Klaus Barbie part one of four

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• published: 12 Jul 2011
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SEE MY HISTORY GROUP ON FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alan-Heaths-History-Page/173472422695696 Klaus Barbie was born in Bad Godesberg. His family came from Merzig, in the Saar. In origin, they were probably a French Catholic family called Barbier that had left France at the time of the French Revolution. His father Nickolaus Barbie was wounded in the neck at Verdun and had been captured by the French, whom he hated. He never recovered his health, which was later diagnosed as cancer and his son Klaus never forgave. Nickolaus was a school teacher. In 1933, Barbie's father and brother both died. The death of his abusive, alcoholic father derailed plans for young Barbie to study theology. During his youth, Klaus was small and quiet. He was passably intelligent without being brilliant. He was reasonably popular without being considered a leader. While unemployed, Barbie was drafted into the Nazi labour service - Reichsarbeitsdienst. In September 1935, he joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the special security branch service of the SS. 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. He first set up camp at Hôtel Terminus in Lyon. It was his time as head of the Gestapo of Lyon that earned him the name Butcher of Lyon.He personally tortured prisoners, men, women, and children alike, by breaking extremities, sexual abuse using dogs, and electroshock among other methods. He was directly responsible for the deaths of up to 14,000 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 ordered the deportation to Auschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at Izieu. He was also responsible for a massacre in Rehaupal in September 1944. In 1951, he fled to Juan Peron's Argentina with the help of a ratline organized by U.S. intelligence services and the Ustashi Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganović. Asked by Barbie why he was going out of his way to help him escape, Draganovic responded, "We have to maintain a sort of moral reserve on which we can draw in the future." He then emigrated to Bolivia, where he lived under the alias Klaus Altmann. In 1965 Klaus Barbie was recruited by the German foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) under the codename "Adler" (Eagle) and the registration number V-43118. His initial monthly salary of DM500 was transferred in May 1966 to an account of the Chartered Bank of London in San Francisco. During his stint with the BND he is responsible for at least 35 reports that were sent to the BND headquarters in Pullach. Barbie was identified in Bolivia as early as 1971 by the Klarsfelds (Nazi hunters), but it was only on 19 January 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 11 May 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. The head prosecutor was Pierre Truche. At the trial Barbie received support not only from Nazi apologists like François Genoud, but also from leftist lawyer Jacques Vergès. Barbie caused sensations on the first days of the trial: he gave his name as Klaus Altmann (the name he had used while in Bolivia) and, claiming that his extradition was technically illegal, made the request to be excused from the trial and return to his cell at St Joseph prison. This was granted though he was brought back on 26 May to face some of his accusers, during which he stated that he had "nothing to say". 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 the legislation that had protected people accused of crimes under the Vichy regime and in French Algeria. Vergès further argued that Barbie's actions were no worse than the ordinary actions of colonialists worldwide, and that his trial was selective prosecution. 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.