Nikolaus “Klaus” Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was a Nazi, known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners of the Gestapo—primarily Jews and members of the French Resistance—while stationed in Lyon under the collaborationist Vichy regime.
He died of cancer in prison on 25 September 1991. ==Early life and education== Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie was born on 25 October 1913 in Godesberg, later renamed Bad Godesberg, which is today part of Bonn.
In 1914, his father, also named Nikolaus, was conscripted to fight in the First World War.
Until 1923, when he was 10, Klaus Barbie attended the local school where his father taught.
In 1925, the entire Barbie family moved to Trier. In June 1933, Barbie's younger brother, Kurt, died at the age of 18 of chronic illness.
In 1925, the entire Barbie family moved to Trier. In June 1933, Barbie's younger brother, Kurt, died at the age of 18 of chronic illness.
On 26 September 1935, aged 22, he joined the SS (member 272,284), and began working in the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the SS security service, which acted as the intelligence-gathering arm of the Nazi Party.
On 1 May 1937, he became member 4,583,085 of the Nazi Party. ==Second World War== After the German conquest and occupation of the Netherlands, Barbie was assigned to Amsterdam.
He died in prison in Lyon four years later of leukemia and spine and prostate cancer at the age of 77. ==Personal life== 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.
On 11 October 1940, Barbie arrested , Grand Master of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands.
In March 1941, van Tongeren was transported to Sachsenhausen 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. In 1942, he was sent to Dijon, France in the Occupied Zone.
government made a formal apology to France for enabling Barbie to escape French justice for thirty-three years. In 1984, Barbie was indicted for crimes committed as Gestapo chief in Lyon between 1942 and 1944, chief among which was the Rue Sainte-Catherine Roundup.
In 1943, he was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class) by Adolf Hitler for his campaign against the French Resistance and the capture of Moulin. In April 1944, Barbie ordered the deportation to Auschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at Izieu.
In 1943, he was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class) by Adolf Hitler for his campaign against the French Resistance and the capture of Moulin. In April 1944, Barbie ordered the deportation to Auschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at Izieu.
He then rejoined the SiPo-SD of Lyon in its retreat to Bruyères, where he led an anti-partisan attack in Rehaupal in September 1944. ==U.S.
It was in this interview, later broadcast on French TV Channel Antenne 2 that he was recognized by French resistant Simone Lagrange who had been tortured by Klaus Barbie in 1944. Despite global outcry, Barbie was able to return to Bolivia where the government refused to extradite him, stating that France and Bolivia did not have an extradition treaty and that the statute of limitations on his crimes had expired.
government made a formal apology to France for enabling Barbie to escape French justice for thirty-three years. In 1984, Barbie was indicted for crimes committed as Gestapo chief in Lyon between 1942 and 1944, chief among which was the Rue Sainte-Catherine Roundup.
His strategy was to use the trial to talk about war crimes committed by France since 1945.
In 1983, Françoise Croizier, Klaus Barbie's French daughter-in-law, said in an interview that the CIA kidnapped Klaus-Georg in 1946 to make sure his father carried out intelligence missions for the agency.
intelligence work in post-War Europe== In 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent for the 66th Detachment of the U.S.
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.
During his time with the BND, Barbie made at least 35 reports to the BND headquarters in Pullach. ==Bolivia== Barbie emigrated to Bolivia in 1951, where he lived well for 30 years in Cochabamba, under the alias Klaus Altmann.
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. 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.
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.
Barbie met with Pablo Escobar and several other high ranking members of the Medellin cartel in the late 1970s, and agreed to arrange for security of Escobar's raw coca supply, from its cultivation until it reached processing plants in Colombia.
However, in the 1970s, the community of refugee Jews who had survived or escaped the war, openly discussed the fact that Barbie was the war criminal from Lyon now living on the Calle Landaeta in La Paz and frequenting the Cafe de La Paz daily.
Barbie and De Castro reportedly talked about the cases and searches for Josef Mengele and Eichmann, whom Barbie supported and wanted to assist in remaining on the run. ==Extradition, trial, and death== Barbie was identified as being in Peru in 1971 by the Klarsfelds (Nazi hunters from France) who came across a secret document that revealed his alias.
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.
On 19 January 1972, this information was published in the French newspaper L'Aurore, along with a photograph of Altmann which the Klarsfelds obtained from a German expatriate living in Lima, Peru. Led by Beate Klarsfeld, French journalist Ladislas de Hoyos and cameraman Christian van Ryswyck flew to La Paz in January 1972 in order to find and interview Klaus Barbie posing as his alias Klaus Altman.
The interview took place on February 3, 1972 in the Department of the Interior building and the following day, in prison where Klaus was placed under protection by the Bolivian authorities.
Barbie is suspected of having had a role in the Bolivian coup d'état orchestrated by Luis García Meza in 1980.
Klaus-Georg died in a hang-gliding accident in 1981. == In media == The French documentary film My Enemy's Enemy (Mon Meilleur Ennemi in French) is the story of Klaus Barbie, following him through World War II and post-war hiding journey in Bolivia.
After the fall of the dictatorship, Barbie no longer had the protection of the government in La Paz and in 1983 was extradited to France, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity.
In 1983, the newly elected democratic government of Hernán Siles Zuazo arrested Barbie in La Paz on the pretext of owing the government 10,000 dollars for goods he was supposed to have shipped but did not, and a few days later, the government delivered him to France to stand trial. Shortly after Barbie's extradition, evidence emerged that Barbie had worked for US Intelligence in Germany and that US agents may have been instrumental in Barbie's flight to Bolivia to escape prosecution in France.
In 1983, Françoise Croizier, Klaus Barbie's French daughter-in-law, said in an interview that the CIA kidnapped Klaus-Georg in 1946 to make sure his father carried out intelligence missions for the agency.
government made a formal apology to France for enabling Barbie to escape French justice for thirty-three years. In 1984, Barbie was indicted for crimes committed as Gestapo chief in Lyon between 1942 and 1944, chief among which was the Rue Sainte-Catherine Roundup.
The jury trial started on 11 May 1987 in Lyon before the Rhône Cour d'Assises.
He was brought back to court on 26 May 1987 to face some of his accusers, about whose testimony he had "nothing to say". Barbie's defence lawyer, Vergès, had a reputation for attacking the French political system, particularly in the historic French colonial empire.
On 4 July 1987, Barbie was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Nikolaus “Klaus” Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was a Nazi, known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners of the Gestapo—primarily Jews and members of the French Resistance—while stationed in Lyon under the collaborationist Vichy regime.
He died of cancer in prison on 25 September 1991. ==Early life and education== Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie was born on 25 October 1913 in Godesberg, later renamed Bad Godesberg, which is today part of Bonn.
Barbie is portrayed in the 2020 film Resistance - which tells the story of French mime Marcel Marceau.
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