Klaus Barbie

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Klaus Barbie

Klaus Barbie posing with the other OKW officers.
Born October 25, 1913(1913-10-25)
Bad Godesberg, Germany
Died September 25, 1991 (aged 77)
Nationality German Flag of Germany
Other names Butcher of Lyon
Occupation Hauptsturmführer
Political party NSDAP
Religious beliefs Roman Catholic

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

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[edit] Early life

Klaus Barbie was born in Bad Godesberg, near Bonn, Germany. Barbie was born to a Roman Catholic family. His parents were both teachers. 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 hard-drinking and abusive 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) membership was compulsory for all young German men and women.

In September 1935, he joined the SD or Sicherheitsdienst (security service), a special branch of the SS. The SD was a branch of the SS and the intelligence gathering arm of the NSDAP(Nazi party). Soon he was sent to serve in the 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.

[edit] War crimes

He first set up camp at Hôtel Terminus. It was his time as head of the Gestapo of Lyon that earned him the name Butcher of Lyon. He personally tortured prisoners and is blamed for the deaths of 4,000 people.[1] He is best known primarily for one of his "cases", 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.

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 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."[3] 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.[4]

While in Bolivia, Barbie managed a company that diverted Belgian and Swiss arms to Israel while Israel was still under a post-1967 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'" [5]

[edit] 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. At the trial Barbie received support not only from Nazi apologists like François Genoud, but also from leftist lawyer Jacques Vergès. He had a reputation for attacking the French political system, particularly in French colonial territories. Vergès' strategy at the trial was to use the trial 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.

His 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. The lead defense attorney was Jacques Vergès, who argued that Barbie's actions were no worse than the ordinary actions of colonialists worldwide, and that his trial was selective prosecution. The head prosecutor was Pierre Truche. During his trial, Klaus famously stated that: "When I stand before the throne of God I shall be judged innocent", indicating that he truly believed his actions were justified.

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


[edit] References

  1. ^ BBC article on Barbie
  2. ^ Robert Wolfe (2001-09-19). Analysis of the Investigative Records Repository (IRR) File of Klaus Barbie. Interagency Working Group.
  3. ^ Mark Falcoff, Peron's Nazi Ties, Time, November 9, 1998, vol 152, n°19
  4. ^ Hearing of Stefano Delle Chiaie on July 22, 1997 before the Italian Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino
  5. ^ Magnus Linklater, Isabel Hilton, Neal Ascherson (1984). The Fourth Reich: Klaus Barbie and the Neo-Fascist Connection. Hodder and Stoughton. , quoted in Chomsky, Noam 'Turning the Tide: US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace' South End Press 1985 page 36

[edit] Further reading

  • ISBN 3-88395-431-4 > Barbie (SS, Lyon), p. 453 Fn, O&W ed. 110 case No. 77, Fn 908 KsD Lyon IV-B (gez. Ostubaf. Barbie) an BdS, Paris IV-B, 6. April 1944, RF-1235
  • ISBN 10-18620-75522 > GONI, Uki: "The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina". Granta Books; Reprint edition(September 2003). There is a chapter in this book also, it follows the path of how top Nazis made their way to Argentina and Latin America.
  • Tom Bower (1984). Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons. New York: Pantheon. 

[edit] External links

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