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Barbie emigrated to [[Bolivia]], where he lived under the alias, Klaus Altmann. He had less embarrassment being employed there than in Europe, and enjoyed excellent relations with high-ranking Bolivian officials, including Bolivian dictators [[Hugo Banzer]] and [[Luis García Meza Tejada]]. "Altmann" was known for his [[German nationalism|nationalist]] and [[anti-communist]] stances.<ref>Hammerschmidt, Peter: [http://www.peterhammerschmidt.de/forschungen/publikationen "Die Tatsache allein, daß V-43 118 SS-Hauptsturmführer war, schließt nicht aus, ihn als Quelle zu verwenden". Der Bundesnachrichtendienst und sein Agent Klaus Barbie], ''Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft'' (ZfG), 59. Jahrgang, 4/2011. METROPOL Verlag. Berlin 2011, S. 333–349. {{de icon}}</ref> While conducting his arms trade operations in Bolivia, he was appointed to the rank of [[Lt. Colonel]] within the [[Bolivian Armed Forces]].<ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/10/bolivia-germany ''"He was even given the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Bolivian armed forces.."''], guardian.co.uk; accessed 1 September 2015.</ref>
Barbie emigrated to [[Bolivia]], where he lived under the alias, Klaus Altmann. He had less embarrassment being employed there than in Europe, and enjoyed excellent relations with high-ranking Bolivian officials, including Bolivian dictators [[Hugo Banzer]] and [[Luis García Meza Tejada]]. "Altmann" was known for his [[German nationalism|nationalist]] and [[anti-communist]] stances.<ref>Hammerschmidt, Peter: [http://www.peterhammerschmidt.de/forschungen/publikationen "Die Tatsache allein, daß V-43 118 SS-Hauptsturmführer war, schließt nicht aus, ihn als Quelle zu verwenden". Der Bundesnachrichtendienst und sein Agent Klaus Barbie], ''Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft'' (ZfG), 59. Jahrgang, 4/2011. METROPOL Verlag. Berlin 2011, S. 333–349. {{de icon}}</ref> While conducting his arms trade operations in Bolivia, he was appointed to the rank of [[Lt. Colonel]] within the [[Bolivian Armed Forces]].<ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/10/bolivia-germany ''"He was even given the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Bolivian armed forces.."''], guardian.co.uk; accessed 1 September 2015.</ref>

===Che Guevara===
{{See also|Ñancahuazú Guerrilla}}
Reviews of the 2007 documentary ''[[My Enemy's Enemy]]'', by British director [[Kevin Macdonald (director)|Kevin Macdonald]], note that it suggests Barbie helped the [[CIA]] orchestrate the 1967 capture and execution in Bolivia of [[Che Guevara]], who was active in South America at the time.<ref name="ObserverChe">[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec/23/world.secondworldwar Smith, David. "Barbie 'Boasted of Hunting Down Che']", ''[[The Observer]]'', 23 December 2007.</ref> In 1966, a disguised Guevara had arrived in Bolivia to organise the overthrow of its military dictatorship and its replacement with a Communist government. According to the film, the CIA used Barbie for his knowledge of [[counter-guerrilla warfare]].<ref name="ObserverChe"/>

Álvaro de Castro, a longtime confidant of Barbie, was interviewed for the film. He said:{{quote|He (Barbie) met Major Shelton, the commander of the unit from the US. (Barbie) no doubt gave him advice on how to fight this guerrilla war. He used the expertise gained doing this kind of work in the Second World War. They made the most of the fact that he had this experience.<ref name="ObserverChe"/>}}

De Castro added that Barbie, "had little respect for Che Guevara". In the film, journalist Kai Hermann says, "[Barbie] always boasted – though I cannot prove it – that it was he who devised the strategy for murdering Che Guevara".<ref name="ObserverChe"/><ref>Gott, Richard. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/06/major-ralph-shelton "Major Ralph Shelton obituary"], ''The Guardian'', 6 September 2010; NOTE: Major Shelton commanded the US unit.</ref>


==Extradition, trial and death==
==Extradition, trial and death==

Revision as of 13:47, 22 April 2016

Klaus Barbie
File:Klaus Barbie September 1930.png
Birth nameNikolaus Barbie
Born(1913-10-25)25 October 1913
Bad Godesberg, Germany
Died23 September 1991(1991-09-23) (aged 77)
Lyon, France (incarcerated)
Allegiance Nazi Germany
 Bolivia
Service/branch Gestapo
Years of service1933–1945
Rank SS-Hauptsturmführer
Service number
UnitSicherheitsdienst
Battles/warsWorld War II
  • Western Front
Ñancahuazú Guerrilla
AwardsIron Cross First Class[2]

Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie (25 October 1913 – 23 September 1991) was an

Luis García Meza Tejada in 1980. After the fall of the dictatorship, Barbie no longer had the protection of the Bolivian government, and in 1983 was extradited to France, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity
and died in prison of cancer.

Early life and education

Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie was born on 25 October 1913 in

First World War. He returned an angry, bitter man. Wounded in the neck at Verdun and captured by the French, whom he hated, he never recovered his health. He became an alcoholic who abused his children. Until 1923, when he was 10, Klaus Barbie attended the local school where his father taught. Afterward, he attended a boarding school in Trier, and was relieved to be away from his abusive father. In 1925, the entire Barbie family moved to Trier.[2]

In June 1933, Barbie's younger brother, Kurt, died at the age of eighteen of chronic illness. Later that year, their father died. The death of his father derailed plans for the 20-year-old Barbie to study

intelligence-gathering arm of the Nazi Party. On 1 May 1937, he became member 4,583,085 of the Nazi Party. In April 1939, Barbie became engaged to Regina Margaretta Willms, the 23-year-old daughter of a postal clerk.[2]

Second World War

After the German

skinned alive, and his head immersed in a bucket of ammonia; he died shortly after.[4]

Historians estimate that Barbie was directly responsible for the deaths of up to 14,000 people.[7][8] He arrested Jean Moulin, one of the highest-ranking members of the French Resistance and his most prominent enemy figure. In 1943, he was awarded the "Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Swords" for his campaign against the French Resistance, and the capture of Moulin by Adolf Hitler.[9]

In April 1944, Barbie ordered the

Auschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at Izieu.[10] After his operations in Lyon, he rejoined the SiPo-SD of Lyon in Bruyères, where he led an anti-partisan attack in Rehaupal in September 1944.[citation needed
]

US intelligence and Bolivia

In 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent for the 66th Detachment of the

U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC).[11] The U.S. used Barbie and other Nazi Party members to further anti-Communist efforts in Europe. Specifically, they were interested in British interrogation techniques, which Barbie had experienced firsthand, and the identities of SS officers that the British were using for their own ends. Later, the CIC housed him in a hotel in Memmingen, and he reported on French intelligence activities in the French zone of occupied Germany because they felt the French were infiltrated with Communists.[12]

The French discovered that Barbie was in U.S. hands and, having sentenced him to death

war crimes, made a plea to John J. McCloy, U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, to hand him over for execution, but McCloy allegedly refused.[12] Instead, the CIC allegedly helped him flee to Bolivia with the help of "ratlines" organized by U.S. intelligence services,[13] and Croatian Roman Catholic clergy, including Father Krunoslav Draganović. The CIC asserted that Barbie knew too much about the network of German spies the CIC had planted in various European Communist organizations, and were suspicious of the Communist influence within the French government, but their protection of Barbie may have been as much to avoid the embarrassment of having recruited him.[11]

In 1965, Barbie was recruited by the West German foreign intelligence agency

Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), under the codename "Adler" (Eagle) and the registration number V-43118. His initial monthly salary of 500 Deutsche Mark was transferred in May 1966 to an account of the Chartered Bank of London in San Francisco. During his time with the BND, Barbie made at least 35 reports to the BND headquarters in Pullach.[14]

Barbie emigrated to

Bolivian Armed Forces.[16]

Extradition, trial and death

Barbie's Bolivian secret police ID card

Barbie was identified as living in Bolivia in 1971 by the

Luis García Meza Tejada, when the regime forced its way to power in Bolivia in 1980.[17] On 19 January 1983, the newly elected government of Hernán Siles Zuazo arrested Barbie and extradited him to France to stand trial.[18]

In 1984, Barbie was indicted for crimes committed while he directed the Gestapo in Lyon between 1942 and 1944. The jury trial started on 11 May 1987, in Lyon, before the Rhône Cour d'assises. Unusually, the court allowed the trial to be filmed because of its historical value. A special court room with seating for an audience of about 700 was constructed.[19] The head prosecutor was Pierre Truche.

At the trial, Barbie was supported by financier François Genoud, and defended by the lawyer Jacques Vergès. Barbie was tried on 41 separate counts of crimes against humanity, based on the depositions of 730 Jews and resistance figures, who cited his torture practices and murders.[20]

The father of then-French Minister for Justice, Robert Badinter, had died in Sobibor after being deported from Lyon during Barbie's tenure.[21]

Barbie gave his name as Klaus Altmann (the name he used while in Bolivia). Claiming his extradition was technically illegal, he asked to be excused from the trial and returned to his cell at Prison Saint-Paul. This was granted. He was brought back to court on 26 May 1987 to face some of his accusers, during which time he stated that he had "nothing to say".[citation needed]

Vichy regime and in French Algeria. Vergès tried to argue that Barbie's actions were no worse than the supposedly ordinary actions of colonialists worldwide, and that his trial was selective prosecution. During his trial, Barbie said, "When I stand before the throne of God I shall be judged innocent".[22]

The court did not accept the defence argument. On 4 July 1987, Barbie was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison in Lyon of leukemia and cancer of the spine and prostate four years later, at the age of 77.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ Profile, holocaustresearchproject.org; accessed 29 September 2015.
  2. ^ a b c Profile, jewishvirtuallibrary.org; accessed 29 September 2015.
  3. ^ Bönisch, Georg; Wiegrefe, Klaus (20 January 2011). "From Nazi to criminal to post-war spy: German intelligence hired Klaus Barbie as agent". Der Spiegel.
  4. ^ a b Hôtel Terminus (Motion picture). 1988.
  5. ^ "Klaus Barbie: women testify of torture at his hands", upenn.edu; 23 March 1987.
  6. ^ "Ich bin gekommen, um zu töten". Der Spiegel. 2 July 2007. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
  7. ^ "Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie gets life". BBC. 3 July 1987. Retrieved 1 May 2009.
  8. ^ "Klaus Barbie ausgeliefert". Der Spiegel. 4 February 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
  9. ^ "On behalf of his cruel crimes and specially for the Moulin case, Barbie was awarded, by Hitler himself, the First Class Iron Cross with Swords", jewishvirtuallibrary.org; accessed 29 September 2015.
  10. ^ On the deportation of the Children of Izieu, at yad Vashem website
  11. ^ a b Wolfe, Robert (19 September 2001). "Analysis of the Investigative Records Repository file of Klaus Barbie". Interagency Working Group. Retrieved 1 May 2009.
  12. ^
    ISBN 9781859841396
    . Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  13. ISBN 0-345-32568-0
    .
  14. ^ "Vom Nazi-Verbrecher zum BND-Agenten". Der Spiegel (in German). 19 January 2011. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
  15. ^ Hammerschmidt, Peter: "Die Tatsache allein, daß V-43 118 SS-Hauptsturmführer war, schließt nicht aus, ihn als Quelle zu verwenden". Der Bundesnachrichtendienst und sein Agent Klaus Barbie, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft (ZfG), 59. Jahrgang, 4/2011. METROPOL Verlag. Berlin 2011, S. 333–349. Template:De icon
  16. ^ "He was even given the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Bolivian armed forces..", guardian.co.uk; accessed 1 September 2015.
  17. ^ Laetitia Grevers (4 November 2012). "The Butcher of Bolivia". Bolivian Express Magazine. Retrieved March 2016. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  18. ^ "Klaus Barbie, The Butcher of Lyon". Holocaust Research Project. Retrieved March 2016. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  19. ^ L'avocat de la terreur. France: La Sofica Uni Etoile 3. 2007. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
  20. ISBN 978-0-231-07464-3
    . Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  21. ISBN 978-90-04-15329-5
    . Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  22. ^ "Klaus Barbie profile". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 4 July 2014.
  23. ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (26 September 1991). "Klaus Barbie, 77, Lyons Gestapo Chief". The New York Times.

Further reading

External links


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