The 95-Year-Old Nazi Soldier Being Convicted After 75 Years
By: Andrei Tapalaga
Tags: History, War, World War II, Culture, Crime

The 95-Year-Old Nazi Soldier Being Convicted After 75 Years

Friedrich Karl Berger (Source: Warn Sitgerb Breeze)

No matter how far you get, how well you hide, the past will always catch on in the end. This is the story of Friedrich Karl Berger, a former soldier from the German army during World War 2. Berger is now 95 years of age and before this incident, he used to live in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. A happy pensioner that was trying to live his elderly years in peace and quiet, although hiding something from his past.

The United States (U.S.) government has found out that during his years as a German soldier he committed several war crimes, therefore in February of 2020, he was ordered by the government to go back to Germany. To get a better understanding of this situation we need to go back to 1940 when he started his career as a soldier.

Back to the past

Once Berger had finished his basic training, he was assigned to guard one of the labor camps from the Neuengamme group found in the North of Germany. At the time this was only a labor camp, not a concentration camp. The difference is that the prisoners would not be gassed, but killed through exhausting labor. This camp held over 40,000 prisoners that were made up of Polish and Russian soldiers. Berger had mentioned during his auditing that he did hold a weapon, not that he had killed or inflicted any pain on the prisoners. It is important to mention that Berger was only 19 years old at the time.

However, the U.S. authorities that have been investigating Berger’s case have found out that he was part of a death march in 1945. These death marches were made to kill the remaining prisoners from concentration camps/labor camps as the allied soldiers pushed the Germans further back towards Berlin. The march that Berger took part in involved 70 prisoners who were forced to march for two weeks. From the research done by the investigators, there have been confessions from other survivors that he was responsible for the death march.

Berger originally joined the German Navy corps, but due to the Allies pushing back at a quick pace, most of them were assigned to defend different types of camps and German military bases. He was caught in 1945 by the allies near Berlin where he surrendered. After the war in 1946, Berger emigrated to Canada with his wife and daughter until 1959 when he migrated to the U.S. settling in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Not so lost information

Since he left Germany in 1946, he always kept his German citizenship in order for him to receive his pension as a veteran for his services in the German Army during World War 2. Interestingly enough, all of this information about his past was found in a German warship by the name of SS Thielbek which was sunk in May of 1945. The file containing his military records stated all of the tasks he had been assigned to, as well as the death march. The ship was found in 1950 and repaired. But even so, no one paid much attention to all the files within it.

Louis A Rodi III who is the Deputy Assistant to the Director of the National Security Department of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement mentioned that Berger always knew his past, but all of these years he tried to hide it, that is the reason why he migrated to America. This has been something that has not only been very much debated by the media but also by historians over the past few decades as Berger is not the only ex-German soldier to be convicted as a senior.

Another example is from 2015, when Oskar Groning, also known as the Bookkeeper of Auschwitz, was found guilty of being part of the murder of 300,000 Jewish people. Groning was sentenced to four years in prison, but he never got to finish his sentence as he died in March 2018, at the age of 96.

Even if it does not seem right to convict a 95-year-old as he does not have that long to live, all of those who have suffered from the Holocaust are still in need of justice. In his defense, Berger had said that he was only 19 years of age at the time and all of the war crimes he had committed were ordered by higher up SS commanders. Whilst this could very much be true, he had a choice to not go through with his orders, but this would also mean to betray his country.

Past or present, history must not be forgotten and as much of an inconvenience it may be to Berger at 95 years of age to move back to Germany and leave his family behind, someone has to pay the price for his crimes for the justice of those who suffered in the holocaust.