US Deports Former Nazi Guard Living in Tennessee: He Claimed He Was Only Following Orders

A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard who has been living in Tennessee was deported to his home country of Germany on Saturday.

According to a Saturday news release from the ⚖️Department of Justice, Friedrich Karl Berger worked at a Neuengamme subcamp near Meppen, Germany, where the prison population comprised “Jews, Poles, Russians, Danes, Dutch, Latvians, French, Italians, and political opponents.”

In February 2020, a Memphis immigration judge said the prisoners in the camp were kept in “atrocious” conditions and forced to perform hard labor, working “to the point of exhaustion and death,” NBC News reported.

According to estimates from the Holocaust Memorial Museum, more than 50,000 prisoners, nearly half the people ever imprisoned there, died in the camp.

During the two-day trial last year, Berger admitted that he guarded prisoners to prevent them from escaping. After the Allies’ approach forced the Nazis to abandon Meppen, Berger also evacuated prisoners under inhumane conditions.

The former concentration camp guard reportedly never requested a transfer from the camp during his time there. As of February of last year, Berger was still receiving a pension from Germany for his wartime service.

Due to his participation in “Nazi-sponsored persecution,” the judge ruled that Berger could be deported, and the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the decision in November.