Book Review - Klaus Barbie: Butcher of Lyons by Tom Bower

Klaus Barbie: Butcher of Lyons by Tom Bower

London: Michael Joseph, 1984            ISBN 0718123271

As a young boy growing up in the 1970s, surrounded by relatives that had fought in World War II, I was fascinated by the conflict. Being a child, I thought of the War in childish ways, building model kits of aircraft, and re-enacting battles with my friends in the local neighbourhood. It wasn't until the early 1980s, when the trial of Klaus Barbie made the headlines, that I began to realise that war truly is terrible. Tom Bower's book, written after Barbie was arraigned but before the trial started, is a well researched and thorough investigation of Barbie's career, crimes, work for the Americans post-war, flight to South America and final return to France to face justice.

It's clear from the evidence Bower presents to the reader that Barbie was cruel and sadistic. Despite his own view of himself as an expert in interrogation, he resorted to brutal treatment at the earliest opportunity in most of the interrogations he undertook. As head of the Gestapo in Lyons, Barbie was responsible for neutralizing resistance to the Nazi regime in both Lyons and the surrounding areas and there is no doubt he used the most brutal measures to try and quell rebellion, including destroying whole villages, and shooting many innocent civilians in the process. He was also deeply involved in rounding up the Jews of Lyons for transport to the East, and to their deaths.

When the War was over, Barbie managed to find his way into the arms of American Intelligence, who used him to keep tabs on the Bavarian Communist Party. This section of the book shows in a very detailed way how ambivalence and incompetence allowed a war criminal to not only work for American Intelligence, but be interviewed by the French to provide evidence in a trial, while the Americans denied to the French that they even knew where he was. The various American handlers of Barbie had differing feelings about using him as an informer, from disgust to indifference. The shambolic and shameful handling of war crimes investigations (which Bower wrote about in Blind Eye to Murder), meant that Barbie not only could live for five years in Germany, but then travel to Bolivia under an assumed name, all organised by the American secret services.

Barbie, under the name Klaus Altmann, lived in Bolivia for many years as an open Nazi sympathiser, and friend of Presidents and coup-plotters alike. It seemed that he had cheated justice, especially as the West German Government lost interest in tracking him down. It was down to the Klarsfeld family, who refused to accept that Nazis should get away with their crimes, to push, cajole, grandstand, and finally embarrass the German, French and Bolivian Governments into sending him back to France for trial.

History records that Barbie was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1991.

Klaus Barbie: Butcher of Lyons is a well researched, well written and eye-opening book.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell