The Nazi Camp Guard Case that Explains the Trump Travel Restrictions
They weren't a 'Muslim ban', but a way to differentiate between the oppressor and the oppressed
By Andrew R. Arthur on February 25, 2021
On February 20, DOJ reported that Friedrich Berger, a German citizen and erstwhile resident of Tennessee, had been removed to his homeland for his participation in Nazi-sponsored persecution during his service as a guard at a concentration camp near Hamburg in 1945. That case illustrates the logic behind the Trump administration's travel restrictions for certain aliens from 13 countries, which have been erroneously derided as a "Muslim ban".
Berger's case is complicated, as his travel to this country was somewhat circuitous, but here are the basics: He was serving in the German navy when he was sent to be a guard at the Meppen subcamp (a forced labor facility) of the Neuengamme concentration camp system near the war's end. The camp held Jewish prisoners, foreign nationals from Nazi-occupied countries, and political opponents of Hitler's regime.
In March 1945, allied forces were bearing down on the subcamp, and Berger guarded prisoners as they were forced to evacuate to the main camp — a harrowing journey that took two weeks, and in which 70 prisoners died. Hundreds of others were killed aboard two ships mistakenly bombed by the Royal Air Force while they were anchored in the Bay of Lubeck.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Nazi-Camp-Guard-Case-Explains-Trump-Travel-Restrictions
