for wartime service'. 

The now 94-year-old was said to have been 'willing' to work at the subcamp in Meppen, where prisoners were held during the winter of 1945 in 'atrocious' conditions.   

Widower Berger, who came to the US in 1959 with his wife and daughter and has two grandchildren, told The Washington Post: 'After 75 years, this is ridiculous. I cannot believe it. I cannot understand how can happen in a country like this. You’re forcing me out of my home.

Berger is said to have been 'part of the SS machinery of oppression that kept concentration camp prisoners in atrocious conditions of confinement', according to Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski. 

The court heard that Berger, who came to the US legally, admitted that he guarded prisoners to prevent them from escaping. 

And with the advance of Allied forces Berger even helped guard the prisoners during their forcible evacuation to the Neuengamme main camp after the Nazis abandoned the sub camp at Meppen. 

The two-week move, in March 1945, claimed the lives of some 70 people.  

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Berger was removed from the US following a two day trial under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act. 

He was said to have 'never requested a transfer from concentration camp guard service' and continues to receive a pension from Germany based on his employment there, 'including his wartime service'.  

Prisoners at the Neuengamme sub-camp near Meppen, Germany included 'Jews, Poles, Russians, Danes, Dutch, Latvians, French, Italians, and political opponents'. 

Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski said in a statement: 'This ruling shows the Department's continued commitment to obtaining a measure of justice, however late, for the victims of wartime Nazi persecution.'

Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant director David C. Shaw said: 'This case is but one example of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's commitment to ensuring that the United States will not serve as a safe haven for human rights violators and war criminals.

'We will continue to pursue these types of cases so that justice may be served.'

The case was initiated by the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions, a program set up 'to detect, investigate, and remove Nazi persecutors'. 

In a statement online the DOJ states: 'Since the 1979 inception of the Justice Department’s program to detect, investigate, and remove Nazi persecutors, it has won cases against 109 individuals. 

'Over the past 30 years, the Justice Department has won more cases against persons who participated in Nazi persecution than have the law enforcement authorities of all the other countries in the world combined. 

'HRSP’s case against Berger was part of its ongoing efforts to identify, investigate and prosecute individuals who engaged in genocide, torture, war crimes, recruitment or use of child soldiers, female genital mutilation, and other serious human rights violations.'