Admitted ex-Nazi guard ordered out of U.S., Feds

A federal immigration judge has order a Tennessee resident to return to his native Germany following a trial in which he was found to be a former Nazi concentration camp guard, according to the Justice Department.

U.S. Immigration Judge Rebecca L. Holt issued the order after a two-day trial, saying Friedrich Karl Berger could be removed from the U.S. under the the Immigration and Nationality Act because of his “willing service as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where persecution took place.”

Berger served in Nazi Germany in 1945 as an armed guard in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp system.

Some of the prisoners in that system were held during the winter of 1945 in “atrocious” conditions and forced to work “to the point of exhaustion and death,” according to the Justice Department.

Berger admitted that he guarded prisoners to prevent them from escaping during their dawn-to-dusk workday, the Justice Department also said Thursday.

Neither Berger nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment. It’s unclear how or when Berger will be removed from the U.S. 

The judge’s decision to order Berger out of the U.S. was also based on his admission that he never requested a transfer from concentration camp guard service and that he continues to receive a pension from Germany based on his employment in the country, “including his wartime service.”

“Berger was part of the SS machinery of oppression that kept concentration camp prisoners in atrocious conditions of confinement,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division.