Paul Touvier

Paul Claude Marie Touvier (April 3, 1915 – July 17, 1996) was a Nazi collaborator in Occupied France during World War II. In 1994, Touvier became the first Frenchman to be convicted of crimes against humanity.

Early life

Paul Touvier was born in Saint-Vincent-sur-Jabron, Alpes de Haute-Provence, in southeastern France. His family was devoutly Roman Catholic, lower middle class and extremely conservative. He was one of 11 children, and the oldest of the five boys. Serving as an altar boy when young, he attended a seminary for a year, intending to become a priest.

Touvier's mother, Eugenie, was an orphan who was raised by nuns. As an adult, she was very religious and went to Mass every day. She died when Touvier was an adolescent. His father, François Touvier, was a tax collector in Chambéry, after serving 19 years in the French Army. Touvier's father was vehemently opposed to the anti-clerical legislation promulgated by the Third Republic and was a supporter of Charles Maurras and L'Action Française, both of which advocated a monarchist restoration in France.

Nazi hunter

A Nazi hunter is a private individual who tracks down and gathers information on alleged former Nazis, SS members and Nazi collaborators involved in the Holocaust, typically for use at trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prominent Nazi hunters include Simon Wiesenthal,Tuviah Friedman, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, Ian Sayer, Yaron Svoray, Elliot Welles, and Efraim Zuroff.

History

With the onset of the Cold War following World War II, both the Western Allies and the USSR sought out former Nazi scientists and operatives for programs such as Operation Paperclip. Cooperative former Nazis, such as Wernher von Braun and Reinhard Gehlen, were occasionally given state protection in return for valuable information or services. At the time, Gehlen had been chief of the German Bundesnachrichtendienst secret agency, founder of the Gehlen Org and co-founder of the ODESSA network, which helped exfiltrate Nazis from Europe. Other Nazis used ratlines to escape post-war Europe to places such as Latin America.