Klaus Barbie

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Klaus Barbie (1913-1991) was a Nazi SS leader who was head of anti-Resistance operations in France during its occupation by Germany in World War II. After the war, Barbie worked covertly for U.S. Army intelligence in Germany prior to his escape to Bolivia. There he lived for over 30 years as Klaus Altmann before his arrest and return to France for trial as a war criminal.

Klaus Barbie was born October 25, 1913, in the town of Bad Godesberg, a few miles down the Rhine River from Bonn. The son of a school teacher, he spent an uneventful childhood as a good but not brilliant student with a gift for languages.

Barbie Joins Nazi SS

In 1935, three years after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, the 22-year-old Barbie joined the SS (Shutzstaffel), the Nazi party's cadre that swore loyalty not to Germany but to Hitler. He served in the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), the intelligence and security branch of the SS, headed by Reinhold Heydrich.

The young Barbie was assigned to a number of posts in Europe in the next six years as the German war machine swept westward. He won a reputation as a shrewd, dedicated SS officer, earning promotions and commendations from admiring superiors.

Head of Anti-Resistance Operations in France

After Germany invaded France in 1941, Barbie became head of anti-Resistance operations there. He is widely believed to have been responsible for the torture and death of Jean Moulin, the clandestine head of France's anti-Nazi coalition. As head of the Gestapo at Lyon, Barbie also appears to have been responsible for a number of "actions" against innocent French Jews, including a raid on an orphanage in the town of Izieu which sent over 50 boys and girls to the gas chambers at the death camp of Auschwitz.

Recruited by U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps

When the war in Europe ended in the spring of 1945 with the Nazis' defeat, Barbie hid from the Allies until April 1947, when he was recruited by the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) of the U.S. Army in occupied Germany. Although the Army had a warrant for Barbie's arrest as a suspected subversive, the regional commander decided that his skills as an interrogator made him more valuable as a spy than as a prisoner, and over the next four years Barbie took on increasing responsibility for the Army, at one time running a "net" or spy network that included scores of informants in East and West Germany and France. By all accounts a crafty and skilled interrogator, Barbie soon became one of the Army's most trusted spies. In 1949, however, his presence became known to French war crimes investigators, who demanded that the "Butcher of Lyon" be turned over to them to stand trial for his crimes.

Army Hides Barbie

The Army took a fateful step. It decided not to surrender Barbie to the French, fearing that it would be embarrassed by his service and apprehensive that he might disclose wide-ranging U.S. intelligence efforts to the French. With the aid of Krunoslav Dragonovich, a shadowy Croatian priest, it placed Barbie in a so-called "rat line" that had previously been used to help Soviet and Eastern bloc citizens who had spied on behalf of the United States.

Aided by false papers that Dragonovich obtained from the International Red Cross under the name of "Klaus Altmann," the Army delivered Barbie to Genoa, Italy. Here he and his wife and two young children boarded an Italian liner to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The "Altmann" family quickly moved to the mountainous city of La Paz, Bolivia, where Barbie supported himself as an auto mechanic.

Barbie Spies For Bolivia

His skills as a spy did not go unnoticed in the military government of Bolivia, and before long Barbie became a confidant of high-ranking generals. It is likely that he served as an adviser to that country's secret police; it is known that he became the director of Transmaritima Boliviana, a company organized to charter ships to bring supplies to land-locked Bolivia. He lived openly as any prosperous businessman might and was often seen in La Paz' cafes and restaurants.

True Identity Discovered

The past began to catch up with Barbie in 1971, when Beate Klarsfeld, a German-born homemaker married to French lawyer Serge Klarsfeld, discovered from a German prosecutor's files that Barbie was living in Bolivia under the name of Altmann. In a dramatic move, she went to La Paz and chained herself to a fence, demanding that "Altmann" be tried for his crimes.

Although her initial effort was unsuccessful - she was hustled to the airport by indignant Bolivian police - the spotlight of publicity was on Barbie to stay. For over a decade, "Altmann" denied that he was Barbie, but his identity was no secret to Bolivian military regimes. Finally, in 1982, a civilian government came to power, and in February 1983 it arrested Barbie and turned him over to French officials.

Barbie's return to France created tremendous publicity and soul-searching in that country, which had never fully come to terms with its mixed record of collaboration with, and resistance to, the Nazis. Shortly after his return, the prosecutor in Lyon announced that Barbie would stand trial on several charges of "crimes against humanity" - including the deaths of the French children from Izieu.

Barbie's expulsion to France had ramifications in America as well. The U.S. Department of Justice, following a five-month investigation, revealed Barbie's post-war role for U.S. intelligence and issued a formal apology to France for "delaying justice in Lyon" for nearly 33 years.

Like nearly all others who committed horrifying atrocities under the Nazi regimes, Barbie showed little remorse for his crimes. "There are no war crimes," he said. "There are only acts of war." When he was expelled from Bolivia, he seemed indifferent: "I did my duty. I have forgotten. If they (the French) have not forgotten, that is their business."

The French had not forgotten, but three years after his return, Barbie languished in a jail cell in Lyon, with no date set for his trial. A further postponement came in 1986 when the French Court of Indictments ruled that he could be tried for crimes against resistance fighters as well as for "crimes against humanity." Barbie was imprisoned for life in 1987 for crimes including the murders of at least four Jews and Resistance Workers and 15,000 deportations to death camps. He was the last German war criminal of rank to be tried. Barbie died of cancer in a prison hospital in Lyons, France on September 25, 1991.

Further Reading

A recent biography of Barbie, which devotes considerable attention to the impact of his return on France, is Unhealed Wounds: France and the Klaus Barbie Affair, by Erna Paris (Methuen, 1985). Serge Klarsfeld's The Children of Izieu (1985) contains the full story of that tragic crime. A chapter on Barbie's affiliation with the United States is found in Quiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals in America, by Allan A. Ryan, Jr. (1984). The complete Justice Department report was published in 1983 by the Government Printing Office under the title Klaus Barbie and the United States Government. See also, Voices From the Barbie Trial by Ted Morgan in the August 2, 1987 edition of the New York Times Magazine and Gestapo Chief Dies In Prison by Paul Webster in the September 26, 1991 issue of The Guardian.

Klaus Barbie
Born	October 25, 1913(1913-10-25) Bad Godesberg, Germany
Died	September 25, 1991 (aged 77) Lyon (jail), France
Nationality	German
Other names	Butcher of Lyon
Occupation	Hauptsturmführer
Known for	Working as a Nazi Leader in France, torturing resistance members. And for being a drug lord and arms dealer in Bolivia.
Political party	National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)
Religious beliefs	Roman Catholic

Klaus Barbie (October 25, 1913 – September 25, 1991) was an SS-Hauptsturmführer (rank approximately equivalent to army captain), soldier and Gestapo member. He was known as the Butcher of Lyon.

Contents 1 Early life 2 War crimes 3 Trial 4 In popular culture 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

Early life

Klaus Barbie was born in Bad Godesberg, today part of Bonn, Germany. Barbie was born to a Roman Catholic family.^{[citation needed]} His parents were both teachers.^{[citation needed]} Until 1923 he went to the school where his father taught. Afterward, he attended a boarding school in Trier. In 1925, his whole family moved to Trier. In 1933, Barbie's father and brother both died. The death of his abusive, alcoholic father derailed plans for young Barbie to study theology or otherwise become an academic, as his peers had expected. While unemployed, Barbie was drafted into the Nazi labor service - Reichsarbeitsdienst.

In September 1935, he joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the special security branch service of the SS that acted as the intelligence-gathering arm of the Nazi Party. Soon he was sent to serve in Amsterdam in the German occupied Netherlands. In 1942, he was sent to Dijon and in November of the same year he was sent to Lyon, where he became the head of the local Gestapo.

War crimes

He first set up camp at Hôtel Terminus in Lyon. It was his time as head of the Gestapo of Lyon that earned him the name Butcher of Lyon. Evidence suggests that he personally tortured prisoners and is responsible for the deaths of up to 4,000 people.^[1] The most infamous case is the arrest and torture of Jean Moulin, one of the highest-ranking members of the French Resistance. In April 1944, Barbie ordered the deportation to Auschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at Izieu. After his surgery in Lyon, Klaus Barbie rejoined the SIPO-SD of Lyon in Bruyeres-in-Vosges France where he was also responsible for a massacre in Rehaupal in September 1944.

In 1947, Barbie became an agent for the 66th Detachment of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC).^[2] In 1951, he fled to Juan Peron's Argentina with the help of a ratline organized by U.S. intelligence services^[3] and the Ustashi Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganović. Asked by Barbie why he was going out of his way to help him escape, Draganovic responded, "We have to maintain a sort of moral reserve on which we can draw in the future."^[4] He then emigrated to Bolivia, where he lived under the alias Klaus Altmann. Testimony of Italian insurgent Stefano Delle Chiaie before the Italian Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism suggests that Barbie took part in the "Cocaine Coup" of Luis García Meza Tejada, when the regime forced its way to power in Bolivia in 1980.^[5]

Barbie was also reported to have worked as an officer for Bolivian intelligence and helped plan concentration camps, and formulate torture and repression techniquies for anti-government rebels while Bolivia was under a violent dictatorship.^{[citation needed]}

While in Bolivia, Barbie managed a company that diverted Belgian and Swiss arms to Israel while Israel was still under a post-Six-Day War international arms embargo. A report in the Israeli press alleges that Barbie also had frequent dealings with Israel concerning supplies of Israeli arms to Latin American countries and "various underground organizations."^[6]

Trial

Barbie was identified in Bolivia as early as 1971 by the Klarsfelds (Nazi hunters), but it was only on January 19, 1983, that the newly elected government of Hernán Siles Zuazo arrested and extradited him to France.

In 1984, Barbie was put on trial for crimes committed while he was in charge of the Gestapo in Lyon between 1942 and 1944. The trial started on May 11, 1987, in Lyon — a jury trial before the Rhône Cour d'assises. In a rare move, the court allowed the trial to be filmed because of its historical value. Also, a special court room with seating for an audience of about 700 was constructed.^[7] The head prosecutor was Pierre Truche. At the trial Barbie received support not only from Nazi apologists like François Genoud, but also from leftist lawyer Jacques Vergès.

Quite likely under Vergès' direction, Barbie caused sensations on the first days of the trial: he gave his name as Klaus Altmann (the name he had used while in Bolivia) and, claiming that his extradition was technically illegal, made the request to be excused from the trial and return to his cell at St Joseph prison. This was granted though he was brought back on the 26th of May to face some of his accusers, during which he stated that he had "nothing to say".

Vergès had a reputation for attacking the French political system, particularly in the French colonial empire. His strategy at the trial was to use it to expose war crimes committed by France since 1945. Indeed, many of the charges against Barbie were dropped, thanks to legislation that had protected people accused of crimes under the Vichy regime and in French Algeria. Vergès further argued that Barbie's actions were no worse than the ordinary actions of colonialists worldwide, and that his trial was selective prosecution. During his trial, Barbie famously stated that: "When I stand before the throne of God I shall be judged innocent".

On July 4, 1987, Barbie was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, and died in jail in Lyon of leukemia four years later, at the age of 77.

In popular culture

Barbie is memorably referenced in the film Rat Race, when the Jewish Pear family stops at the "Barbie Museum", thinking it to be a museum of Barbie dolls. They arrive, shocked at its true subject and threatening staff of neo-nazis, who attempt to portray Klaus Barbie as a "loving husband, devoted father, wine connisseur, and three time ballroom dancing champion." Following their awkward departure, the Pear family finds their van destroyed and subsequently steals one of the museum's relics, Adolf Hitler's staff car.

References

1. ^ "Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie gets life". BBC. 3 July 1987. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/3/newsid_2492000/2492285.stm. Retrieved 2009-05-01. 
2. ^ Wolfe, Robert (19 Sept 2001). "Analysis of the Investigative Records Repository file of Klaus Barbie". Interagency Working Group. http://www.archives.gov/iwg/research-papers/barbie-irr-file.html. Retrieved 2009-05-01. 
3. ^ Terkel, Studs (1985). The Good War. Ballantine. ISBN 0345325680. 
4. ^ Falcoff, Mark (9 Nov 1998). "Peron’s Nazi Ties". TIME Magazine 152 (19). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1998/int/981109/latin_america.perons_na30a.html. 
5. ^ "Hearing of Stefano Delle Chiaie on before the Italian Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism headed by President Giovanni Pellegrino" (in Italian). 22 July 1997. http://www.parlamento.it/bicam/terror/stenografici/steno26.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-01. 
6. ^ Linklater, Magnus; Isabel Hilton, Neal Ascherson (1984). The Fourth Reich: Klaus Barbie and the Neo-Fascist Connection. Hodder and Stoughton. http://books.google.com/books?id=ijAEHgAACAAJ. , quoted in Chomsky, Noam 'Turning the Tide: US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace' South End Press 1985 page 36
7. ^ Barbet Schroeder (director) Jacques Vergès (subject) Klaus Barbie (subject). (2007). L'avocat de la terreur. France: La Sofica Uni Etoile 3.  Documentary; English title: “Terror’s Advocate”.

Further reading

• Hilberg, Raul (1982). "Barbie (SS, Lyon)" (in German). Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden (110 ed.). Olle & Wolter. p. 453. ISBN 978-3883954318. OCLC 10125090.  Case No. 77, Fn 908 KsD Lyon IV-B (gez. Ostubaf. Barbie) an BdS, Paris IV-B, 6. April 1944, RF-1235.
• Goni, Uki (2002). The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina. Granta Books. ISBN 978-1862074033.  A chapter in this book also follows how top Nazis made their way to Argentina and Latin America.
• Bower, Tom (1984). Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0394533599. 
• U.S. Samurais in Bruyeres Klaus Barbie found in the Vosges Mountains in Bruyeres after his surgery in Lyon. Barbie rejoins his unit the SIPO-SD of Lyon there and was responsible of the Massacre of Rehaupal in September 1944|year=1993 |publisher=Editions du CPL [1][2]

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Klaus Barbie

• Marcel Ophuls’s Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988) at the Internet Movie Database
• Kevin Macdonald’s My Enemy’s Enemy (2007) at the Internet Movie Database
• L'avocat de la terreur at the Internet Movie Database (English: “Terror's Advocate”)

v • d • e Post-war flight of Nazi fugitives Fugitives German and Austrian: Ludolf von Alvensleben • Klaus Barbie • Alois Brunner • Adolf Eichmann • Josef Mengele • Erich Priebke • Walter Rauff • Eduard Roschmann • Arthur Rudolph • Paul Schäfer • Walter Schreiber • Franz Stangl • Carl Værnet • Gustav Wagner Croatian: Milivoj Ašner  • Ante Pavelić  • Dinko Šakić  • Vjekoslav Vrančić Other nationalities: Herberts Cukurs  • Pierre Daye  • Léon Degrelle  • John Demjanjuk  • Søren Kam  • Mykola Lebed  • Jacques de Mahieu • Carl Værnet Assistance Organizations: Ratlines State involvement: Colonia Dignidad (Chile)  • Franco (Spain)  • Perón (Argentina)  • Operation Paperclip (USA) • Robert Leiber (Holy See)  • Stroessner (Paraguay) Other persons: Rodolfo Freude • Alois Hudal • Charles Lescat • Hans-Ulrich Rudel  • Otto Skorzeny Hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld • Simon Wiesenthal Disputed or dubious Krunoslav Draganović  • Aribert Heim • ODESSA

Persondata
NAME	Klaus Barbie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Klaus Altmann
SHORT DESCRIPTION	SS-Hauptsturmführer, soldier and Gestapo member, known as the "Butcher of Lyon".
DATE OF BIRTH	25 October 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bad Godesberg, Germany
DATE OF DEATH	25 September 1991
PLACE OF DEATH	Lyon (jail), France

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