Klaus Barbie | |
|---|---|
 Barbie as anSS-Obersturmführer | |
| Born | Niklaus Barbie (1913-10-25)25 October 1913 Godesberg, Germany |
| Died | 25 September 1991(1991-09-25) (aged 77) Lyon, France |
| Other names | "Butcher of Lyon" Klaus Altmann |
| Political party | Nazi Party |
| Criminal status | Deceased |
| Conviction | Crimes against humanity |
| Criminal penalty | Death; commuted tolife imprisonment |
| Career | |
| Allegiance | |
| Branch | |
| Years of service | 1935–1945 |
| Rank | SS-Hauptsturmführer |
| Unit | Sicherheitsdienst (SD) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Niklaus "Klaus"Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was a German officer of theSchutzstaffel andSicherheitsdienst who worked inVichy France duringWorld War II. He became known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners—primarilyJews and members of theFrench Resistance—as the head of theGestapo inLyon. After the war,United States intelligence services employed him for hisanti-communist efforts and aided his escape toBolivia, where he advisedthe dictatorial regime on how to repress opposition through torture. In 1983, the United States apologised to France for the U.S.Counterintelligence Corps helping him escape to Bolivia,[2] aiding Barbie's escape from an outstanding arrest warrant.[3]
In 1972, it was discovered he was in Bolivia. While in Bolivia, theWest German Intelligence Service recruited him. Barbie is suspected of having had a role in the Boliviancoup d'état orchestrated byLuis García Meza in 1980. After the fall of the dictatorship, Barbie lost the protection of the government inLa Paz. In 1983, he was arrested and extradited to France, where he was convicted ofcrimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Although he had been sentenced to deathin absentia twice earlier, in 1947 and 1954,capital punishment had been abolished in France in 1981. Barbie died of cancer in 1991, at age 77, in his Lyon prison cell.
Niklaus Barbie was born on 25 October 1913 inGodesberg, which is today part ofBonn. The Barbie family came fromMerzig, in theSaar near theborder withFrance. In 1914, his father, also named Niklaus, was conscripted to fight in theFirst World War. He was wounded in the neck atVerdun and captured by the French, and he never recovered his health. Until 1923, when he was 10, Klaus Barbie attended the local school where his father taught. Afterwards, he attended a boarding school inTrier. In 1925, the entire Barbie family moved to Trier.[1]
In June 1933, Barbie's younger brother Kurt died, at the age of 18, of a chronic illness. Later that year, their father also died. The death of his father derailed plans for the 20-year-old Barbie to studytheology.[4] While unemployed, Barbie was conscripted into theReich Labour Service. On 26 September 1935, aged 22, he joined theSchutzstaffel (SS) as member 272,284, and began working in theSicherheitsdienst (SD), the SS security service, which acted as theintelligence-gathering arm of theNazi Party. On 1 May 1937, he became member 4,583,085 of the Nazi Party.[5]
After the Germanconquest andoccupation of the Netherlands, Barbie was assigned to Amsterdam. He had been pre-assigned toAdolf Eichmann's Amt (Department) IV/B-4. This department was responsible for the identification, roundup, and deportation of Dutch Communists, Jews andFreemasons. On 11 October 1940, Barbie arrestedHermannus van Tongeren [nl],Grand Master of theGrand Orient of the Netherlands. In March 1941, van Tongeren was transported toSachsenhausen concentration camp where, in freezing conditions, he died two weeks later. On 1 April, Barbie summoned van Tongeren's daughter, Charlotte, to SD headquarters and informed her that her father had died of an infection in both ears and had been cremated.[6]
In 1942, he was sent toDijon, in theOccupied Zone of France. In November of the same year, at the age of 29, he was assigned to Lyon as the head of the localGestapo. He established his headquarters at theHôtel Terminus in Lyon, where he personally tortured adult and child prisoners.[3][7][8] He became known as the "Butcher of Lyon".[9] The daughter of aFrench Resistance leader based in Lyon said her father was beaten and his skin torn, and that his head was immersed in buckets of ammonia and cold water; he could not sit or stand and died three days later from burns to his skin.[7] Other tortures included training German shepherd dogs to bite and using them torape naked women.[10]
It has been estimated[11] that Barbie was directly responsible for the deportation of up to 14,000 Jews and resistance fighters,[12][13] personally participating in roundups such as theRue Sainte-Catherine Roundup which saw 84 people arrested in a single day. He arrestedJean Moulin, a high-ranking member of theFrench Resistance and his most prominent captive. In 1943, he was awarded theIron Cross (First Class) byAdolf Hitler for his campaign against the French Resistance and the capture of Moulin.[14]
In April 1944, Barbie ordered thedeportation toAuschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage atIzieu.[15] He then rejoined theSiPo-SD of Lyon in its retreat toBruyères, where he led an anti-partisan attack inRehaupal in September 1944.[16]
In 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent for the 66th Detachment of theUS ArmyCounterintelligence Corps (CIC) along with a Serbian agent of theBelgrade special police and SD, Radislav Grujičić.[17][18] The US used Barbie and other Nazi Party members to furtheranti-communist efforts in Europe. Specifically, they were interested in British interrogation techniques which Barbie had experienced firsthand, as well as the identities of former SS officersBritish intelligence agencies might be interested in recruiting. Later, the CIC housed him in a hotel inMemmingen; he reported on French intelligence activities in theFrench zone of occupied Germany because they suspected that the French had been infiltrated by theKGB andGPU.[19]
The US Department of Justice report to the US Senate in 1983 opens with the summary paragraph:[20]
As the investigation of Klaus Barbie has shown, officers of the United States government were directly responsible for protecting a person wanted by the government of France on criminal charges and in arranging his escape from the law. As a direct result of that action, Klaus Barbie did not stand trial in France in 1950; he spent 33 years as a free man and a fugitive from justice.
The French discovered that Barbie was in U.S. hands; having sentenced him to deathin absentia forwar crimes, they made a plea toJohn J. McCloy,US High Commissioner for Germany, to hand him over for execution, but McCloy refused.[19] Instead, the CIC helped him flee to Bolivia assisted by "ratlines" organised by US intelligence services,[21] as well as by Croatian Roman Catholic clergy, includingKrunoslav Draganović. The CIC asserted that Barbie knew too much about the network of German spies the CIC had planted in various European communist organisations. It was suspicious of communist influence within the Government of France, but their protection of Barbie may have been as much to avoid the embarrassment of having recruited him in the first place.[17] Other authors have suggested that the anticommunist element of Italian fascism and the protection of the Vatican allowed Klaus Barbie and other Nazis to flee to Bolivia.[22]
In 1965, Barbie was recruited by the West German foreign intelligence agencyBundesnachrichtendienst (BND), under the codename"Adler" (German for 'Eagle') and the registration number V-43118. His initial monthly salary of 500Deutsche Marks was transferred in May 1966 to an account of theChartered Bank of London inSan Francisco. During his time with the BND, Barbie made at least 35 reports to the BND headquarters inPullach.[23]
Barbie immigrated to Bolivia in 1951,[24] where he lived well for 30 years inCochabamba, under the alias Klaus Altmann. It was easier and less embarrassing for him to find employment there than in Europe; he enjoyed excellent relations with high-ranking Bolivian officials, including Bolivian dictatorsHugo Banzer andLuis García Meza. "Altmann" was known for hisGerman nationalist andanti-communist stances.[25] While engaged in arms-trade operations in Bolivia, he was appointed to the rank of lieutenant colonel within theBolivian Armed Forces.[26]
Barbie collaborated withRené Barrientos's regime, including teaching the general's private paramilitaries named "Furmont" how torture can best be used. The regime's political repression against leftist groups was helped by Barbie's knowledge about intelligence work, torture and interrogations. In 1972 under General Banzer (with whom Barbie collaborated even more openly), he assisted in illegal arrests, interrogations and murders of opposition and progressive groups. Journalists and activists who wrote or spoke about the regime's crimes against human rights were arrested and many fell victim to so-called "disappearances", the state's secret murders and abductions of leftists. Barbie actively participated in the regime's oppression of opponents.[27][28][29][30]
Barbie was strongly linked to the neo-Nazi paramilitary memberÁlvaro de Castro, who was his personally hired bodyguard and the two participated in criminal actions and businesses together. De Castro had connections with powerful drug barons and the illegal drug trade and, together with Barbie (under the name Altmann) and an Austrian company, sold weapons to the drug cartels. When De Castro was arrested he admitted in interviews that he had earlier worked for drug lords in the country. Other sources say Barbie most likely also had connections with these organizations.[31] Initially, he worked forRoberto Suárez Gómez who eventually introduced him to Colombian traffickers. Barbie met withPablo Escobar and several other high ranking members of theMedellín cartel in the late 1970s, and agreed to arrange for security of Escobar'sraw coca supply, from its cultivation until it reached processing plants in Colombia. In exchange, Escobar agreed to fund Barbie's anti-communist activities.[32] De Castro continued to correspond with Barbie when Barbie was later under arrest.[33][27][28][29][30][31] Their connections also provided intelligence information to U.S. authorities at the U.S. Embassy. A group called "The Fiancés of Death", which included German Nazis and Fascists, had links to some of Barbie's actions in Bolivia. Barbie earlier also carried out a large arms purchase of tanks from Austria to the Bolivian army. These were then used in a coup d'état.[27][28][29][31]
According to various reports, after the emergence ofChe Guevara in Bolivia in 1966, Barbie's anti-partisan skills were in demand again, and he worked for the Bolivian Interior Ministry with the rank of lieutenant as an instructor and adviser to the security forces.[34] During an interview for the 2007 documentary filmMy Enemy's Enemy, journalist Kai Hermann told the film-makers that Barbie constantly "boasted that it was he who devised the strategy for murdering Che Guevara".[35]
People who met Barbie during his time in Bolivia have said that he was a firm and fanatical believer in theNazi ideology and ananti-Semite. Barbie and De Castro reportedly talked about the cases and searches forJosef Mengele andAdolf Eichmann, whom Barbie supported and wanted to assist in remaining on the run.[27][28][29][30][31]
In 1973,Monika Ertl, daughter of Nazi propagandistHans Ertl and a communist militant who assassinated Bolivian intelligence directorRoberto Quintanilla, had planned to abduct Barbie and extradite him to France before being killed by Bolivian police.[36]
Barbie was identified as being inPeru in 1971 bySerge andBeate Klarsfeld (Nazi hunters from France), who came across a secret document that revealed his alias. Barbie was living at Malecon 200, Chaclacayo (11°57′26.3″S76°43′45.2″W / 11.957306°S 76.729222°W /-11.957306; -76.729222) a property owned by SS-SturmbannführerFriedrich Schwend. On 19 January 1972, this information was published in the French newspaperL'Aurore, along with a photograph of Altmann which the Klarsfelds obtained from a German expatriate living in Lima, Peru.[37] In Peru, Barbie provided security services to thejunta of GeneralJuan Velasco Alvarado following themilitary coup of 3 October 1968, including surveillance of theU.S. diplomatic mission led by John Irwin in March 1969.[38]
Led byBeate Klarsfeld, French journalistLadislas de Hoyos and cameraman Christian van Ryswyck flew to La Paz in January 1972 in order to find and interview Barbie posing as his alias, Klaus Altmann. The interview took place on 3 February 1972 in the Department of the Interior building and the following day, in prison, where Barbie was placed under protection by the Bolivian authorities.[39] In the videotape, and while the interview was conducted in Spanish, Ladislas de Hoyos steers away from the previously agreed upon questions by asking whether Barbie has ever been to Lyon in French, a language he is not supposed to understand under his fake identity, to which Barbie automatically responds in the negative in German. Ladislas de Hoyos gave him photos of Resistance members he had tortured, asking him if he recognized their faces, and, while he returned them in denial, his fingerprints unmistakably betrayed him. It was in this interview, later broadcast on French TV ChannelAntenne 2, that he was recognized by French Resistance member Simone Lagrange, who had been tortured by Klaus Barbie in 1944.[40]
The testimony of Italian insurgentStefano Delle Chiaie before the Italian Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism suggests that Barbie took part in theRoberto Suárez Gómez supported 1980 coup d'état "cocaine coup" ofLuis García Meza, when the regime forced its way to power in Bolivia in 1980.[41]
In February 1983, the newly elected democratic regime ofHernán Siles Zuazo arrested Barbie in La Paz on the pretext of his owing the government US$10,000 for goods he was supposed to have delivered but did not. A few days later, the government delivered him to France to stand trial.[42][43]
Shortly after Barbie's extradition, evidence emerged that Barbie had worked for U.S. intelligence in Germany and that U.S. agents may have been instrumental in Barbie's flight to Bolivia to escape prosecution in France.Allan Ryan, Director of theOffice of Special Investigations (OSI) of the U.S. Justice Department, recommended to U.S. Attorney GeneralWilliam French Smith that the matter be investigated.[44][45] Following a lengthy investigation and a full report that was released to the public, Ryan concluded that "officers of the United States government were directly responsible for protecting a person wanted by the government of France on criminal charges and in arranging his escape from the law."[46]
Ryan felt that the initial decision by the U.S. government to use Barbie duringCold War counter-intelligence work, while reprehensible in light of his war crimes, might be defended on national security interest grounds. Doing so was no different from what other World War II victor nations were doing at the time; it appeared to have been done without anyU.S. Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) knowledge of Barbie's atrocities in Lyon. After those atrocities became well publicised, however, Ryan regarded it as indefensible for CIC personnel to lie to higher U.S. authorities and help Barbie escape Europe to Bolivia rather than honour an outstanding French warrant for his arrest.[46]: p.203 As a result of Ryan's report and personal recommendation, the U.S. government made a formal apology to France for enabling Barbie to escape French justice for 33 years.[47]
In 1984, Barbie was indicted for crimes committed asGestapo chief in Lyon between 1942 and 1944, chief among which was theRue Sainte-Catherine Roundup. Thejury trial started on 11 May 1987 in Lyon before theRhôneCour d'Assises.[48] The head prosecutor wasPierre Truche. One witness at the trial wasMichel Thomas, a Polishpolyglot Jew, who had narrowly escaped arrest by Barbie in Lyon during World War II.[49]
Barbie's defence was funded by Swiss pro-Nazi financierFrançois Genoud and led by attorneyJacques Vergès. Barbie was tried on 41 separate counts ofcrimes against humanity.[50] The father of FrenchMinister for JusticeRobert Badinter had died inSobibor after being deported from Lyon during Barbie's tenure.[51]
Barbie gave his name as Klaus Altmann, the name that he used while in Bolivia. He claimed that his extradition was technically illegal and asked to be excused from the trial and returned to his cell atPrison Saint-Paul. This was granted. He was brought back to court on 26 May 1987 to face some of his accusers, about whose testimony he had "nothing to say".[52]
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Barbie's defence lawyer,Jacques Vergès, had a reputation for attacking the French political system, particularly in the historicFrench colonial empire. His strategy was to use the trial to talk about war crimes committed by France since 1945. He got the prosecution to drop some of the charges against Barbie due to French legislation that had protected French citizens accused of the same crimes under theVichy regime and inFrench Algeria. Vergès argued that Barbie's actions were no worse than the supposedly ordinary actions ofcolonialists worldwide, and that his trial was tantamount toselective prosecution.
Barbie's final statement, spoken in French, was: "I never committed the roundup in Izieu. I fought the Résistance, which I respect, with toughness but that was war, and the war is over."[53]
The court rejected the defence's argument, and on 4 July 1987, Barbie was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison in Lyon (ofleukemia and prostate cancer) four years later, at the age of 77.[54] His ashes were claimed by his daughter, who repatriated them to Austria.[55]
In April 1939, Barbie became engaged to Regina Margaretta Willms, the 23-year-old daughter of a postal clerk; they had two children, a son named Klaus-Georg Altmann and a daughter named Ute Messner.[56]
In 1983, Françoise Croizier, Klaus Barbie's French daughter-in-law, said in an interview that theCIA kidnapped Klaus-Georg in 1946 to make sure that his father carried out intelligence missions for the agency. Croizier met Klaus-Georg while both were students in Paris; they married in 1968, had three children and lived in Europe and Bolivia using the surname "Altmann". Croizier said that when she married, she did not know who her father-in-law was, but that she could guess the reasons for a German to settle in South America after the war. Klaus-Georg died in a hang-gliding accident in 1981.[57]
