Barbie Arrested

Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in army NCO uniform, 1944. Photograph: Gabriel Hackett/Getty Images

A Day in History - 19th January 1983

Nikolaus 'Klaus' Barbie was a member of the Nazi Gestapo who worked in the German-occupied Netherlands and France during the Second World War. The services he offered included manipulations, interrogation, torture and murder. In 1942, Barbie was given the role of chief of Nazi Germany's secret police in Lyon and later captured Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance. Moulin's daughter reported that he 'was beaten and had his skin torn and that his head was immersed in buckets of ammonia and cold water; he could not sit or stand and died three days later from burns to his skin'.(1) It has been estimated that Barbie was responsible for the deaths of up to 14,000 people; the methods ranged from personal torture methods to roundups and deportations to death camps. These acts meant Barbie became known as the 'Butcher of Lyon', as his rule was uncontrolled and unlimited. (2) It was noted by the French that Barbie turned the 'resistance capital' into the 'Gestapo capital'.

At the end of the war, Barbie engaged in underground anti-communist activity and in June 1947 surrendered himself to the U.S. Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) after the Americans offered him money and protection in exchange for his intelligence services to further anti-communist efforts in Europe. In 1951, Barbie was smuggled by the Americans to Bolivia under the alias Klaus Altmann. Barbie continued his work as a U.S. agent, alongside advising the military regimes within Bolivia. Barbie aided oppressive dictator Hugo Banzer Suarez and set up brutal internment camps for political opposition, served as an officer in the Bolivian secret police, participated in drug-running schemes, and founded a rightist death squad known as 'The Fiancés of Death'.

Barbie's Bolivian secret police ID card, named as 'Klaus Altmann Nansen'

In the 1970s, Nazi hunters Serge Klarsfeld and Beatte Kunzel discovered Barbie’s whereabouts in Bolivia, but Suarez refused to extradite him to France. In the early 1980s, a liberal Bolivian regime came to power and agreed to extradite Barbie in exchange for French aid. On January 19, 1983, Barbie was arrested, and on February 7 he arrived in France. The jury trial started on 11 May 1987 in Lyon before the Rhône Cour d'Assises where Barbie was tried on 41 separate counts of crimes against humanity, based on the depositions of 730 Jews and French Resistance survivors who described how he tortured and murdered prisoners. Barbie responded that he had 'nothing to say' about the testimonies of his accusers. On 4 July 1987, Barbie was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Four years later, he died in prison in Lyon at the age of 77.

1.Butcher of Lyon,” former Nazi Gestapo chief, charged with war crimes (history.com)

2. Tom Bowes, The Butcher of Lyons, (London; Corgi Books, 1985) Klaus Barbie, Butcher of Lyons: Bower, Tom : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive