by Bower, Tom
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Klaus Barbie
The Butcher of Lyons
Tom Bower
CONTENTS
Glossary
Preface and Acknowledgments
THE CONSPIRACY
THE NAZI
THE BETRAYAL
THE BUTCHER
THE COUP
THE DEVASTATION
THE FUGITIVE
THE MERCENARY
THE DECEPTION
THE RAT LINE
THE NAZI HUNTERS
THE RETRIBUTION
AFTERMATH
Note on Sources
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
GLOSSARY
BND
Bundesnachrichtendienst, the West German secret service
CDU
Christian Democratic Union, the largest conservative party in West Germany
CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
CIC
Counter Intelligence Corps, US Army
CID
Criminal Investigation Department
CNR
Conseil National de la Résistance, the co-ordinating committee of the Resistance established by Moulin
CROWCASS
Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, based in Paris
DGER
Direction Générale des Etudes et Recherches, French organisation investigating Nazi war crimes
DGSE
Diréction Générale de la Sureté Extérieure, the external security service of the French police
DST
Direction de la Sureté du Territoire, the French equivalent of MI5
EUCOM
European command, the US military occupation authority in the US zone
FSM
French Security (Military), based in Baden-Baden in the French zone
HICOG
American High Commission for Germany, which replaced OMGUS, military government in the US zone
JAG
Judge Advocate General, the British/American army legal service
KPD
Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, the West German Communist Party
MNAT
Mouvement National Anti-Terroriste, anti-Resistance organisation set up by the Vichy government
MNR
Movimiento Nationalista Revolutionario, a Bolivian pro-Nazi party which has swung towards the centre in recent years
MUR
Mouvement Unis de la Résistance
OMGUS
Office of Military Government (US), replaced by HICOG in September 1949
OSS
Office of Strategic Services, the American wartime foreign intelligence agency
PPF
Parti Populaire Français, the French wartime Fascist party
RSHA
Reichsicherheitshauptamt, Himmler’s head office
SD
Sicherheitsdienst, an elite organisation responsible for the Nazi Party’s intelligence and security service
SDECE
Service de Documentation et de Contre-Espionage, the French equivalent of MI6
SED
Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, the East German Communist party
SHAEF
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force
SOE
Special Operations Executive, which co-ordinated British support for the Resistance
SOL
Service d’Ordre Légionnaire, a system of conscripted labour organised by the Germans in France
SS
Schutzstaffel, the guardians of the Nazi party
UGIF
Union Générale des Israelites de France, the Jewish federation established by the Germans in France
UNWCC
United Nations War Crimes Commission
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For fifty years Klaus Barbie has worked for governments – both officially and unofficially. He has served both democracy and dictatorship. The governments which hired him for his skills were never disappointed. Manipulation, interrogation, extraction, torture and murder were the services he offered, and they were purchased in the full knowledge that Barbie had considerable experience of his trade. Invariably, it is the same kind of politicians and officials as those who hired him, who now pay sanctimonious homage in mighty-sounding phrases to the cause of justice. Yet, since the end of the Second World War, they have, both implicitly and explicitly, protected him.
The return of Klaus Barbie to France on 5 February 1983 to be tried for his wartime crimes was the victorious culmination of an extraordinary campaign by Serge and Beate Klarsfeld against sceptical, lethargic and downright hostile government officials and politicians. With enormous effort, Serge Klarsfeld discovered many vital documents and eyewitnesses which revealed Barbie’s miserable career and which convinced governments finally that his continued freedom insulted too many people and ideals. Beate Klarsfeld devoted months, despite discomfort and hardship, to protest against what they both saw as the immorality of protecting a notorious criminal. Whether the course of justice will reward that effort remains to be seen. In writing this book, I am very grateful for all the help they have given me.
My investigation of the postwar treatment of Nazi war criminals began in 1978, when Christopher Capron, then editor of BBC Television’s Panorama programme, encouraged me to pursue what proved to be an unexplored area. The result has been several programmes on the subject which have been shown in more than twenty-five countries. He is now the head of the BBC’s Current Affairs group and generously gave me permission to pursue this present saga. With equal goodwill, George Carey, then editor of Panorama, allowed me the time and gave me the necessary support to make two programmes about Barbie. The second (first broadcast in July 1983), revealing his American connections, was reported by Margaret Jay. She gave me important help and good advice. To all three, and to many other colleagues in Lime Grove, I am very indebted.
This type of book cannot be written without the friendship, help and unqualified generosity of many people. It is their professionalism and enthusiasm which has made this report possible. Foremost is Bob Fink in Washington, whose extraordinarily meticulous research has won him not only my gratitude but the respect of many American officials and former US intelligence agents. In France, I owe a special debt to Janet Thorpe; in Germany to Stefan Aust; in South America to Peter McFarren and Jan Rocha; in London to Caroline Wolfe and Isobelle Daudy, who helped me full time on all aspects of the project.
Others who helped me at various stages are David Bernouw at the Dutch Institute for War Documents, Hero Buss, Phillipe Daudy, Professor James Dunkerley, Jean-Claude Gallo, Elke Gerdener, Dr Josef Henke at the Federal archives in Koblenz, Dr M. Koenigsberg, Fred Kufferman, John Loftus, Henri Nogueres, David Pryce-Jones, Marcel Ruby, Jacques de la Rue, Fay Sharman, Daniel Simon at the Berlin Document Center, Tulla Skari, Lucien Steinberg, Paul Tarr, and Dr Hans Umbreit at the Federal archives in Freiburg. A special thanks also to Chris Bates who rapidly taught me the delights of a word processor.
More than two hundred people were interviewed in the course of research for this book. I am grateful to all those who are quoted, but also to those who have had to remain anonymous. Much of the material in thi
s book has come either from classified government archives or from government officials who wanted an authoritative version told, but could not be quoted. I am naturally very grateful to them all. The editing and production of the book was managed at record speed thanks to the hard work and skill of my editors.
Finally I owe a special debt to my parents for their support and friendship, and to Nicholas and Oliver, who were always interested but, more important, always patient.
THE CONSPIRACY
Lawyers do not usually contemplate murder, but this was a special case. For eleven years, Parisian lawyer Serge Klarsfeld and his German wife Beate had battled in vain to bring a vicious Nazi torturer and mass murderer back to Europe to face his victims. With guile and contempt he had frustrated their most dedicated efforts. Ever since he had been discovered hiding in Bolivia in 1971, Klaus Barbie had boasted provocatively about his love for Adolf Hitler, his undying devotion to Nazism, and how he had humiliated the French Resistance in Lyons. His scornful defiance of the French had wounded his surviving victims and the Klarsfelds were determined on revenge.
In late summer 1982, the Klarsfelds feared that he was about to disappear forever into the impenetrable South American underworld of fugitive Nazis, that haven which had nourished and protected so many of the architects and executioners of Hitler’s Reich. They were, quite simply, determined that ‘The Butcher of Lyons’ was not going to have the pleasure of joining them. Their options were crude, perhaps, but were, they felt, inevitable. If Barbie could not be brought back to Europe alive to stand trial for his massive crimes as Gestapo chief of Lyons during the Occupation, he would have to be killed.
Seven thousand miles away, on the high plateau of the Andean mountains, Bolivian politicians and generals were struggling through a more than usually turbulent political crisis to settle the fate of the country’s 191st president. Waiting in exile to become the country’s next leader was the liberal president-elect, Hernán Siles Zuazo. In July 1982, Zuazo had told reporters that the protection and friendship which Klaus Barbie and his family had enjoyed from Bolivian generals since 1951 would end once he took over in La Paz. Zuazo did not explain his intentions, but no-one missed the important new ingredient: this was the first time that any Bolivian politician had even suggested that Barbie was not a fully protected Bolivian citizen. Yet, Zuazo’s statement contrasted sharply with events in the capital: at that very moment, the grey-haired tubby figure of Klaus Barbie was seen emerging from the presidential palace. He had just spent one hour paying his compliments to his good friend, the new President. The significance of that visit was clear. Klaus Barbie was the first civilian to be received by the new President since taking office – confirmation, if it were needed, of his importance in the country.
In Paris, the Klarsfelds warily monitored developments. Although experienced and successful Nazi-hunters, they could not predict his tactics on this occasion. In such a volatile climate they could only guess at their prey’s reactions to political change. At the beginning of October, Bolivia was reported to be preparing itself for yet another president. Siles Zuazo was finally sworn in on 10 October and now the Klarsfelds feared that Barbie would flee the country. Exactly three days later, Serge Klarsfeld bought a one-way ticket for a young Bolivian to fly to La Paz (via Barcelona and Buenos Aires, ‘so as not to raise suspicion’) to see if Barbie was preparing to escape. Beate Klarsfeld is unashamedly honest about their intentions and motives had the report been positive:
Barbie would have been killed. Serge and I felt responsible for the mothers of the children he had murdered. It was inconceivable to us that the mothers would one day die, having suffered terrible anguish for forty years, and Barbie would still be enjoying life. We always told the mothers that killing would be an act of despair, a defeat, but that we had to be prepared to kill him if we couldn’t find a legal solution. It would still have been a success.
The Klarsfelds’ agent reported from La Paz that, posing as a businessman, he had actually met and spoken with Barbie and there was no immediate indication that the German was planning a swift escape. Instead, he was sticking to his regular routine of drinking coffee in his favourite bar, the Confiteria La Paz, and visiting his dying wife in hospital. His faithful Bolivian bodyguard, Alvaro de Castro, was by his side, but then Barbie had been protected thus for ten years. Asked by a journalist a few days after Zuazo became President whether he feared extradition, Barbie replied, ‘I doubt if President Zuazo will extradite me. The war has been over for thirty-seven years. I was doing nothing but defending my people when Germany and France were at war.’ The only outward sign of the Nazi fugitive’s concern about his safety, was that he had relinquished his favourite table in the middle of the café and now sat at the side, with his back to the wall. Serge Klarsfeld asked his associate to keep Barbie under observation and decided to see whether the French government was prepared to renew its 1972 request for Barbie’s extradition. He telephoned an old friend at the Elysée Palace, Régis Debray, a special assistant to President Mitterrand. Debray had more than a passing interest in both Bolivia and Barbie.
In 1967, Debray had become internationally famous as a French Marxist and journalist. He had joined the legendary Cuban guerrilla leader, Che Guevara, on his historic but futile attempt to encourage the Bolivian peasants to revolt against the country’s dictatorial landowners and generals. Guevara was soon killed and Debray arrested. In the late Sixties, the young Frenchman became a martyr. His whole cause – books, the trial, and the imprisonment – aroused passionate sympathy among student radicals around the world who were demonstrating against the Vietnam war. In 1970, with the help of President de Gaulle, he was reprieved of his thirty-year sentence. Inevitably, on his return to France, his anger against the repressive and murderous Bolivian juntas and their ‘security advisers’ had not disappeared. Klaus Barbie was one of those advisers. In early 1972, the Klarsfelds had masterminded an aggressive international campaign to force Barbie’s extradition from Bolivia, but it had failed. Bitterly disappointed, the Klarsfelds immediately recruited Debray into an audacious plot.
Using a false passport, Serge Klarsfeld flew to Chile in December 1972 to meet Debray, who at the time was living in the capital. Renting a small plane, they flew together from Santiago to Chile’s north-eastern border with Bolivia for a prearranged meeting with Bolivian guerrillas who were keeping Guevara’s cause alive. The Frenchmen’s plan was for the guerrillas to kidnap Barbie and bring him, drugged, across the border, whence he would be flown down to Santiago and loaded onto a ship bound for France. The plan agreed, Klarsfeld returned to France, leaving the guerrillas to arrange the safe houses, cars and other necessary ingredients of a kidnap. Their plan depended on the sympathetic cooperation of Chile’s Marxist President, Salvador Allende. But in early 1973, the CIA’s sudden destabilisation of the Allende government plunged Chile into crisis. After weeks of planning, there was no alternative but for Klarsfeld and Debray to abort their mission.
They had kept in touch over the next decade, so when Serge called Debray at the Elysée Palace on 26 October 1982, asking to see him urgently, he was given an appointment the following afternoon. For an hour, Klarsfeld and Debray discussed the new conditions in Bolivia and the chances of a successful request for Barbie’s extradition. The legal hurdles seemed, as ever, insurmountable: Barbie had Bolivian nationality, he seemed to be an intimate friend of many important Bolivians, and France had no extradition treaty with Bolivia. Yet Klarsfeld and Debray agreed that they could never hope for better conditions. Bolivia’s new President was a socialist, very friendly towards France and a personal friend of several French cabinet ministers. He was also anxious to improve Bolivia’s image and wanted French help. A week earlier he had told the New York Times that he favoured Barbie’s extradition. When the French ambassador in La Paz read the report, he had discreetly reminded the new President that the West German government had officially requested the Nazi’s extradition the previous May. To ensure Zuazo’s co
mplete cooperation, Klarsfeld and Debray agreed that they now needed the personal prestige and authority of the French President.
There was a strong Jewish contingent in President Mitterrand’s cabinet and many of their fathers, including the President’s, had been members of the French Resistance. Mitterrand’s and Klarsfeld’s fathers had been members of the same Resistance group. Everyone knew that President Mitterrand was always anxious to ennoble the memory of the Resistance. To emphasise that commitment, the President had on the day of his inauguration, paid a special solemn visit to the tomb of the Resistance leader, Jean Moulin, in the Pantheon, the resting place of many French heroes. Moulin had been tortured to death by Barbie and the fortieth anniversary of his death was approaching. The catalogue of Barbie’s other alleged crimes in Lyons would make the prospect of his arrest, in Debray’s view, very attractive to the government. It would be a national homage to his victims – 4,342 murdered, 7,591 deported to German concentration camps and 14,311 arrested.
Debray had good access to the President and had soon explained the chances of extracting Barbie from South America. Predictably, the President was immediately interested, and not just to satisfy his own feelings. It is in the nature of politics that governments seek any device to increase their popularity: Mitterrand was not averse to a project which might cost little but produce so much. His government had won a spectacular election victory in May 1981 but it was already under pressure to compromise and sacrifice many of its election promises. The opinion polls showed that support for France’s first socialist government to be elected since 1936 had declined sharply. Any opportunity of winning overwhelming national approval and boosting the government’s prestige was not to be missed.
