1987 : BUTCHER OF LYON ON TRIAL:
Klaus Barbie, the former Nazi Gestapo chief of German-occupied Lyon,
France, goes on trial in Lyon more than four decades after the end of
World War II. He was charged with 177 crimes against humanity.
As chief of Nazi Germany's secret police in Lyon, Barbie sent 7,500
French Jews and French Resistance partisans to concentration camps,
and executed some 4,000 others. Among other atrocities, Barbie
personally tortured and executed many of his prisoners. In 1943, he
captured Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance, and had him
slowly beaten to death. In 1944, Barbie rounded up 44 young Jewish
children and their seven teachers hiding in a boarding house in Izieu
and deported them to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Of the 51, only
one teacher survived. In August 1944, as the Germans prepared to
retreat from Lyon, he organized one last deportation train that took
hundreds of people to the death camps.
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 South America.
Assuming the name of Klaus Altmann, Barbie settled in Bolivia and
continued his work as a U.S. agent. He became a successful businessman
and advised the military regimes of Bolivia. In 1971, the oppressive
dictator Hugo Banzer Suarez came to power, and Barbie helped him set
up brutal internment camps for his many political opponents. During
his 32 years in Bolivia, Barbie also served as an officer in the
Bolivian secret police, participated in drug-running schemes, and
founded a rightist death squad. He regularly traveled to Europe, and
even visited France, where he had been tried in absentia in 1952 and
1954 for his war crimes and sentenced to death.
In 1972, the Nazi hunters Serge Klarsfeld and Beatte Kunzel discovered
Barbie's whereabouts in Bolivia, but Banzer 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 statute of limitations had expired on his
in-absentia convictions from the 1950s; he would have to be tried
again. The U.S. government formally apologized to France for its
conduct in the Barbie case later that year.
Legal wrangling, especially between the groups representing his
victims, delayed his trial for four years. Finally, on May 11, 1987,
the "Butcher of Lyon," as he was known in France, went on trial for
his crimes against humanity. In a courtroom twist unimaginable four
decades earlier, Barbie was defended by three minority lawyers--an
Asian, an African, and an Arab--who made the dramatic case that the
French and the Jews were as guilty of crimes against humanity as
Barbie or any other Nazi. Barbie's lawyers seemed more intent on
putting France and Israel on trial than in proving their client's
innocence, and on July 4, 1987, he was found guilty. For his crimes,
the 73-year-old Barbie was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in
prison, France's highest punishment. He died of cancer in a prison
hospital in 1991.
history.com/tdih.do
1812 : British prime minister assassinated
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4991
1858 : Minnesota enters the Union
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4992
1997 : Deep Blue beats Kasparov
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4993
#################################
France, goes on trial in Lyon more than four decades after the end of
World War II. He was charged with 177 crimes against humanity.
As chief of Nazi Germany's secret police in Lyon, Barbie sent 7,500
French Jews and French Resistance partisans to concentration camps,
and executed some 4,000 others. Among other atrocities, Barbie
personally tortured and executed many of his prisoners. In 1943, he
captured Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance, and had him
slowly beaten to death. In 1944, Barbie rounded up 44 young Jewish
children and their seven teachers hiding in a boarding house in Izieu
and deported them to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Of the 51, only
one teacher survived. In August 1944, as the Germans prepared to
retreat from Lyon, he organized one last deportation train that took
hundreds of people to the death camps.
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 South America.
Assuming the name of Klaus Altmann, Barbie settled in Bolivia and
continued his work as a U.S. agent. He became a successful businessman
and advised the military regimes of Bolivia. In 1971, the oppressive
dictator Hugo Banzer Suarez came to power, and Barbie helped him set
up brutal internment camps for his many political opponents. During
his 32 years in Bolivia, Barbie also served as an officer in the
Bolivian secret police, participated in drug-running schemes, and
founded a rightist death squad. He regularly traveled to Europe, and
even visited France, where he had been tried in absentia in 1952 and
1954 for his war crimes and sentenced to death.
In 1972, the Nazi hunters Serge Klarsfeld and Beatte Kunzel discovered
Barbie's whereabouts in Bolivia, but Banzer 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 statute of limitations had expired on his
in-absentia convictions from the 1950s; he would have to be tried
again. The U.S. government formally apologized to France for its
conduct in the Barbie case later that year.
Legal wrangling, especially between the groups representing his
victims, delayed his trial for four years. Finally, on May 11, 1987,
the "Butcher of Lyon," as he was known in France, went on trial for
his crimes against humanity. In a courtroom twist unimaginable four
decades earlier, Barbie was defended by three minority lawyers--an
Asian, an African, and an Arab--who made the dramatic case that the
French and the Jews were as guilty of crimes against humanity as
Barbie or any other Nazi. Barbie's lawyers seemed more intent on
putting France and Israel on trial than in proving their client's
innocence, and on July 4, 1987, he was found guilty. For his crimes,
the 73-year-old Barbie was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in
prison, France's highest punishment. He died of cancer in a prison
hospital in 1991.
history.com/tdih.do
1812 : British prime minister assassinated
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4991
1858 : Minnesota enters the Union
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4992
1997 : Deep Blue beats Kasparov
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4993
#################################
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