Klaus Barbie: From Gestapo Chief in Lyon to Trial for Crimes Against Humanity
- Sep 1, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Klaus Barbie, a prominent figure within the Nazi hierarchy, attracted almost as much postwar attention as Adolf Eichmann. A German SS officer who rose through the ranks of the Sicherheitsdienst and Gestapo, Barbie served as head of the Gestapo in Lyon during the Second World War. There he became notorious for torture, deportation and murder, earning the sobriquet “the Butcher of Lyon.” While some have pointed to his violent upbringing and an abusive, alcoholic father in an attempt to explain his later brutality, such details offer little explanation for his ideological commitment to Nazism or his consistent pursuit of authority within a system built on repression.
Born in Godesberg, Germany, in 1913, Barbie came of age during a period of political instability and economic crisis in the Weimar Republic. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and entered the SS in 1938, aligning himself with a regime that had already dismantled democratic institutions and begun implementing racial policy at state level. His early career coincided with the rapid expansion of German security services across occupied Europe following the outbreak of war in 1939.
Amsterdam and the Escalation of Reprisals, 1941
After the German invasion of the Netherlands, Barbie was assigned to the Gestapo in Amsterdam in 1940. These early postings provided the first clear evidence of the methods that would define his later career.
On 19 February 1941, an SD raid entered a tavern known as Koco, run by German Jewish refugees Cahn and Kohn. During the raid, an ammonia flash device installed by Cahn went off accidentally, spraying the German officers. The raid was commanded by Klaus Barbie. Those present were arrested, and within days the incident was treated as an act of resistance requiring collective punishment.
In reprisal, the SS raided Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter, arresting 425 Jewish men, most of them young. They were assembled on the Jonas Daniel Meyerplein, subjected to beatings and abuse, and on 27 February 1941, 389 were deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. Within two months, 361 were transferred to Mauthausen, where they were murdered.
The arrests triggered a general strike in Amsterdam, one of the earliest organised protests against anti Jewish persecution in occupied Europe. The German response was uncompromising. Barbie was ordered to execute Cahn and his associates, who had been condemned to death. He was placed in charge of the execution squad. He later recalled:
“One of the condemned asked to hear an American hit record and then we shot them.”
The remark, delivered years later without apparent remorse, reveals the detachment with which he described acts of killing.
On 14 May 1941, a bomb was thrown into a German officers’ club in Amsterdam. Once again, collective punishment followed. Barbie went to the offices of the Jewish Council and met Abraham Asscher and David Cohen. He persuaded them to provide a list of 300 young Jewish men, claiming they would be allowed to return to a labour training camp to complete apprenticeships. Shortly afterwards, Asscher and Cohen were informed that the boys had been arrested as a reprisal for the bombing. All were deported to Mauthausen, where they died before the end of the year. Only days after this episode, Barbie’s daughter, Ute Regine, was born in Trier.
Transfer to Occupied France, 1942
By late 1942, German occupation policy in France was entering a new phase. On 11 November 1942, German forces crossed the demarcation line and occupied the previously unoccupied Vichy zone. Barbie was appointed head of the Gestapo in Lyon, a city that had become a centre of resistance activity.
The position placed him at the heart of intelligence operations, counter resistance measures and deportation logistics in southern France. Under his authority, interrogations intensified and arrests expanded.
The Arrest and Death of Jean Moulin
Among the most significant events of his tenure was the arrest of Jean Moulin, a senior figure in the French Resistance and representative of General Charles de Gaulle. Moulin was captured in June 1943 following the betrayal of a resistance meeting at Caluire and brought to Gestapo headquarters in Lyon.
Christian Pineau, an inmate compelled to act as the unofficial prison barber, later described being ordered to shave Moulin:
“He had lost consciousness; his eyes were hollowed as if they were buried in his head. He had an ugly bluish wound on his temple. A low moan escaped from his swollen lips. There was no doubt that he had been tortured by the Gestapo. Seeing me hesitate, the officer said again, ‘Shave him!’ I asked for some soap and water.
The officer brought some and then went away. Slowly I tried to shave him, trying not to touch the swollen parts of his face. I couldn’t understand why they wanted to put on this macabre performance for a dying man. When I’d finished I just sat next to him. Suddenly Moulin asked for some water. I gave him a drink, then he spoke in a croaking voice a few words in English which I didn’t understand. Soon after he lost consciousness, I just sat with him, a sort of ‘death watch’ until I was taken back to my cell.”
Gottlieb Fuchs, interpreter for the Lyon Gestapo, later testified that on 25 June 1943 he saw Barbie drag what appeared to be a lifeless body down steps to a basement in the École de Santé. He later learned the body was Moulin’s. As Moulin’s condition deteriorated, he was transferred to Paris for further interrogation at Avenue Foch. On 7 July 1943, an unconscious man on a stretcher was placed on a train bound for Frankfurt am Main. Moulin died during the journey. Two days later, his body was returned to Paris and cremated at Père Lachaise.
Interrogation and Resistance: The Aubrac Testimony
Barbie continued operations in Lyon. Among those arrested at Caluire was Raymond Aubrac, whose later testimony offered a detailed account of Gestapo methods. Aubrac recalled:
“Looking back, I sometimes even think that he wasn’t that interested in getting any information. Fundamentally he was a sadist who enjoyed causing pain and proving his power. He had an extraordinary fund of violence. Coshes, clubs and whips lay on his desk and he used them a lot. Contrary to what some others say, he wasn’t even a good policeman, because he never got any information out of me. Not even my identity, or that I was Jewish.”
Aubrac was eventually freed in a Resistance operation organised by his wife Lucie, and both escaped to England.
Deportations from Lyon and the Izieu Raid
Barbie oversaw numerous deportations from Lyon to Auschwitz and other camps. By 1944, as German control weakened and resistance activity intensified, deportations accelerated.
In April 1944, his officers raided the Jewish children’s home at Izieu, where 44 children and 7 adult staff were sheltering. All were arrested and deported. The children were murdered at Auschwitz. In August 1944, shortly before German withdrawal from Lyon, he organised a final deportation train carrying hundreds to the camps.
Collapse of the Reich and Disappearance
As Allied forces advanced through France in 1944, Barbie retreated with other German officials. At the end of the war, he returned to Germany, removed his SS blood group tattoo and assumed a new identity. Like many former SS officers, he attempted to disappear amid the administrative chaos of postwar Europe.
Barbie's escape and capture
Barbie returned to Germany, and at the end of the war burned off his SS identification tattoo and assumed a new identity. With former SS officers, he 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. Barbie worked as a U.S. agent in Germany for two years, and the Americans shielded him from French prosecutors trying to track him down. In 1949, Barbie and his family were smuggled by the Americans to Bolivia where he lived for many years under the protection of the Bolivian dictatorship.
American Protection and Cold War Realignment
In the emerging Cold War climate, former Nazi intelligence officers were viewed by some American authorities as potential assets against the Soviet Union. In June 1947, Barbie surrendered to the United States Counter Intelligence Corps. He worked as an informant for two years, and American authorities shielded him from French attempts to secure his arrest.
Bolivia: Klaus Altmann
In 1949, facing increasing pressure, American authorities assisted in his relocation to Bolivia. Under the name Klaus Altmann, he settled in La Paz. Bolivia’s succession of military governments provided a permissive environment for foreign advisers with intelligence experience.
He established himself as a businessman and maintained connections within security services. During the rule of Hugo Banzer Suárez after 1971, Barbie reportedly assisted in establishing internment camps for political opponents. He was also linked to right wing paramilitary activity and illicit networks. France had tried him in absentia in 1952 and 1954, sentencing him to death, but he lived openly in Bolivia for decades.
Discovery, Extradition and Trial
In 1972, Nazi hunters Serge Klarsfeld and Beate Klarsfeld identified his whereabouts, though extradition was initially refused. Political change in Bolivia in the early 1980s altered the situation. On 19 January 1983, Barbie was arrested. On 7 February 1983, he arrived in France.
Because crimes against humanity carry no statute of limitations under French law, he could be prosecuted despite the passage of decades. His trial began in May 1987 in Lyon. Survivors testified publicly about torture, deportation and loss. The proceedings became a moment of national reflection on occupation and collaboration.
On 4 July 1987, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Conviction and Death
Klaus Barbie died on 25 September 1991 in a prison hospital in Lyon at the age of 77. His prosecution reinforced an important legal principle that crimes against humanity remain prosecutable regardless of time elapsed. For survivors and families of victims, the verdict did not undo what had been done, but it ensured that the historical record was examined in open court and formally acknowledged.
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