Born into a family of tradesmen, Jean Burger studied at the Ecole Normale de Montigny[1] and became a teacher in the industrial basin of Lorraine.
[2] In September 1939, Burger was mobilized as part of the 460th Pioneer Regiment of the French Army and was stationed on the Maginot Line where he was taken prisoner on 17 June 1940.
The arrests were aided by information seized by the Gestapo in 1940 from the Direction centrale des renseignements généraux, the intelligence service of the French National Police.
Finally moved to an annex of the Dora concentration camp, he was mortally wounded while weakened by pneumonia during an American bombing raid on the Mittelwerk complex.
[2] In memory of Burger, a number of streets and buildings in the Mosellle département bear his name, as well as the Jean-Burger-Straße in Magdeburg, Germany, where a commemorative monument was erected.