Berga concentration camp

[3][4] The labor camp formed part of Germany's secret plan to use hydrogenation to transform brown coal into usable fuel for tanks, planes, and other military machinery.

[7] The men were put to work, together with the concentration camp inmates, digging 17 tunnels for an underground ammunition factory, some of them 150 feet below ground.

[citation needed] On 4 April, the 300 surviving American prisoners were marched out of the camp ahead of approaching U.S. troops.

[9] During an air raid, while the camp lights were extinguished, Hans Kasten, Joe Littel and Ernst Sinner escaped.

However, a sergeant named Erwin Metz was ultimately responsible for the work details and many of the inhumane conditions.

When the Allied forces closed in on the retreating Germans, Metz deserted his post and attempted to escape by bicycle.

He was captured days after the prisoners were liberated by American forces, and sentenced to death for killing a US POW, Pvt Morton Goldstein (Battery C/590th Field Artillery/106 US Division) on March 14, 1945.