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Klaus Barbie
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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.
s 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.
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Encyclopedia
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.
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 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. 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. 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 apparently 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). In 1951, he fled to Juan Peron's Argentina with the help of a ratline organized by U.S. intelligence services
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."
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. At the trial Barbie received support not only from Nazi apologists like François Genoud, but also from leftist lawyer Jacques Vergès. 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. 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, 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.
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.
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