A case against a former Nazi concentration camp guard who had been living in the U.S. has been shelved by German prosecutors who cited lack of evidence.
After being deported from the U.S., for his actions while an armed guard at a Neuengamme concentration camp in 1945, Friedrich Karl Berger landed in Frankfurt on February 20. An American official told AFP that the government’s deportation of the Nazi concentration camp guard was likely the last of its kind.
Berger had lived in the U.S. since 1959.
With his arrival in Germany, authorities in the city of Celle reopened a case against Berger for his part in murders and “Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution” after Berger stated he would agree to be questioned, AFP reported.
However, prosecutors in Celle again closed the case, stating a “lack of sufficient suspicion” due to “exhausting all evidence.”
They had been looking into the period between January 28, 1945 and April 4, 1945, when Berger was stationed at a sub-camp of Neuengamme, outside Meppen, Germany. They were investigating whether while “monitoring a march evacuating the sub-camp, he had contributed to the death of many detainees.”
Over 40,000 prisoners were killed in the Neuengamme network of concentration camps in Northern Germany.