by Bower, Tom
Who it was who actually decided to put Barbie onto the Rat Line is still unknown. The key CIC documents recording the decision, according to the Justice report, ‘disappeared’ apparently just before the file was microfilmed in 1951. Amnesia has severely afflicted all those who are still alive and were directly involved in the decision in Augsburg, Stuttgart and Frankfurt, including the CIC commander, Colonel David Erskine. Many files have not been declassified, not only those of the CIC but also files from EUCOM and HICOG. According to the available evidence, EUCOM gave the final approval on 25 January 1951.
Barbie’s entry into the Rat Line was with George Neagoy, from 430 CIC’s B detachment, based in Linz. Leo Hecht, a twenty-three-year-old German-born Jew, had been ordered by Kolb’s successor at CIC Region XII, Wasel Yarosh, to help the Barbie family prepare for evacuation: at Neagoy’s request, he now procured passport photographs of Barbie and the family, provided suitcases and other minor necessities for the journey from Augsburg and arranged a meeting between Barbie and his mother for their final farewell. Fearing that French agents might be following the mother to find her son, the meeting was arranged with all the finesse of a top-secret operation. Barbie’s mother was ordered to take a circuitous route from Trier to Augsburg; Hecht, dressed in civilian clothes, met her at the railway station; he used a specially procured undercover car, and was ordered to be present throughout the farewell to ensure that Barbie did not reveal his future plans. According to Hecht, Barbie was ‘looking forward to and rather expectant’ about his new life. When Neagoy had finally collected the family (Yarosh himself drove them to an autobahn restaurant and handed them over), Hecht remembers feeling that, ‘without Barbie, Augsburg was rather empty. He’d made such an enormous contribution. And we had no idea then what he’d done in France.’ Both Milano (who left Europe in 1950) and his successor, Jack Dobson, who authorised Barbie’s ‘evacuation’, insist that they would never have approved use of the Rat Line for ‘shipping’ Gestapo officers. But by then CIC in Augsburg and Stuttgart was quite proficient at lying about their star asset.
Neagoy had returned to Augsburg with Jack Gay, another CIC agent, on 9 March. He brought with him a temporary travel document for stateless people, no. 012,145,4, issued by the Combined Travel Board at the American High Commission office in Munich on 21 February 1951. It was either forged by 430 CIC or obtained under false pretences. In it Barbie was described as one Klaus Altmann, born on 25 October 1915 in Kronstadt, Germany, a mechanic by trade. His children, Ute and Klaus, were stated to have been born in Kassel on 30 June 1941 and 11 December 1946. He was also given a transit visa, no. 1,507, allegedly issued by the Italian consulate in Munich, which allowed the family to travel to the Italian port.
Neagoy loaded the family onto an American army truck and drove them across the border to Salzburg. From here, two days later, since it was impossible with two children to travel as American soldiers, the family continued by train for Genoa. Their destination, according to their travel documents, was the American port at Trieste. The only complication arose at the Austrian border, where the customs official queried the documents. According to Barbie, ‘I said to him, “Look, I’ve got children …” and he shouted at me, “Get going, and I don’t want to see you again.” I replied, “You can be sure of that.”’
The meeting with Draganovic in Genoa was like a natural homecoming for Barbie. Before the war, Draganovic had been professor at the faculty of Catholic theology in Zagreb. During the war, he was one of the leading clerics who favoured the forced catholicization of orthodox Serbs. With the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he became a chaplain in the concentration camps to which the Serbs were sent. For those Serbs who resisted catholicization, the Ustachi, who collaborated with the Germans, used methods of torture which even very few Germans practised during the war. The domestic holocaust between the nationalities in Yugoslavia was a sideshow of which the world was largely ignorant but the casualties were staggering. Hundreds of thousands died at the behest of Catholic priests and, many have suspected, with the cognisance of the Vatican.
At the end of the war Draganovic, like many other senior Ustachi leaders, disappeared into western Europe, protected by the ignorance of the Allies and their growing distrust of Tito’s government. Draganovic fled to the Vatican, was given sanctuary, and was then appointed to care for Croatian Ustachi imprisoned in Allied camps. While in the Vatican he met Bishop Alois Hudal, the representative of the Deutsche Nationale Kirche. Hudal, like many other clerics, had sympathised with the Nazis and other fascist governments because, in his view, only they could protect the Church against Russian communism. Following the collapse of the Third Reich, Hudal personally helped hundreds of incriminated Nazis, including senior Gestapo officials from Berlin and the officers of extermination camps, to leave Europe for South America on what has become known as ‘the Vatican route’. Draganovic obtained from him the necessary introductions, firstly to the Red Cross officials who could provide an internationally accepted passport for Europeans anxious to leave the continent for a new life, and secondly to the network of consular, port and shipping officials who, for a bribe, could smooth the fugitive’s path. In his original briefing to Milano, Lyon had described Draganovic as ‘a Fascist, war criminal, etc.’. Nevertheless, the CIC still called him ‘the good Father’.
According to Barbie, Draganovic was waiting for the family at the Genoa railway station holding a photograph sent ahead by Neagoy. He took the family directly down to a small hotel by the harbour whose other occupants, as Barbie would discover later, were all Nazi fugitives – among them Eichmann himself. George Neagoy travelled with the family to Genoa, supervised the travel arrangements and waited with them until their departure.
Over the next few days, according to Barbie, Draganovic organised their departure. Barbie’s original intention had been to live in Argentina; he had obtained a letter of introduction to the government to ease his entry. But Draganovic convinced Barbie that, with its oil prospects, there was a better future in Bolivia. ‘Draganovic knew a priest in Cochabamba and people on the way here also told me that it’s always spring in Cochabamba.’
There were several matters for Draganovic to settle. The next ship leaving Genoa, the Corrientes, a converted liberty ship, was already full, with room only for Barbie. Draganovic bribed the shipping clerk with a large raw ham to cancel a previous reservation, freeing a cabin for the Barbie family. Their next call was to the Bolivian consulate: here Draganovic arranged a cabled request to La Paz for a residence permit. As a testimony to Draganovic’s influence, the approval was granted within two days. Then they visited 38 Via Albaro, the Argentinian consulate. The officials greeted the visitors with ‘Heil Hitler’. Barbie, naturally cautious, feared a trap but to his surprise they seemed genuine. He waited in an outer room while Draganovic took his five-year-old son, Klaus, into the official’s office. They emerged shortly after with entry visas, dated 19 March. Their final call in this labyrinthine paper-chase was to the International Red Cross Commission who, seeing the Croatian priest, automatically granted a temporary passport for the Altmann family.
During that time Barbie established a friendly relationship with Draganovic. There were trips to nightclubs and restaurants. When Barbie asked why Draganovic was helping him, the answer was gratifying. ‘[His reasons] were purely humanitarian. He helped both Catholics and Protestants, but mostly they were SS officers, about two hundred in all. Anti-communists. He said to me, “We’ve got to keep a sort of reserve on which we can draw in the future.” I think that was the Vatican’s motive as well.’
Amongst hundreds of Italian immigrants, the family sailed in a third-class cabin from Genoa on 22 March, arriving in Buenos Aires exactly three weeks later. It was a pleasant journey. There were many other Nazi fugitives aboard, some of whom Barbie had glimpsed at the hotel: here was a chance to discuss the old days and the future. After six days in Argentina, the family set off finally by train for Bolivia. As a professional and dedicated intellige
nce officer, Barbie was to remain silent thereafter about his American connection.
The arrival in La Paz, in June 1951, was a depressing experience. At 12,000 feet above sea level, Barbie and his wife immediately succumbed to altitude sickness. Worse, most of his money had been spent in Buenos Aires or on the journey and he had less than one thousand dollars left. The family moved into one of the capital’s dirtiest and cheapest hotels and Barbie set out immediately to walk the streets, looking for work: ‘It would have been no use being a qualified lawyer in that situation. My only asset was what I had learnt in the Hitler Youth and afterwards.’
They had arrived in Bolivia just two weeks after the country’s 169th change of government. Since winning independence in 1825, the poverty-stricken country has experienced 182 coups and 193 presidents. Its three million inhabitants, eking out their living from agriculture and tin mining, were ruled by a rich oligarchy many of whom were the children of German emigrants. Although very few Nazi fugitives went to Bolivia, most preferring the comparative wealth and comfort of the bigger South American states, a newly arrived German need not feel a complete outcast. Some sixty per cent of the country’s economy was owned by the German community; German nationals trained and led the national army during the Thirties; and there had been many Nazi sympathisers in the provincial towns of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba during the war, often parading in Nazi uniforms. ‘The Phalangists,’ said Barbie twenty years later, ‘were a comforting sight. It did me a lot of good to see them.’ As in most other South American countries, the military in Bolivia played an important role in the nation’s government and could but welcome the advice of someone with five years’ experience of war in Europe.
The few people who remember seeing Barbie on his arrival describe a dirty tramp, doing the daily rounds, begging other Germans for enough coins to buy himself and his family the next meal. ‘The first offer of work I got,’ he says, ‘was to repair twelve bunsen burners; I was really proud that I could do it.’ His salvation was Hans Ertl, who had heard of a job as manager of a remote sawmill, high in the Los Yungas. Despite his complete ignorance of woodwork, Barbie left his family in the city and drove for two days in a truck up perilously winding rough mountain tracks, through the Cumbre pass, 4,650 metres above sea level, and down into the tropical mahogany forest at Caranavi, 2,000 metres above sea level. In the deep ravines below lay the rusting chassis of trucks which had missed one of the thousand bends. ‘I never thought we would arrive; I knew nothing about wood, diesel engines or sawmills, and couldn’t speak Spanish.’ The estate was a hunter’s paradise, filled with wild fowl, wild turkeys, deer and black bears. ‘I spent three years there and recovered from the war.’
Barbie’s immediate problem was to establish his authority over the eighty local Indian workers. ‘I had to decide whether I should shout at them Prussian-style or say nothing because I couldn’t speak Spanish.’ He decided to say nothing but to impress them by working with them, setting himself apart, and instituting what he calls, ‘some of our good National Socialist ideas’. Injured workers were given first aid, Barbie personally cleaning their wounds with alcohol and ointment. ‘That really impressed them. They never forgot it, and I never had any problems.’ Once he had established himself, his family joined him from La Paz; his wife managed the estate’s grocery store.
Barbie had been hired after a two-question interview with Herr Riess, the general manager – ‘Why do you want to work?’ and, ‘Where do you come from?’ There were no questions about why Barbie had left Europe. It was not until a month after he was hired that Barbie met Ludwig Kapauner, the German estate owner, who had emigrated to Bolivia before the war. He arrived with four other people: ‘A jeep drew up and five beautiful Jews stepped out … One day Kapauner came up to me and said, “Herr Altmann, do you know anyone else like you? I need them because I can’t trust my own people.”’ The appalling irony of this moment reduced Barbie to tears and laughter when he recalled it in 1979; and there was more to come. Phalangists had daubed Kapauner’s trees with Swastikas in his absence. Kapauner ordered their removal, and Barbie obediently obliged. Until Barbie’s exposure in 1972, Kapauner never suspected Altmann’s background and even promoted him to be his representative in La Paz. ‘Altmann,’ he told friends, ‘is probably one of those unlucky Germans.’
As Barbie was settling into his new life in South America, the permanent military tribunal in Lyons was hearing eyewitness evidence of his crimes during the April 1944 campaign in the Jura and especially St Claude. By a majority verdict, on 29 April 1952, the seven judges sentenced him to death in his absence. A second trial started two years later, on 15 November, to judge the crimes committed by twenty-two Gestapo officers in Lyons. Barbie was again charged in his absence. Amongst the crimes mentioned were the massacre at St Genis-Laval and the shootings in Montluc. By a majority verdict, Barbie was found not guilty on various technical charges, but was convicted and sentenced to death for his crimes in Montluc. When the news reached him from Germany, he felt untroubled but realised that he would need to take some precautions for his safety.
In 1957 he was still using the temporary Red Cross documents obtained in Genoa as identification papers. Moving to La Paz had made it important to regularise his status, both for living in the city and so that he could leave Bolivia if necessary. The first and natural solution was to apply to the German embassy for a passport. Barbie’s application was handled in the customary way, with requests for six photographs and birth and residence certificates. Herr Altmann’s excuse, that they had all been lost during the war, was unacceptable to the consular official. Sensing potential danger, he quickly applied for Bolivian nationality.
Under Bolivian law, an applicant has to live ten years in the country before qualifying for naturalisation. But in Bolivia, as in all countries, laws are subject to flexible interpretation. As his Spanish had improved, Barbie had forged contacts with officials of the MNR party, a group which previously had been pro-Nazi, but more recently had swung to the left. Local party officials were delighted to meet an authentic ambassador from the Reich. After the embarrassment at the German embassy, Barbie quickly appealed to his new contacts for help and with little effort the statutory ten-year rule was ignored. The documents granting the Altmann family Bolivian nationality were signed on 7 October 1957 by Dr Hernán Siles Zuazo, then President of Bolivia. Twenty-six years later, when he returned to the presidency, he denied that his executive order was valid.
By 1960, Barbie was not wealthy but he had sufficient income from a sawmill which he founded in 1960 in Cochabamba, with a partner, for the family to live quite comfortably. A thoroughly sanitised version of his wartime services to Germany was common knowledge amongst the town’s German community. At their small but racially exclusive German club, Barbie often spoke about the glories of the Third Reich, rousingly led the singing of the Nazi Party’s Horst Wessel song, and gradually let slip that he had been more than a nominal supporter of the Third Reich. As the months passed, the crestfallen refugee recovered his old, bellicose self-confidence and blatantly displayed his former allegiance. Europe, the war and Lyons seemed far enough away.
The news from home was that, thanks to the Economic Miracle, Germany was booming, and the only memory of the wartime years was tinged with nostalgia. Prosecutions for war crimes in Germany had effectively ceased in the early Fifties, the new German government conveniently assuming that the occupying powers had cleaned up the mess and fulfilled the needs of justice. Bolivian newspapers in 1956 did not report the trial and conviction of eleven former Auschwitz guards in Ulm, not far from Augsburg, and no-one told Barbie. The evidence of their participation in the mass murder had horrified many Germans who, after the war, had been too concerned with their own struggle for survival to take notice of Allied propaganda about German atrocities. Surprisingly, until their arrest, the eleven had been living normal, exemplary lives, just like any other ex-servicemen. Their discovery had been an accident but their testimony, and their
self-confessed effortless ability to avoid criminal investigation, embarrassed West German politicians. In the anguished debate which followed, Bonn was convinced, reluctantly, that most German war criminals had not fled to South America after the war, but had stayed and prospered in the Federal Republic. In 1958, the State Ministers of Justice agreed to create a central agency in Ludwigsburg to investigate German war crimes. Ponderously, yet with characteristic methodical efficiency, thousands of Germans suspected of war crimes were listed for investigation. Every German police force was sent a list of suspects whose last known address was in their area. Barbie was listed automatically. One of Ludwigsburg’s first inquiries was addressed to the American Army in Germany. It replied curtly but revealingly that all contact had been lost in 1951 ‘and his present whereabouts were unknown’.
In April 1961, police in Kassel went to 83 Eichwaldstrasse, the home of Carol Bouness, a relative of Barbie’s wife. Unusually for this sort of inquiry, the police were not met by deliberate unhelpfulness but instead given a vital lead, and even more. Bouness did not like Klaus Barbie and told the police without hesitation that he had worked for the Americans in Augsburg and that Regine had written to her from Bolivia. As a throwaway line, she added that, according to Barbie’s mother, the Americans had even helped the family escape. Having exhausted their own powers of inquiry, Ludwigsburg passed the case on to the prosecutor’s office in Kassel. Despite Bouness’s assertions of American help, this was still Barbie’s last-known place of residence. This was the beginning of that bureaucratic process which has suffocated most West German investigations into war crimes. With some notable exceptions, the state prosecutors’ lethargy, lack of interest, political prejudice and outright incompetence has left most of their 83,000 investigations unresolved. The Barbie file was set to share the same fate.
