French Nazis or Nazi collaborators in France. 18/5/23
The author was born in Bolivia of parents that had fled Austria, Czechoslovakia in 1938
Because Barbie was born out of wedlock he had a complex and his father was a cruel man who beat his children when he was drunk. His grandfather refused to give him any part of the inheritance because of this. They lived in the Saarland that was occupied by the French. Barbie joined the SS and first worked in Belgium and France before arriving in Lyon..
1939The French authorities imposed restrictions on Jews immigrating and set up internment camps for refugees in southern France. Of 350,000 living in France less than halv were French born and 75 000 did not have French citizenship.
1940 the French collaborationist regime set up in Vichy under Premier Pierre Laval. Later Marshall Petain the French hero of the battle of Verdun took over. The slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity was replaced by "work, family and country" Assets and property taken from the Jews went to the French state not the Germans. The Vichy regime set up a Ministry of Jewish affairs and a censos of Jews was taken. Jews who were French citizens were not arrested till Premier Pierre Laval signed an agreement with the Germans and offered and between July and Sept 1942 33057 Jews were transported. The SD worked closely with the French security police July 1942 the Velodrome de'Hiver was filled with 4000 Jewish prisoners. 11400 Jewish children and the Izieu orphanage where thee were 41 children. were deported by Klaus Barbie. Captain Theo Dannecker. was an associate of Eichman, Dannecker.he was arrested by the US Army in 1945 and a few days later committed suicide.
In 1942 the Catholic church protested and the church was the mainstay of the Petain regime so Petain backed down after that but still another 32000 Jews were rounded up and sent. In total 80000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz and that was a quarter of the Jewish population of France. A third of these were French citizens. The calculated strategy of Petain to collaborate with the Germans by deportation's in order to gain independence failed.
1943 Barbie went to Germany for 2 month to be treated for venereal disease.
The resistance members came from all walks of life and included Catholics, immigrants and members of the Jewish community Once the Normandy invasion started they provided the Allies with intelligence and started of at about 100,000 in June 1944 by October they were about 400,000. As the German military lost ground so the resistance strengthened. Jean Moulin met de Gaul in London and was the coordinator in France.
Moulin was very successful in fighting the Germans but betrayed by collaborators including Rene Hardy who worked for Barbie. Of the 7 resistance fighters caught Raymond Aubrac escaped because his wife set up a ruse and asked permission to marry him as she was pregnant with a child out of wedlock with him. When he arrived to sign the resistance attacked the guard and the Aubacs were evacuated to London.
1944when the Allies were advancing towards Lyon the 629 inmates in the Montluc Prison were taken from the cells and sent to death camps. Barbie escaped from Lyon taking the 109 resistance fighter hostage and they were gunned down at the airport before he flew out. Once Barbie had left, the resistance disguised as Gestapo and freed 950 prisoners' in Montluk prison.
After liberation approximately 9000 collaborators were executed mostly without trial. Approximately 30000 women accused of collaborating were given head shaves and known as Les tondues.
October 1945 Piere Laval , and Joseph Darnand were tried. Several of Barbies French and German collogues were arrested and provided incriminating evidence against him. In 1947 the Americans had all Barbies personal records and yet they hired Barbie. Jean Moulin became the most famous and honored French resistance fighter and the official personality of the French resistance.
Petain at 89 was condemned to death of treason but de Gaul commuted the sentence to life in jail and he died in 1951.
The French generally acknowledged their past and no longer deny their conduct during the war.
1938 Bolivia Free Immigration Decree opened the country to immigration on condition that they worked in rural areas. and till the end of the war the Jewish population there increased from 40thousand to 70thousand. Bolivia role in sheltering refugees was not recognized but that of sheltering Nazis was.
1825 Bolivia became a republic and suffered most of it years with military coups and social uprisings. This instability had resulted in 78 different government since then.
1951 Barbie arrived with his wife Regina and 2 children via the ratline with the support of the US intelligence and Vatical Officials
In Bolivia he was known as Klaus Altman his role was in advising intelligent officers in interrogation techniques that he used over the years. . He talked openly about his connections to former Nazis and had no remorse for his wartime actions. He had close times with Arce Gomez especially after the military seized power in 1980. The USA started taking an interest in this as the regime had links to narcotrafficking. Ex Nazis and mercenaries known as Bridegrooms of Death made up of criminals who had fled from their own countries. Barbie even had a diplomatic passport for international travel. The foreign press eventually wrote articles that exposed the regime and its working relationship to Klaus Barbie.
1960sBarbie had set up Trasnmaritima Boliviana as a facade for arms trafficking.
1967 he advised the CIA on the strategy for capturing Che Guevara
1970s Beate and Serge Klarsfeld and Simon Wiesenthal started investigating him and France requested his extradition. They even thought of kidnapping him. Inspired by the Eichmann kidnapping of 1960.Augustus Pinochet who took over Chile in 1973 was a close friend of Barbie's Nazi associates.
1982 a liberal democratic regime returned to power and Arce Gomez and Garcia Meza were disgraced and jailed.
Barbie had entered Argentinean after WW2 with false documents. Between 1960s and 1980s Barbie helped brutal corrupt Bolivian regimes here. Herman Siles Zuazo assumed the Presidency ending 2 decades of harsh military dictatorship.
Barbie was arrested for past debts and Zuazos fragile coalition accused the Nazi fugative of directing paramilitary death squads and cocaine smugglers. This arrest would promote a new image of Bolivia in Europe. Barbie was delivered to the Cayenne in French Guiana. President Francois Mitterrand wanted him as perhaps Mitterrand war time loyalties were suspect. Barbie was a balding old man who 2 years earlier buried his only son and recently his wife.
1983 extradited to France. When Barbie was returned to Lyon to the Montluc Prison there were about 35000 Jews living there and many were related to people who had been tortured or deported by Barbie. The closet of the truth of Vichy France would now have to be opened. The trial would reveal the wounds of the French colonial past.
Barbies torture of Moulin was not on the official agenda.
Jewish deportees who survived and returned to France were an ambarrising reminder of shame.
Jacque Verges was the defence lawyer and he wanted to prove that Jean Moulin was betrayed by a Frenchman Rene Hardy and commited suicide. Simone Veil a Auschwitz survivor warned that the trial would divide the country.
1954 The last Nazi trial in France was against Helmut Knochen commander of the security police during the Nazi occupation. His death sentence was commuted to life in 1962 and he died a free man in Germany in 2003.
Not just Barbie was on trial but France itself, if they could examine crimes of the 1940 what about the crimes of the 1950s and 1960s in Indochina and Algeria. Verges had had a Vietnamese mother married to his French father who lost his job as an army doctor for marrying an Asian. He fought in de Gauls Free French army, yet supported anit-zionist and dictators, he was prepared to defend political activists and terrorists on both extremes of the political spectrum and it was acceptable to take money from Swiss Nazi Francois Genoud. Verges offered his services to Slobodan Milosevic ,Saddam Hussein and al Gaddafi. He had met Che Guevara Mao Zedong the Pol Pot regimes, Arafat and ayatollah Khomeini
1985 Shoah by Claud Lanzmann was a 9 hour documentary film of the holocaust which helped to awaken memories.
Original documents with Barbies signature showed that when German troops needed transport to retreat trains were secured by Barbie for 650 people to be transported to death camps.
Was imperialism a crime against humanity, Was the Holocaust unique or just a consequence of human nature..
1987 Barbie was found guilty of crimes against humanity. his trial rewrote the history of France. The treacherous role of the French government showed the dangers of racism and fascism
1991 Barbie he died in jail in Lyon of Leucemia aged 78.
1994 Jacques Chirac formally opened a museum that was paid for by the Zlatin family with records of all the children who died.
Epilogue
All Barbies letters to friends and family written in jail can be seen. Totalitarian and authoritarian institutions turned a blind eye to human rights in order to carry out their ideological and political agendas. 70 milion people died in WW2 but Barbie was not unrepentant.
Nazi networks had been useful to South American to right wing militaries in Chile , Argentina , Brazil Paraguay and Bolivia. The book includes details of his years and helping narcotics mafias in S. American .
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