A 95-year-old Tennessee man who was a Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany for his role in the Holocaust, the Justice Department said.
In 1945, Friedrich Karl Berger was an armed guard at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp system in Germany where he "participated in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution," the Justice Department said.
Berger, who has German citizenship, was ordered removed from the U.S. in February 2020 following a two-day trial, the Justice Department said.
According to the court, Berger allegedly admitted to guarding prisoners to keep them from escaping during their forced outdoor labor in the winter of 1945, the Justice Department said.
Berger admitted 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 Germany, 'including his wartime service,'" the Justice Department said.
About 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust.
Berger was the 70th Nazi to be removed from the U.S., the Justice Department said.
"The passage even of many decades will not deter the Department from pursuing justice on behalf of the victims of Nazi crimes," Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson said in a statement.
The exact date of Berger's deportation was not immediately clear; the Justice Department said he was deported on Saturday while Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he was deported on Friday.
