Klaus Barbie

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Klaus Barbie in Army NCO Uniform.
Klaus Barbie in Army NCO Uniform.

Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon (October 25, 1913 – September 25, 1991) was a German war criminal. He held the rank of Hauptsturmführer (captain) in the German SS and the Gestapo (secret police) during the Nazi regime. He took part in intelligence activities after World War II, working for the British and the CIA, then went into hiding in Bolivia, in 1955. There, he used the alias Klaus Altmann. In 1980, he took part in the 'Cocaine Coup' of Luis García Meza Tejada. Arrested in 1983, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 1987, and died in 1991.

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[edit] Life

Klaus Barbie was born in 1913 in Bad Godesberg near Bonn into a Catholic family. His parents were both teachers. Until 1923 he went to the school where his father worked as a teacher. From 1923, he attended a boarding school in Trier. In 1925, however his whole family moved to Trier. In 1933, Barbie’s father and brother both died.

In September 1935, he joined the SD or Sicherheitsdienst (security service), a special branch of the SS. Soon he was sent to serve in the Netherlands. In 1942, he was sent to Dijon and November of the same year he was sent to Lyon where he became the head of Gestapo. He first set up camp at Hôtel Terminus. It was the time as a head of Gestapo of Lyon that earned him the name the Butcher of Lyon. He personally tortured prisoners and is blamed for the death of 4000 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 U.S Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). 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." [2]. He then emigrated to Bolivia, where he lived under the alias, Klaus Altmann. With Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and the Argentine SIDE, he took part in the 'Cocaine Coup' of Luis García Meza Tejada, when a notoriously corrupt military regime forced its way to power in Bolivia in 1980 [3].

He was identified in Bolivia as early as 1971 by the Klarsfelds (Nazi hunters), but it was only on January 19, 1983, that a new moderate government arrested and deported him to France.

His trial started on May 11, 1987, in Lyon—a jury trial before the Rhône Court d'Assises. In a rare move, the authorization was granted to film the trial because of its high historical value. The lead defense attorney was Jacques Vergès, who claimed that Barbie's actions were no worse than the ordinary actions of colonialists worldwide, and that his trial was selective prosecution making a difference between victims. The head prosecutor was Pierre Duche.

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

[edit] Trial

In 1984, Klaus Barbie was put on trial for crimes committed while he was in charge of the Gestapo in Lyon between 1942 and 1944. As the trial opened Philip A. Potter, a Caribbean pastor, described Barbie in an interview in the February 11, 1984 Le Monde as the last product of the Enlightenment, which, he claimed, had produced four things: "the Industrial Revolution, which subordinated man to the machine; the founding of the United States on a declaration of independence where liberty and equality were applied to all men - except for blacks and Indians; - the French Revolution of 1789 where liberty, brotherhood, and equality were indeed claimed by the bourgeoisie; and imperialism based on racism".

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.

Vergès argued that the Nazi crimes were no different in nature from those committed by French imperialism, and thus the French courts were in no position to try Barbie. Nabil Bouaita, an Algerian lawyer, and Jean-Martin M'Bemba, a Congolese lawyer, joined the defense team. "Does crime against humanity only force emotion or merit commemoration if it hurt Europeans?" Vergès asked. M'Bemba gave an account of how 8,000 Africans died building 140 kilometres of railway in French colonial Africa. Bouaita discussed Sabra and Shatila.

In the end, Barbie was found guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment, and died four years into his sentence at the age of 77.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bbc article on Barbie
  2. ^ Mark Falcoff, Peron's Nazi Ties, Time, November 9, 1998, vol 152, n°19
  3. ^ Hearing of Stefano Delle Chiaie on 22 July 1997 before the Italian Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism headed by senator Giovanni Pellegrino

[edit] Cultural references

  • Ex-CIC agent Erhard Dabringhaus, who worked against the Soviets during the Cold War, recognized Barbie on TV and wrote a book about his contribution to the United States (Erhard Dabringhaus, 1984, Klaus Barbie, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books).
  • In the 2001 movie "Rat Race" a family visits the "Barbie Museum," which they mistakenly assume to be dedicated to the doll, but turns out be dedicated to Klaus Barbie.

[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

[edit] External links

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