Klaus Barbie

by Bower, Tom

  Regine Barbie died just before Christmas and was buried next to her son in the German cemetery. It was a place which Barbie had visited many times over the years – tending the graves of his friends seemed the closest he would ever come to his Fatherland, for which he had given so much. Some hundred people came to pay their last respects. Afterwards, Barbie moved back to Santa Cruz to live with Klaus’s widow and his three grandchildren; an unsatisfactory arrangement which was not to last for long.

  In January 1983, Jacques Friedman, the Inspector General of France’s treasury, arrived discreetly in La Paz to establish the help his government might offer Bolivia in its efforts to reduce a massive four-billion-dollar international debt. His visit had been organised by the French cabinet’s ‘Barbie team’, coordinated by Jean Louis Bianco, the Secretary General of the Elysée. Bianco, fluent in German, was now in regular contact with Waldemar Schreckenberger, the head of the German Chancellor’s office in Bonn.

  Until December, it had always been assumed by the French government that the most they would achieve would be Barbie’s extradition to Germany: legally, politically and practically, there seemed no alternative, and with this they were satisfied. Justice would take its course in Munich just as well as in Lyons. However, from the outset of their conversations, Bianco began to realise that despite their request for Barbie’s extradition the Germans were wary of the full implications of the Nazi’s return.

  Aware of the French President’s personal interest in the matter, the German government feared that the fragile equilibrium between the two countries might be damaged if Barbie was awaiting trial in Germany. French newspapers would certainly begin to criticise Germany’s poor record in prosecuting Nazi war criminals. German courts could be proven, in French eyes, to have been too lenient. Several trials in Germany had degenerated into grotesque attempts by sympathetic neo-Nazi lawyers to whitewash the Third Reich and glorify their clients. Bonn was still smarting from the international criticism which had greeted the recent trial in Düsseldorf of fifteen former staff of the Maidaneck extermination camp. The trial had lasted six years and was notable for the startling claims made by the defendants’ lawyers – amongst them, that the camp’s gas chambers were not used for killing people, but for cleaning clothes. Witnesses, a few survivors of the terrible brutality, had left the courtroom in tears, complaining bitterly that their own credibility was at issue, and not the defendants’.

  This was not Schreckenberger’s only concern. Chancellor Helmut Kohl was at that time leading an interim right-wing government and was committed to national elections in March. Raking over the Nazi past was always embarrassing for the conservatives and at that very moment Germany was suffocating under an avalanche of events commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to power. With luck, any adverse effects of this would have disappeared by election time. Barbie’s return and the reawakening of past history would definitely not win the conservative government any extra support and, worse, might result in further tribulations. At the outset Schreckenberger refrained from being explicit but Bianco was sufficiently sensitive to understand that it might be worthwhile considering arrangements for an alternative destination for Barbie.

  Towards the end of January, Barbie returned to La Paz. Walking in full public gaze along the capital’s main thoroughfare, the Prado, with his bodyguard Alvaro de Castro, he scotched the rumours that he had fled the country. ‘Here I am,’ he told staring reporters. The French, fearing that he had disappeared forever, were relieved when he returned. ‘It would have been so easy,’ recalls one of the Ministers, ‘for him to have disappeared into one of the enormous haciendas in Santa Cruz. The German mafia could easily have hidden him and then flown him out of the country from one of their private airstrips. But he was old, had lost his family and probably just couldn’t be bothered with precautions anymore.’ Some felt that there was even a new self-confidence about him and they were probably right.

  Barbie was so sure of his position that, when he was summoned to government offices to arrange the repayment of a $10,000 debt incurred by Transmaritima in 1968, he decided not to take his lawyer. The $10,000 were claimed by Comibol, the state-owned mining corporation. Barbie told officials that he was prepared to repay the amount, but began to haggle excitedly over whether the official or black-market rate of exchange should be used to convert the Bolivian pesos. The argument was cut short by his arrest. The following day, 26 January, Barbie was charged with fraud, with contravening Bolivia’s immigration regulations and with creating a personal army.

  Both the French and German governments had expected Barbie’s arrest. As arranged, the German ambassador reapplied for his extradition, and Bianco rang Schreckenberger to discuss how to get Barbie out of Bolivia. The most sensitive issue was Bolivia’s insistence that its sovereignty be protected: Barbie must leave the country on a non-Bolivian airline to give the appearance of a legal extradition. Lufthansa, the German national airline, had a twice-weekly flight out of La Paz, flying via Lima to Frankfurt. It was an ideal solution. The French expected that the Bolivians would put Barbie on the flight and Mario Roncal, the Bolivian Minister of the Interior, agreed. On 27 February, Roncal summoned the French and German chargés d’affaires and told them that the Bolivian government had decided not to await the expected adverse Supreme Court decision and wanted Barbie extradited immediately to Germany. The myth that Barbie’s fate was to be decided by rigorous examination of the law was finally exploded. But now, after weeks of prevarication, the Bonn government refused outright, under any circumstances whatsoever, to allow Barbie to return to Germany.

  The Elysée was staggered. The French knew that Zuazo could not prolong Barbie’s imprisonment and that he needed to staunch the embarrassing rumours and leaks now plaguing La Paz. Puzzled and anxious, the Bolivian President urged the Europeans to settle what seemed such a simple matter. Paris urged the Germans just to take Barbie out of La Paz. ‘We just asked them to take him anywhere,’ recalls the Minister, ‘so that we could pick him up. Lima for example. They just stared at us.’ The French then proposed a compromise. Bianco suggested that Barbie be put on the Lufthansa flight from La Paz bound for Lima, and then diverted ‘for atmospheric reasons’ to Cayenne in the French colony of Guiana. On 29 February, Bonn rejected this plan outright. There was no alternative but for Barbie to be expelled to France via Cayenne. The problem now was, how to get him to Cayenne. The DGSE, the Direction Générale de la Sureté Exterieure, was alerted to draw up a rapid plan, in cooperation with the French military, for returning Barbie to French territory without compromising Bolivia’s sovereignty. If Barbie could not be extradited on a German plane, he would have to be expelled on a Bolivian one. The unacceptable alternative was that Barbie would be expelled across any border of his choice and then disappear forever.

  Barbie’s expulsion was set for 1 February, but the failure of Paris and Bonn to agree cast uncertainty over arrangements once again. ‘Nobody outside realises how close we were to failure,’ is the view of one French negotiator. ‘We suddenly realised that we might lose Barbie because the situation in Bolivia became very tense.’ Zuazo’s coalition partners led by the Vice-President, Jaime Paz Zamora, began arguing that Barbie’s trial should be held in Bolivia. Some left-wing members had already withdrawn their support for the government, criticising Zuazo’s failure to tackle the paramilitary groups. With his government’s fate in doubt, Zuazo became nervous. More so the following day, when he heard that Barbie’s lawyer, Carrión Constantino, had paid the $10,000 debt and was demanding his client’s immediate release. Carrión was also complaining publicly that he had not been allowed to see his client for the previous forty-eight hours. To add to the President’s discomfort, the lawyer was asking him to explain why Bolivia, whose penal code did not recognise war crimes, was suddenly interested in culpability for ancient events in Europe. ‘It smells like money in return for my client,’ he told anyone who visited his rundown office.

  For the nex
t two days, Zuazo prevaricated. Barbie was kept in solitary confinement, not only to isolate him from the arguments about his fate, but also to prevent someone from the German community or from the cocaine trade killing him to prevent him talking. On 4 February it seemed that, again, no decision would be made. The cabinet had travelled 100 kilometres to Lake Titicaca to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the appearance of the virgin of Copacabana. Yet, that night, Bolivian television showed a short film about the Nazi extermination camps, with a picture of Barbie appearing between shots. Towards the end was a clip of Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem – ‘The fate,’ said the narrator, ‘of Klaus Barbie.’ The dithering had stopped. It seemed that Barbie’s destination was still uncertain. Lima was the conventional first stop for any flight leaving La Paz for the northern hemisphere, but Aeroperu, the Peruvian national airline, had been ordered by its government not to carry Barbie under any circumstances. Lima had given the same instruction to Lufthansa. Zuazo grew increasingly nervous. International attention was forcing him to resolve the Barbie question within hours; Bolivia’s sense of national esteem demanded that Barbie leave the country on a Bolivian plane, but Bolivian pilots had launched an indefinite strike. The problem seemed insoluble. The DGSE had for some days claimed to have the answer, but the operation’s success depended upon sticking to a precise timetable.

  A French military Hercules C-130 would arrive by night at El Alto Airport with its true nationality completely obliterated: instead, it would be disguised as belonging to Lloyds, a privately-owned Bolivian airline. Barbie would have to be brought from the prison just as the plane was landing, and it would take off for its return to Cayenne immediately after refuelling. Several times the Hercules had been about to leave Cayenne but had been held back at the last moment because of indecision in La Paz. Because the attempt could be made only once, the French government would only give the go-ahead when it was convinced that it would be successful. Politicians and officials on both sides of the Atlantic agree that the tension between the two countries at that moment was enormous.

  At 9.00 p.m. on Friday 4 February, after several false alarms, two figures shrouded in blankets were rushed from the San Pedro prison and driven towards the airport. Barbie was finally to be expelled for obtaining Bolivian nationality with false papers and a false name. Handcuffed, he was taken to the military side of the airport. The Minister of Information, Rueda Pena, was one of the last Bolivian officials Barbie met. Standing at the foot of the stairs up to the Hercules, Pena told Barbie in German that he was being expelled to Germany. According to Pena, Barbie was quite cheerful about it: ‘He only complained that he was cold because he had not been allowed to take any belongings. I ordered a nearby policeman to hand over his parka.’

  Barbie was unaware of the plane’s true destination. French agents, disguised as crew, spoke to the Bolivians in sign language. At the last moment, a Bolivian television crew had been allowed to board the plane and film Barbie’s journey back to France – an unusual privilege, explicable because Ugo Roncal, a member of the team, was the brother of the Minister of the Interior. The camera’s continuous observation of Barbie, recorded on film, reveals him as remarkably unconcerned about the return to his homeland: ‘He continuously asked questions about life in Germany, and for example the cost of a razor.’ In La Paz, the government was asked to explain the legalities of expelling him to French territory. ‘France,’ said Mario Roncal, ‘was the only country who agreed to receive him.’

  After seven hours, as it prepared to land at Rochambeau airport near Cayenne, the plane was plunged into darkness. Once it landed, Barbie was taken to the doorway. Below him, in the dim light, he saw the French uniforms of local gendarmes and soldiers. It was a terrible shock. At the foot of the stairs, after a momentary pause, he was formally charged. An hour later, on a French military DC-8 often used by the President, he took off for France, now a very sullen and resentful man. ‘The expulsion was illegal,’ he told Roncal, once again filming Barbie. ‘The Supreme Court refused my extradition several years ago.’ For the remainder of the journey, Barbie reminisced about his early days in Bolivia, his first Jewish employer, and how he had always remained neutral in politics. About his service in France, he just quipped, ‘The past is the past. Woe to the vanquished.’ After some thought he added that two hundred years ago, Napoleon was condemned for his tyranny, yet ‘Now he is a hero.’ Like Napoleon, he realised, he would never again be a free man.

  Long before Barbie arrived in Lyons, at the end of the non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, the Klarsfelds had alerted news agencies and journalists. As his plane landed at Orange military airport, some of his surviving victims were already giving anguished accounts of his deeds, while others rushed to the Lyons municipal airport or to the Montluc prison, seeking by their presence some small consolation for the misery he had caused them. At 10.25 p.m. on the Saturday night, a bright-blue police maria carrying Barbie sped through the crowd outside the prison. He could not have seen the simple plaque fixed near the heavy door: 10,000 imprisoned; 7,000 died. The heavy symbolism of this return to the very scene of his crimes was deliberately overladen by French television and newspapers with emotional accounts of Gestapo rule forty years earlier. Brimming over with the excitement of the moment, France’s Prime Minister, Pierre Mauroy, tried to inject a sense of historical solemnity into the event: ‘We did not do this for revenge. First we wanted justice done. And then we wanted to show fidelity to those hours of grief and struggle in which France saved its honour.’ It was a triumph for the French left. But the exultation evaporated very quickly.

  A small group of lawyers and officials had been alerted about Barbie’s arrival, amongst them Christian Riss, the examining magistrate, and president of the Lyons bar association, Maître Alain Compagnon de la Servette, who had agreed, in the interests of justice, to act as Barbie’s temporary defence lawyer. In 1954, Servette had defended two Frenchmen accused in the same trial as Barbie. Servette remembers his new (non-paying) client looking ‘tired and prostrate – the effect of jet-lag on an old man. Not the man he was forty years ago.’ In a two-hour session, Barbie’s identity was formally established; he was charged with crimes against humanity and then led to a section of the prison which had been cleared of all other inmates. As he walked across the prison courtyard, he was photographed. The picture’s publication was used as an excuse by the government to transfer him later that week, as previously arranged, to an isolation block in the St Joseph prison – for his own safety.

  Servette’s role was difficult. His normal practice is commercial law, but at the outset he felt honour-bound, by virtue of his position, to volunteer to serve Barbie’s interests. In an unassuming way, he enjoyed the publicity and the challenge. Gradually, as he became acquainted with his client on his twice-weekly visits, he admits that he saw a person rather than a monster. Strangely, for some time, Barbie could not come to terms with the fact that he was back in Lyons. ‘He forgot that I lived through his reign,’ says Servette. ‘He even tried to explain to me where the Hôtel Terminus was.’ The lawyer was soon the victim of hate mail and even lost clients for his pains. When he saw the case which Barbie had to answer, he realised that preparing the defence would be an enormous task. There was one consolation. Barbie confessed that he could remember very few names of those with whom he had worked, especially the collaborators. His constant threat to create fear amongst Frenchmen collapsed.

  Barbie heard the full charges on 24 February. He was indicted on eight separate counts: the killing of twenty-two hostages, including women and children, in reprisal for an attack on two German policemen in 1943; the arrest and torture of nineteen people in 1943; the liquidation of the eighty-six members of the UGIF on 9 February 1943; the shooting of forty-two people, including forty Jews, during 1943 and 1944; the round-up of French railway workers at Oullins on 9 August 1944, during which two were killed and others wounded; the deportation to Auschwitz and Ravensbrück of about 650 people, half of them J
ews, by the last rail convoy to leave Lyons on 11 April 1944; the shooting of seventy Jews at Bron on 17 August 1944 and the shooting of two other Jews and two Roman Catholic priests on 20 August 1944, at St Genis-Laval; and the deportation of fifty-five Jews, including fifty-two children, from Izieu in 1944 (fifty-two was the original government estimate in 1945).

  According to Riss, each of the charges can be classified as a crime against humanity, a definite legal anomaly in the French penal code. The specific term, ‘crimes against humanity’, was ‘adopted’ by Allied lawyers in 1945 as one of the indictments against the leaders of the Third Reich for the main Nuremberg trial. It was a piece of blatant legalistic improvisation to render Nazi atrocities – the extermination camps for example – retrospectively illegal despite their ‘legality’ under Nazi law. Critics would argue that power had been substituted for principle. Under the Nuremberg Charter, crimes against humanity were defined as, ‘Murder, extermination, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecution on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.’ The Allied lawyers viewed it as a suitable charge against the leaders of the Third Reich, but did not intend that it should be used for crimes committed by individual German officers in the field. These were all charged under the normal laws of warfare. After 1945, none of the Allies included crimes against humanity within their domestic law.

  Towards the end of 1964, however, there was a sudden panic amongst French Resistants. According to French law, crimes can be punished only within twenty years of their commission. After that, they are prescribed and the criminal is free of all risk. That prescription was sacred to French criminal law and applied equally to all crimes, including crimes committed by the Germans during the Occupation. To their consternation, the French suddenly realised that SS officers of ‘Das Reich’ Panzer Division, who had been responsible for such massacres in France as the slaughter of 642 men, women and children in Oradour in June 1944, could in 1965 return to the scene of their crime and, with complete impunity and immunity, parade their ‘successes’ in front of their children. Under their commander, General Heinz Lammerding, who at the time was head of a construction company in Düsseldorf, they regularly held parties to celebrate their wartime years. None of them, despite being sentenced to death by French courts in their absence, had ever served any sentence. The French suddenly conjured up a revolting image of ex-SS officers, in 1965, taking coach trips to Oradour to celebrate on the spot.