All language subtitles for Hotel Terminus 1988 part1

We had a New Year's
party, almost 50 years ago.

There was quite a party...
there was wine and so forth.

Barbie was sitting
at the end of the table.

And when I said "That
bastard Hitler"...you know...

...had betrayed the idealism
of the German youth...

He jumped up... you
know... absolutely furious...

And shouted, you know...

In my presence, no one says
anything against the F�hrer!

And he got really red
in his face, you know!

It was really like something
exploded in him, you know...

Something he really
believed in, you know.

I mean absolutely narrow-minded,
you know... no discussion about it.

The F�hrer is No. I and I'm
sure in his prison cell in Lyon

he has this small plaque.

- Has he got a photo on the wall?
- I don't know.

We should send him one for Christmas.

HOTEL TERMINUS
Klaus Barbie -
His Life and Time

A film by Marcel Ophils

[French] Barbie's life
doesn't interest me.

What interests me,
is what comes out of his trial.

[French] Sentencing someone
after 40 years, anyhow...

I don't know, I have no opinion.

After 20 years, crimes
have a statute of limitations.

So I think 40 years is a lot...

[French] The Barbie case
got people talking in Lyon,

when he was brought back at first,

but when nothing happened,
they just got bored with it.

I can't explain, I'm
not one for revenge.

Also my family was
never directly concerned

by deportations or arrests.

It's not right that someone
who commits these atrocities,

should escape trial.

[French] 15 members of
my family were deported

Only one came back.

That included my
grandmother, who was 82.

At her age, hardly a
threat to the Nazi regime.

I was young. Before joining
the Resistance,

I was a bellboy at the Hotel Terminus.

- Is that so?
- Yes.

The Gestapo was there.
It was the German H.Q.

All the brass, all
sorts of wild parties...

But Barbie, I never heard of.

I sure was young, about 15 or so.

- You had a uniform?
- Yes.

Yeah, like all the bellboys.

- Did the Germans tip well?
- Yes.

- Were they generous?
- I'd say so.

The Italian Commission, too.

They were generous, but
we also cheated them a bit.

Until then, they had
tried to come across

as people who were... civilized.

Then in '44, we realized
that the "civilized"

had behaved like barbarians.

[Choir sings German folk song]

[Interviewer] 'Did you
know the children of Izieu?'

- [French] The Jewish kids?
- Yes.

- Sure, I remember them.
- You do?

[Woman, French] He was a sadist.

[Woman, French] 'A man who
got results and was ruthless.'

[Woman, French] 'Frightening.'

[Woman, French] 'I remember
this rather calm man, '

'who suddenly started to scream.'

[Man, German] 'If Sonny came to Udler,

I'd take him in... any time, I'd say!'

[A farmer] I have nothing
bad to say about Sonny.

- [Int. German] You mean Klaus?
- I say Sonny, sorry.

- Was that his...?
- We called him that.

You called him that? That
was his nickname as a boy?

I'd never shut my door to Sonny.

He often came to our house.

My mother would say, "Sonny boy..."

"Sit down and eat with us."
She felt honored if he stayed.

[Int.] Because he was
the teacher's son?

Yes, but it never went
to his head, oh, no!

He'd stop by all farms.

He didn't care where he ate.

The teacher was great when he was sober.

'When he was sober,
he was a fine teacher.'

But when he was drunk...

[Int.] What then?

He'd lose control.

He'd just grab a ruler and
lash out at anyone or anything.

His mother, you could
say, was a saint next to him.

All she did was pray and work.

A fine farm girl from Maehren.

[Int.] Klaus had a brother.
Where is he in this photo?

- There he is.
- There?

- He wasn't quite right.
- What do you mean?

He was a bit loony.

He wasn't all there,
you know, his memory...

He'd laugh, you know...

- He was a bit slow?
- Yes.

It was best that he died.

'If he did send all these
children to the camps, '

that I can't forgive.

But that aside, I maintain what I said.

In Udler, he was a decent boy.

- There is Barbie.
- In the corner there?

'Yes, you can't help but ask yourself,

'"What became of
this boy I once knew...'

[Wehrmacht major, retired]
"as a really charming classmate?"

- [Int.] Wasn't he withdrawn?
- Lord, no!

Barbie was the type...

There are leaders in every class.

'He was just that, a real leader.'

Strange... He was good in all subjects.

I think he graduated with honors.

- Teacher's pet?
- Not at all!

[Journalist] I don't think a policeman who
hurts people so much, is a good policeman.

He was more the brute and the sadist.

[secret agent in retirement] Barbie was not
the type that needed to engage in torture.

Having the delegate of General de Gaulle
in their hands...

And letting Barbie kill him,
was too stupid for words.

He was a skilful and professional type.

And professionals don't
engage in that kind of thing.

[French]
Barbie arrived soon after,

and he greeted me with
a whack from his truncheon.

[French] His reputation for
cruelty was confirmed by Raymond

who told me what happened.

He looked like an ordinary man.

I have a mark on my forehead.

He gashed my forehead
with his fist.

Later, for kicks,

he slammed my head
into the corner of his desk.

When the blood dried,
he'd slam it again.

I came to dread that.

[French] He just liked inflicting pain.

He didn't care much what he asked.

What struck me most,
apart from the blows, I mean,

what really amazed me,

was the pleasure he
got from those beatings.

[German] I don't know what
tendencies he developed later.

Perhaps they were innate
tendencies that surfaced

because of his position.

[Int.] Have you heard that
Klaus Barbie went to school here?

That can't be. I'd say that's a rumor.

- A rumor?
- Yes.

It must be.

[Int.] Father, do you
also think it's a rumor?

I just want to ask...
we're a bit concerned...

because you're filming
on private property.

I'd like to know who you are.

[Int.] 'We're making a
film about Klaus Barbie.

Surely you know he went to school here?

No, I didn't. I had no idea.
It's news to me.

I was going to be a priest...

- by the time we graduated...
- Yes?

Then... for deep-seated
reasons, I didn't become one.

'So I joined the army.'

[Int.] 'He, too, was in Catholic
Youth. He was very devout.'

'He was a boarder
at the seminary.'

He must have wanted to
become a priest at that time.

Later he lived with his mother in Trier.

I was there once. His
mother invited me in for coffee.

I even did my homework there.

In maths, he had to help me out.

- He was better?
- Yes, he was.

In year 1933 was a great and
joyous appeal to our fatherland.

But also tragedy to my own family.

My only beloved brother died in June.

A few months later, I lost my father.

Our great national
revolution has drawn me,

as it has every true young German...

Into its spell.

And so today I am privileged to
serve as a small but active member...

of our F�hrer's family.

[German song]
I wish I was a hen

Who worked just now and then

An egg each day, that's all I'd lay

[German]
The Lord bless our church

and our beloved German fatherland.

[German, old recording] 'We have
a German theater, German film,

German art, German literature,

German music and German radio.'

The point often raised against us

that Jews could never
be ousted from our culture,

because there are so many,

that they are indispensable,
is brilliantly refuted.

The risk of turning criminal in
a profession like the Gestapo,

is rather high, isn't it?

'I don't know if he realised
that, when, for the first time,

'he put on his SS uniform.'

That's very typical of
Klaus Barbie's character,

that he got respect.

'Before him, there was
a boy called Frosch.'

Everyone disliked him. He had
bulging eyes... a nasty fellow.

He'd get beaten up, when he
came spouting Nazi slogans.

No, really!

Then Klaus Barbie came along...
and the spell, I'd say, was broken.

- The rest joined in?
- That's right.

[French]
In the period from 1940 to '45,

we knew things were going on.

From 1944 onwards, it
became more obvious,

because they started feeling cornered,

and became more careful.

But before, from '41 to '43,

'you didn't see much in the streets.'

[German song]

[Man, French] 'Only by
chance would you see an arrest.'

[Man, French] 'But you knew
German police were all around.'

[Man, French] 'Yes, of course.'

[Former leader of the French Resistance]
I first saw Barbie, I think, I'm not sure...

in March 1943, when those
arrested by the French police

'were brought to the
Gestapo at the hotel.'

[French] He was said to
be ruthless, yes, ruthless...

to get results... to be
cunning... to have the power

to get what he was after.

'He was frightening, even then.'

There were four of us in the cell.

Two of us were sent to the Terminus.

The three interrogators
based their questions

on files the French police had provided.

I got slapped once, then we
were returned to the French police,

who got us back to jail.

I was released a few weeks later.

[Int.] Did people in
handcuffs cross the lobby?

[French] Now and then. Not
many, but they left quickly.

They didn't hang around the hotel.

[Int.] They let you go,
unaware you were a partisan.

[Int.] Were they unaware you were a Jew?

Yes. They never knew I was Jewish.

[Int.] Not even when you were arrested?

They never knew my true identity.

- Are you circumcised?
- Yes.

[Woman, French]
Yet you were tortured?

- 'I was tor... beaten.'
- 'Stripped to the waist?'

'I was beaten with truncheons,
clubs... with chair legs, sticks.'

'I passed out a good number of times

'under Barbie's questioning.'

But I was never fully stripped.

[Int.]
'How did your first arrest end?'

[Woman, French] 'The judge
bought the black-market alibi.'

'I asked for release on bail.'

My lawyer said the
prosecutor wasn't fooled,

and knew this was a Resistance case,
and would never agree.

I happened to know of a BBC message,

'one of those signals
about parachute drops.'

'They were broadcast at noon.'

I knocked at the prosecutor's
door and told him...

"I want to see you alone. I
represent General de Gaulle.

"Among those who've requested bail,

"there is a Mr Valet whom you refused."

"Grant it by tomorrow, or you
won't live to see the sun rise."

"I'll substantiate this.
You'll hear the message,"

"KEEP CLIMBING THE HEIGHTS"

if you turn on the BBC at 7 and 9pm.

"That will be proof."

Of course I was bluffing.

The British planes could have
been grounded by bad weather

Then the message wouldn't
have been broadcast.

But it was. Raymond was
out on the streets next day.

The prosecutor got scared.

[Man, French] 'I'd been away 2 years
when I was parachuted into France.

'I have to say, I kept wondering
why people didn't denounce me,

'and why I wasn't arrested.

'I felt it was so obvious
that I'd come from London.'

[Jean Moulin's secretary in the Resistance.]
Agents arriving from London were introduced by Moulin.

I first met him in Lyon,
on August 1st, 1942.

- [Int.] 'How old were you?'
- 'I was 22.'

'It was a stifling hot day.

'I had an appointment with him at 2pm.'

A lady showed us into a
darkened study... a very large room.

'And a man was seated in
an armchair in the middle of it.

'Beside him a chair was piled
with papers he was studying.'

He looked at us, rose,
and approached us smiling.

And he asked me,
"Did you have a good trip?"

I said "Yes". He asked
"Are you free for lunch?"

'I said "Yes."

'Later at the restaurant...

'there was a bench facing the door...

I was seated in front of
him. They brought the menu.

He said, "What would you like to drink?"

I said "Perrier water."

I don't know why. Maybe
because I hadn't had any in 2 years.

He said, "Soda water with a
meal is bad for the stomach."

'When I see places
named after Jean Moulin...'

I don't associate their
name with the man I knew.

To me, after 40 years,
he's still my boss.

- [Int.] Were you friends?
- I loved and respected him.

But I wouldn't presume, even
today, to call him my friend.

[De Gaulle's Minister for Culture 1964]
[French] Enter here, Jean Moulin,

with all your ghostly retinue,

with those who died in
dark cellars, and like you,

'remained silent, and
with those whose fate,

'more atrocious still, was to talk.'

I saw him for the last time
on June 15th.

That was 6 days prior to his arrest.

We met at a small caf�. The Coq Hardi.

Near Bellecour Square.

He looked very tired.

'Seeing how exhausted
he looked, I said, '

"You have to take a holiday."

He turned to me abruptly and snapped,

"How can you talk of holidays,
when there's so much to do."

"Besides, 2 weeks from now,
we may be arrested, all of us."

[French] I am the last
survivor, with my friend Aubrac,

(whom I had known for
years), of the Caluire incident.

- The sole surviving witness...
- Of the arrest...

Of the arrest of Jean Moulin.

My old friend, Lassagne...
that's him up there...

'whom I knew to be deeply
involved in the Resistance...'

had been asking me for months...

"Could we use your house
for meetings from time to time?"

"Important meetings." I agreed.

I was the local doctor,
with a busy practice.

Comings and goings in my
practice might go unnoticed.

'I told my faithful Marguerite,

"Mr Lassagne will bring
some friends Monday..."

"Show them into the
parlor on the 2nd floor..."

"And leave them alone."

She knew that Lassagne was a friend.

So he left. Sunday went by.

That Sunday night, my
friend, Maurice David...

That's him there... he's dead now.

He slept here. I didn't tell
him there'd be a meeting here.

You can't accuse me of talking.

[In charge of railroad sabotage of the French underground]
[French] I think mistakes were made...

But I also think the Germans
had infiltrated the movement...

and could have known about the meeting.

We arrived late, with Moulin
at the meeting he'd set up.

We sat in the waiting room
with patients.

Dr Dugoujon was in the consulting room.

And moments later,
the house was raided...

By a squad of Gestapo agents.

There was a man with a machine
gun supervising the operation.

We were arrested, handcuffed.

You don't argue with a machine
gun. That was brute force.

I held out my hands and
got kicked in the groin.

Pardon my language, ma'am.

I felt nothing. Nothing,
nothing, nothing.

There are times when
you don't feel pain.

[Woman] Did you know
that Barbie was there?

There were no introductions.
Just machine guns.

They took me to the parlor.

I saw 4 or 5 of my neighbors.

One of them said,
"Doctor, what's going on?"

The first person on my left said,

"My name is Jacques Martel.
- Jean Moulin!"

I didn't know him.

Over there was someone I did
know very well... Raymond Aubrac.

I think men in uniform
surrounded the house.

I don't remember if
Barbie was in uniform.

[Int. French] Were you
at the Caluire meeting?

Barbie said you had a gun.
You alone happened to be armed.

I was always, for your
information... I was always armed.

I knew I was fighting a war.

I was criticized for
that long before Caluire.

My hands were bound
behind me. I say this...

because Hardy later had
only one wrist cuffed to a chain.

[Int.] What about the handcuffs?

The handcuffs... a German, Steingritt...

testified they were
in short supply.

[Int.] Despite all unresolved questions,

you're convinced that
Ren� Hardy was guilty.

- Yes
- [Woman] Absolutely.

[Int.] I'd like to go over
the Caluire incident.

['The traitor Hardy should be punished']
'It's odd that I'm the only one who stood accused.'

even though many
people were being tailed.

[Old recording, French]
In the Paris criminal courtroom...

a military tribunal
will retry Ren� Hardy.

['Hardy the informer is acquitted']
[Woman, French] Two lies got him acquitted twice.

The first time, he
denied his earlier arrest...

and his detention by the Gestapo.

That's why he was acquitted.

The second time, he was forced to admit

his detention by the Gestapo,
but a second lie acquitted him.

His subordinate, Bosset, falsely
said Hardy was dining with him.

'Hardy now admits he
was with Barbie at the time.'

[Int] Barbie questioned you?

For 6 hours. My papers were in order.

If Hardy hadn't been a turncoat,
then on his first arrest...

if he had tricked Barbie,
the brutal, the ruthless...

Barbie, on finding Hardy,

on the 2nd floor of
Dr Dougoujon's house,

with men he knew to
be Resistance leaders

including Jean Moulin,

wouldn't have pounced on Hardy and said,

"You tricked me, you bastard?"

- [Int] What about Ren� Hardy?
- I didn't see him.

I saw him at his 2 trials
and I testified against him

with bits of information I'd gathered.

I had never see him.

[French] The outcome of the
2 trials and this business now.

I spent 6 years in jail.

I have tried to make
a new life, honestly.

On leaving prison, I
was ruined, and had TB.

Yet I started over.

I only had $30 when I left prison,

'Today I feel enough is enough!'

If there weren't an outright traitor,

there must have been some indiscretions,

some loose talk, some chatter.

- And he escaped.
- Did he?

He escaped in the square.

Quite simple... as we
were getting into the car...

the guard lost his balance
and let go of my chain...

and I took off.

I was in the parlor,
handcuffed from behind...

when I heard shooting... I
can't say how many shots...

3 or 4... or however
long the shots lasted...

[Woman, French]
How did you get away?

They shot at me. I ran
down towards the Saone...

I tore through backyards.
I'm not entirely sure.

[Former leader of the French Resistance]
Hardy led the Germans to the house in question.

I think he may have tried
something clever.

[Int.] The Aubracs
don't doubt his guilt.

He may have tried to outfox Barbie,

and got beaten at his own game.

It's possible. No matter.

Hardy escapes.

In fact, I think that the
Germans let him get away.

They round up prisoners...

but they don't know
which one is Moulin.

It's certain that behind all
that were some stupid leaks,

idle chatter, some big
mouths bragging in a bar...

that they were big shots...

that they were on their
way to a big meeting.

Since the whole place was
crawling with Germans...

One word in the right ear
and everything was over.

In my opinion, Aubry, who
broke under Barbie's torture,

began to talk.

He talked 48 hours later.

Aubry probably identified Moulin.

[Mayor of Solutr�, center of Puilly-Fuisse wine]
It was June 27 or 28, a week later,

we saw a broken-down man.

"Thomas" alias Aubry...

enters our cell 431 at Fresnes prison.

He launched right into his tale of woe.

I heard about Caluire from him.

In 9 months, some 40 men came
and went... all acting innocent.

And this big wheel in the Resistance,

spilling his guts to me, who
could have been a stoolie...

Just like that!

I can say that Thomas Aubry

had guilt written all over
him, a week after Caluire.

At night, he got up to kiss a
medal of the Virgin he had.

This spectacle went on and on.

Another thing... when he came
back after the interrogations...

I was questioned for 9 months...

I got the ice bath 5 times...

but I never came back with
chicken, food, blankets...

When he came back, he'd
wolf down his special rations.

So I told him, "Leave that
medal alone!" Some Christian!

"We're hungry, and don't
squeal on your friends!"

I harp on about his release,

because if you're a big
shot like he was, I wonder...

I'd never seen a leader set
free 3 weeks after his arrest.

There wasn't much treason
in the Resistance, very little...

but as in all human
endeavour, it happens.

We wanted to prevent somehow,
the takeover of the Resistance

by the communists.

He was certainly at fault
for hiding his arrest from us.

That was unforgivable.

It could have wider implications.

[Int.] Caluire was bad enough.

Yes, but it left the
Resistance leadership intact.

[Excerpt from 'The Bitter Truth' - a film by Claude Bal]
No one except that crypto-communist Jean Moulin

suffered because of my arrest by Barbie.

A confession? No he does
not say he betrayed Moulin.

He never admitted that.

I have my own ideas, but
can't put words in his mouth.

[Int.] yet in Bal's film,
Hardy, your old comrade,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but
he seems to admit his own guilt,

and yes... yes...

[Voice over] 40 years later
we discover that Ren� Hardy

has been a scapegoat.

In 1947, his boss,
Benouville, testified,

"I didn't know he was going to Caluire."

Retrial, May 1950.

"I admit Hardy acted quite
rashly by going to Caluire."

1956, Aubry's deposition at
the National Archives, says...

"General de Benouville ordered me"

"to take Hardy to Caluire."

November 15, 1983,
Benouville tells the press:

"I did" - in 2 newspapers...

"order Hardy to go to Caluire."

It took him 43 years to admit as much.

I know Benouville very well. All
comrades, communists included,

would say he's above such deceit.

Worse for Benouville...

in the archives I found a
letter dated June 17, 1943,

four days before Caluire,

in which he writes to his
correspondent in Switzerland,

"Didot" - (Hardy's name) - was arrested.

It's written proof of
Benouville's deceit.

[Woman, French] He was a royalist.

'His ideas on post-war
France were not ours.'

But during the war we had
put aside our political quarrels.

They're like that. They
won't contradict each other!

It's more than a family, it's
a clan... their raison d'�tre

to repel the invader.

- To repel an invader is heroic.
- It creates eternal bonds.

Right or left,

they'll still close
ranks to hide the truth.

The Resistance and its
leaders were infiltrated.

All of Moulin's secretaries
were Commies more or less.

[Former clandestine publisher, Lyon]
I met Ren� Hardy, long after I read about him.

I met him on the film
set of 'Bitter Victory'.

If I'm not mistaken,
he'd written the book.

'- And the screenplay.'
- Yes, with Nicholas Ray.

When I saw him, I had
a feeling of... revulsion...

Reluctant to talk to him, to
shake his hand, to be near him.

Maybe I was wrong, for
I can't say with certainty

that he was guilty... I have no idea.

I had a feeling of estrangement.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I sinned.

[Bal] 'He didn't betray
Moulin. He was a pawn...'

a cog in the machine
to sacrifice Jean Moulin,

Obviously.

- Can one go that far?
- Well, let's!

Hardy obviously played a double game.

[Int.] When I talk to the
Aubracs, or to the real heroes,

Bourdet, people like him...

I feel that they've often been
faced with an unspoken question:

"Did he talk?" What do you think?

I've had the same uneasy
feeling for the last 30 or 40 years.

I've said as much to my wife, everyone.

When I ask it of myself, I reply:

"One never knows the whole truth."

[Int.] Isn't it incredibly arrogant

to try to form an opinion,

presume to judge the behaviour
of those who were tortured,

or faced with the threat of torture?

[Int.] Why are people
still afraid, 40 years later,

that public opinion
will raise that question?

It's an indecent question.

No it's not. I've often asked it myself.

When people mention
camps and gas chambers...

They eye me with suspicion:
"So you came back, did you?"

Those just lucky enough to
never be arrested, and survive...

love and respect others more, perhaps,

than they do each other,
because no one can say

what one would do under torture.

It got so painful, from time
to time, we'd just pass out.

They'd kick you back to
consciousness, or slap you awake,

like a doctor would.

They'd speak gently, then
have a sandwich brought up,

some rum, cigarettes.

They'd say, "See, you made us hit you",

"and now you've talked, why
didn't you talk right away?"

[Int.] That's not what
you meant by treason.

No, not at all. That's not treason.

It's physiological.

When you're dazed,
your brain loses control.

Anything can happen.

I'm left with a memory of a time

when I felt as if I'd choke from terror

for days and nights on end.

They didn't say,

"You fingered your friend Dupont!" No.

So you never knew where you stood.

It wasn't always next day...
Maybe 2 or 3 months later,

so you'd think, "I talked!"

Had I found a way, I
might have killed myself.

I didn't think about
it... Well, I'm not sure.

During the couple of hours when
I was left alone with the Gestapo,

when I was first arrested,

I had seen large charts
which had been abandoned...

Large pieces of paper,
about a couple of yards long...

by a yard wide.

Everything had rulers on it.

And so, God... I looked at
that and tried to learn it by heart.

And see exactly what...

Yes... there was what they knew...

So I see..."We know
that"..."We don't know that..."

Which means that if I appear to say

things which they already
know... OK... no harm.

[French] If you think
you're telling them

what they already know,
you get totally mixed up.

If you just make something
up, they might check your story.

I've always thought, that unless
you have a powerful imagination,

like a great novelist, maybe,
it's best to say nothing.

At least try to say nothing.

[Int.] But against Barbie, it's
odds on you're going to die.

You die, or they get bored,
because they think you know nothing.

I was questioned 6 times...

3 times gently and
3 times not so gently.

I'd return to my cell at night...

and for 2 months wonder "Did I talk?"

[Int.] Has the Moulin case
overshadowed other tortures,

the holocaust, deportations
and the death camps?

Yes, I think that Jean
Moulin "made" Barbie...

who otherwise was
an ordinary torturer.

[Int.] Atrocious, but ordinary!

Atrocious, monstrous,
but altogether ordinary.

'He did what thousands of Nazis
did or would have liked to do.'

[Former Gestapo chief, Toulouse] [Int. German]
Tell me, what crimes against the Reich

could a 2-year old girl commit?

[German] That little
girl... I didn't even look...

Whoever was there, signed.
If I had separated the girl...

Oh, what's the use?

[German Christmas carol]

Merry Christmas!

[man, German] Close the door.

[French] Steingritt was
one of Barbie's men.

[French-Jewish historian]
fighting against the Resistance.

I think he was also
used by the Americans...

but didn't take the
precautions that Barbie did.

He resented being sent back to France...

while Barbie made it to South America.

- [German] Not my affair!
- What is not?

Leave me alone.

- You don't even know...
- But you're filming.

[Int.] Of course, but can't I
even tell you what it's about?

Damn it! Whatever
happened to human rights?

[French] I know
he testified about Barbie.

And, like all Gestapo
members, he brought to light

Barbie's role as the driving
force in the Lyon Gestapo.

[German]
I've done my time on Death Row.

What more do you want?

[Int.] That's not what
I wanted to ask about.

That wasn't it at all.

- Tell them to stop filming.
- Fine, we'll stop.

[Man, French]
His death penalty was commuted.

He got out after 10 years or so.

He must have left prison in 1956 or '57.

[French] Bartelmus was
one of Barbie's deputies

in the Gestapo of Lyon.

He handled Jewish affairs,
and at his trial got 10 years...

which proves anti-Jewish crimes

counted for less than war-crimes.

[Int.] Mrs Bartelmus,
is your husband here?

- No.
- I'd like to speak with him.

[Mrs Bartelmus] I know, but
my husband has no comment.

Mr Bartelmus? Mr Bartelmus?

Mr Bartelmus?

[Woman, German]
What are you looking for?

You won't find him there.

- Then where is he?
- Please leave these premises.

- Excuse me?
- You're on private property.

[Int.] But we'd like an interview.

Fine, but not on our property.

[Int.] Has it to do what you
think the interview's about?

No, that's no concern of mine.

[Int.] His past doesn't interest you?

No, I'm not interested.

[German]
No, I'm not at all interested.

[German] You're just doing
this for the sensationalism

[Int.] But why...

[Woman]
That's what I think, that's all.

Old people should
be left in their peace...

not hounded from place to place.

[Int.] What do you mean?

You're selling pictures.

[Int.] And the children
who never grew old?

[Woman] Do you think
it would help them now,

if you make that man's
last year's so difficult.

[Int.] So you're husband had
nothing to do with arresting Jews?

[Woman] 'I can't say yes or no.

It wasn't just Lyon and
it wasn't just Barbie.

'Frenchmen too, were involved.'

[Woman, French] This
house brings back memories...

a happy childhood, play, laughter...

and also wonderful parents.

There were parties, games, laughter.

[Auschwitz survivor] I
remember one teacher...(I

had very long
hair, as I've said)...

who decided that if I was
Jewish, I must have lice.

'We had some great
teachers, but also bad ones.'

I remember a tiny woman who
had us sing the American anthem

whenever they hoisted the Vichy flag...

instead of
"Marechal, we're with you!"

[Int.] "Oh, say can you see..."

She was young... from the mountains.

[Int.] She was shot by the Germans.

There are so many
untold stories like hers.

She was so tiny!

[Int.] Just like you.

I forgot to grow at Auschwitz.

'I finished grade school with honors...

'the day before my arrest.'

On June 6, 1944, I went to
the baker's to get some bread.

'At the time, there was rationing.'

So the lines were
endless. I was in line.

Someone saw me and
said, "You made honors",

"You go to the head of the line."

I went first, and then went home.

Had I lined up, I might not
have been arrested.

'The office was dark. The
walls were brown and buff.'

'We had to face the wall.

'I was by the window near my parents.'

A man came out of the rear door.

He wasn't very tall. It's all relative.

My father, at 1.8 metres
seemed to dwarf him.

When he came in, all
but one SS man left.

It was Barbie of course,
but I didn't know then.

He was stroking a cat, so at 13,

I innocently assumed
he couldn't be cruel.

The cat was gray, like Barbie's uniform.

He had a rather friendly smile.

'He stopped and looked
my father up and down.

'He looked at my mother
and said she was pretty.

He came to me
and said I was pretty.

Then he turned to my mother and said,

"Is she your only child?"

My mother said, "No, I
have 2 younger ones."

"Where are they?" She
honestly didn't know.

Lyon was being heavily bombed,

and many schools had sent
pupils to live with farmers.

This saved my brother and sister...

Our not knowing their
address. They'd just left.

He then came to me and asked me again.

I didn't know, either.

He instantly dropped
the "nice cop" routine,

put the cat down, and came back to me,

ripped off my hairnet,

wound my hair around
his hand and pulled hard.

My father started,

and the SS guard put
a pistol to his stomach,

which forced my father back.

Barbie kept repeating his question
and as I said nothing,

knocked me down, then
pulled me back up by my hair.

I can't recall if I screamed,

I only remember the force of the blows.

I remember this rather calm man,

who suddenly started to
scream for no reason. I was afraid.

[Woman] You never
understood what he wanted?

Yes, he wanted the address
of my brother and sister.

[Int.] He wanted the whole family.

Yes, just 2 more to die.

["Front National" leader in Lyon.]
[Int.] You agree with Le Pen

that this trial is an anachronism?

Sure!...Whey condemn a
man who may die any day now?

If it's to set an example,

to carry on a 40-year
hunt for war criminals...

What do they get for it?
Kurt Waldheim's election!

[Int.] "What do they get?" Do
you mean the Jewish Congress?

Yes, these efforts... there's
a revival of anti-Semitism.

We've got better things to worry
about than those old problems.

[Int.] Are you saying Kurt
Waldheim owes his victory

among the Austrian
voters, to this Jewish effort

to rummage through old documents?

- Is that what you mean?
- Yes, quite.

- This brought about a backlash?
- Perhaps.

Maybe you should ask the Austrians.

[Int.] Mrs Langrange, please...

Could you tell us about your arrest?

The French were responsible, too.

Our concierge's
daughter-in-law reported us.

[Woman] Reported for what?

For being Jews.

She turned in her husband and
brother-in-law, months earlier.

We didn't know this, only
that they had been arrested.

She came over that afternoon
to borrow a scarf from me.

After 5pm, when my father
came home, she returned it...

crying over her husband's torture.

She said she'd been to Montluc
and seen how his hands were crushed.

She was returning a borrowed scarf.

Then my mother had her stay for coffee.

Just then there was a
knock... the SS officer.

He asked for the Kaddouche family.

That's when this woman
jumped up, kissed him and said

"Right this way, darling!"

There might have been people
in Lyon in league with Barbie.

Police always have informers.

At first,
we'd mostly heard of Andr�...

people like him,
like "Rubberface".

'He used to park
in the garage next door.'

- What's the game?
- I trumped.

[Man] Years ago at the Lyon Fair...

while window shopping, I ran
into a former Gestapo agent.

I won't say who... he's still alive.

My fellow deportees had
often mentioned this character...

who'd played down his role
at hearings...

Saying he'd been a driver for
the Gestapo, and nothing more...

That he had no part in the brutalities.

Remembering that, I slapped his face.

- What did he say?
- When was this?

In '68, 69.
I was tried and found guilty.

- Of assault, really?
- Yes.

'He claimed I'd punched
him in the face repeatedly.

The judge asked to see
my hands. I showed them.

"If those fists had punched
you, you'd be damaged."

"You were only slapped."

I still see him now and then...
He crosses the street. I've got a bad temper.

He was an aide to "Rubberface."

That's right, the PPF gang.

He'd open the door and
ask "Now what do I do?"

It wasn't always the
Germans who beat me.

Sometimes it was
this 20-year old kid,

whose kicks in the guts left me a wreck.

- Just to join in?
- Sure.

[Woman] How long were you...

Then, the Germans threatened me, saying,

"Sir, I will have to
bring back the others..."

That's standard technique, isn't it?

Nothing special, but
that's what they did.

They'd take us upstairs
and we'd go into the office...

where our interrogator was.

It might be Barbie or his deputies...

but French auxiliaries
were always present.

[former member of the
French underground]

"Rubberface" came in
and said to "Big Max"...

who was hitting
me..."You look exhausted...

"You interrogate and I'll hit."

He hit me and I think he's
the one who cracked my spine.

[Int.] Barbie was there?

He was. Awaiting his turn to hit.

[Int. French] Mrs Les�vre, you
were arrested at the train station

- Yes. I was on a mission.
- When?

March 13, 1944. I had to put
a parcel on the train to Paris.

They were papers to be
destroyed in the event of arrest,

especially photos on ID cards.

They were the biggest problem.

Eating photographs is almost impossible.

I'd pictured my own arrest...
there'd been so many close calls.

I thought I'd collapse at
their feet like a wet rag.

That day had been
particularly strenuous.

I was frightened and distressed.

When they got me,
those feelings vanished.

They took me to a large elegant salon,

hung with huge portraits
of Hitler, Goebbels, Goering.

I looked at the
pictures, very relaxed...

had my polite questions answered
like a society lady.

Sometimes I heard screaming.

They searched me
and seized some letters.

When they came across
one marked "Didier"...

things got rough.

"Didier" was Captain Chambonnet,
commanding the whole region.

The Secret Army.

[Int.] They said "You're Didier."

They didn't know whether
or not Didier was a man.

He was shot on Place
Bellecourt, later, one of 5 hostages.

One day they took him out of
Montluc Prison and shot him.

I spent the night in the cellar.

In the morning they took me away.

I ended up in a very strange room.

With things you don't see every day...

Dangling chains, weird
harnesses, spiked manacles.

I was free to examine everything.

The manacles had spikes on the inside.

Soon Barbie arrived...

manacled me at once... kept tightening.

Afterwards they put me in a harness.

I was hoisted off the ground.

I don't know how, but it choked me.

I was questioned 19 days...
9 in the torture chamber.

They gave me a hand when I
was reluctant to strip completely.

Then I was given the ice-bath.

My feet were tied to a
board that had a chain.

They tied my hands behind
my back and set to work.

Big Max scooped water
from the tub with a biscuit tin.

The Turk held my nose,
choked me with water.

I thought my lungs would burst
but we're tougher than we think.

Then came the questions.

After a while, I wouldn't respond.

Not even to say "No, no, no!"

When Barbie tugged the
chain, I went all the way under.

He'd hung up his big
watch to keep it dry.

This lasted 2 hours.

Finally, Barbie said, "Since
you refuse to talk, Lise,"

By then, we were on familiar terms...

"We'll get your husband and your son,"

"and then you'll talk."

I saw them brought in, chained together.

We'd agreed that if one of
was taken, they'd bear the brunt.

I did, yet they kept them
both. They never returned.

[Int.] They never returned?

No, Jean-Pierre was
16. Barbie tortured him.

And they put me in an empty cell

A German soldier had
orders to take care of me.

He heated stones... made
coffee. I was shivering.

He said I had a violent nervous attack.

A doctor was called
in. But that's all a blank.

When I came to, the soldier said,

"Ma'am, why wage war for the
sake of commies and capitalists?"

"It's not worth it. Just talk!"

- A nice boy?
- Yes, he was very nice.

During nights in the cell,
he'd bring me hot coffee.

But he hated Jews. He
beat up Jewish prisoners.

[Int.] A nice anti-Semitic boy?

Yes. Then there was Barbie's violence.

He made the rounds of the cellar.

Some, unable to get onto chairs,

lay on the floor on their stomachs.

He's raise their head with his boot-tip.

If he thought he'd spotted a Jew...

he'd bring his boot down on his face.

Was Barbie anti-Semitic?

Barbie? Yes.

[Barbie's former neighbor in Peru.]
I would say so, absolutely.

He joshed about it in these evenings?

Well it was his rantings
about... you know.

I mean everything for example was...

Everything bad, you
know, came from the Jews.

How did he feel about
Jews, did he talk about it?

[Barbie's control officer in Augsburg]
He was certainly not, er...

- Pro-Semite.

No... pro-Semite... no.

No, I wouldn't know... I
wouldn't call him an ANTI-Semite.

[Woman, French] I recall
my first day back in prison.

He came with me.

He made my mother look in at
the door. I'll never forgive him.

Not that he'd care.

He said, "See the state
your daughter's in?"

"You're responsible.

"Say where the other 3 are,

and I'll send all 3 to children's camp."

Few children were in the prison.

He shifted all the blame on
Mum. They'd taken Dad away.

Mum and I were left in the same cell.

I remember straw on the floor.

And... what do you call
it?...A basement window.

Like any child, I was curious
about the boots marching by.

Neither of us wanted to sleep.

The sky was full of stars.

I came to an elegant salon.
I sat in a cozy armchair.

There was a single rose in a big vase,

which was the style then.

A pianist was playing Chopin waltzes.

It was there I opened my eyes.

Kneeling, Barbie offered me a
cordial. I never took their drinks.

He said, "You're very brave."

"But, let me warn you,"

"I've known brave men
and women like you"

"After a while, they all talked."

[French police officer,
retired] He'd give me

his "Heil Hitler' and
I'd just say "Good day"

My job was information.
Making enquiries at the Gestapo.

The French police,
through the prefect...

put me in charge of a liaison service.

I wasn't the first.

Another Alsatian, with seniority,

had created a Franco-German
police department

My father was arrested
at the Philatelic Exchange.

On January 30, 1944.

The Germans raided the
Place Bellecour in Lyon.

Everyone at the Philatelic
Exchange was arrested.

They said "Jews on one side."

Father, always the first to volunteer...

thought his medals from
WWI would protect him.

And lined up right away with the Jews.

He had time to tell a gentile
he knew, "Alert my wife at once."

He gave him our address, to
urge her to flee by any means.

Someone would come to
report a father's arrest to us,

trying to get some news.

So the government instructed
police across the country,

to compile duplicate lists of
names, take them to the Gestapo.

And ask for further information.

I was told Mr Barbie had our list.

I had to go and see him.

He'd always say "Go and see so-and-so."

Of course they didn't give us
all the details.

The charges were suspected
Resistance member,

black-marketeer, Jew.

My father's case was unusual...

He was tortured by Barbie...

probably as partisan, but
he was arrested as a Jew,

and put in the Jewish wing.

He was very stern.

You could tell by the way he gave orders

to a non-com or department head.

[Newsreel, French]
Paris welcomes Mr Heydrich.

SS security chief, and the
Reich's Protector in Prague.

On behalf of Mr Himmler,
head of German police,

he'll appoint General Oberg

head of police in occupied territories.

The International Police
Commission is headed by Mr Heydrich.

France is a permanent member.

- Barbie arrived a Lieutenant...
- [Int.] And left a Captain.

[Newsreel]
During the General's stay

he met with Mr Bousquet,
police commissioner.

And Mr Hilaire, the
administrator-general.

Mr Heydrich also spoke
with Mr Darguier de Pellepoix

recently named
commissioner for Jewish affairs.

And with Mr de Brinon.

[Man, French] We never heard
screams in the �cole de Sant�

but on Blvd des Belges,

the building hadn't been sound-proofed.

These screams...

Screams through double doors like mine.

But we pretended not to notice.

As you know, Barbie
tortured my father to death.

They hung him by his
feet, tore off his skin,

dunked him in boiling water,
in ammonia, the ice-bath too.

He had third degree
burns all over his body.

He could neither sit, nor lie down.

No one treated him.

He died suddenly, the third day...

probably, like all severe
burn victims, of suffocation.

Towards the end, I went
every day to the Gestapo,

and tried to save people.

Andr� Frossard said he died so bravely

that they all stood up
and sang the Marseillaise.

Here's a list of
people I interceded for.

For instance, there's...

I aided cabinet-member,
ex-minister Rossard's son,

arrested for... using army equipment.

- You helped him.
- That's right.

- He was released.
- The minister's son?

Also the boss of the Bel Cheese company.

I had 6 guys at Montluc who
had been arrested by the Germans.

People came to plead for them.

One was a priest.

Another the director
of a local hospital.

[Int.] Anything else?

Out of the six, there was the
head of the Lyon police lab.

[Int.]
Ah, that's important.

Perhaps there are times
in life, not just wartime...

when it's better to be rich and
famous than not rich, and not famous.

Barbie was the last to head
the Gestapo at the end of the war.

[Resistance poet]
Lyon society is very closed.
Parisians were seldom invited.

People kept to themselves.

Some were pro-Vichy, some weren't.

The main problem was survival.

[Int.] Mrs Hemmerle, at your own
expense, you published your book.

Mud that doesn't stain.

It means my name was splattered,
but unsullied.

Being innocent, unstained.

[Int.]
You were sentenced.

Can you tell us
what the sentence was?

10 years hard labor,

which was reduced to 3 in prison.

That's quite a difference!

[Int.]
And as for "national indignity"?

They revoked that charge,
later in a civil court.

Maybe they took a closer look
at my case.

[Int.]
Or maybe times had changed.

It wasn't the same state attorney

who you called a communist
in your book.

Ah, no!

[Int.]
What happened to the one you said...

He ran into some trouble.
I don't know what became of him.

He disappeared?

If anyone gives me trouble,
I bring them bad luck.

Trouble comes to those who've harmed me.

[Int.]
They've all had problems?

Even in everyday life, if someone
harmed me I bring them bad luck.

- Do you?
- I guess so. They've all...

[Int.]
So it's better not to harm you?

It's better not to.
Especially at my age.

[Int.] Your book says you were
accused of exploiting Jewish families.

Was it by renting your house?

Yes, probably.

[Int.]
Was the rent reasonable, or high?

Perfectly reasonable.

I didn't know Commander Vaubin.
His wife signed the lease.

[Int.] I'm talking about Jewish families.
How many were there?

Oh... several.

Really just one... and
they took in others.

[Int.]
They rented your house?

- They were the tenants.
- Of your house?

I didn't make a cent off them.

The Germans should have arrested me.

Instead, the French did.

- You were a freedom fighter?
- Yes

It's a wonder nothing
ever happened to me.

[Int.] You mean you
were in the underground...

getting data from the
Gestapo to pass on?

- Is that what you mean?
- That wasn't it.

- If that's so, say so.
- It wasn't spying.

I did work for the Resistance

I forged passports in my police days.

I have many testimonials,
too numerous to show.

A lodger in my country home

asked me to get fake IDs for Jews.

She was with a Jew.
There were many of them!

That's how I got started
making fake ID papers...

for Jews, for partisans.

"We're deeply indebted to
your colleague Arman Zuchner"

"for pleading our case
with such dedication."

"Please express our gratitude to him."

[Int.] But you were
sentenced in part for...

Conspiring with an
enemy agent, that's all.

They couldn't even prove it.

[Int.]
That enemy agent was Max Payot.

[former French partisan
fighter] The famous

"Handsome Max"
was shot after the war.

The French arrested me first.

The militia captured and beat me.

I wouldn't talk, so they took me
to the Gestapo.

They kicked me in the head, in the ribs.

But I didn't flinch.
I wouldn't talk.

He stuck his gun in my gut, said,
"I'll kill you." That was Max Payot.

Max Payot was killed
before he could be tried.

I heard he was sentenced to death.

Our unit had to send a
volunteer to have him shot.

He was murdered in
his cell before his trial.

My comrade Anton Palomares

volunteered for the firing squad.

Payot was shot, I believe,
in the prison yard of Montluc.

The day after liberation

there was nobody
in charge of Lyon.

Just the Resistance, you see...

[Int.] No, I don't see. What do
you mean, "Just the Resistance."

They hunted people who had worked
with the Germans.

[Int.]
Like you.

Yes, they held me for 2 hours.

The laboratory director came
over at once. I'd got word to him.

- In 2 hours it was over.
- Yes, all over.

[Int.] Payot was accused of
taking part in the massacre...

At St Genis-Laval.

[Int.] One of the atrocities
that Barbie is blamed for.

That's right.

[Int.] He was accused of being in the
militia, of obeying Barbie's order to...

He visited me often to
ask for papers, to talk.

If he was an enemy agent,
then he would have arrested me.

[Int.] But you had some
stormy times with Payot.

He wore a Free France armband

on September 3, 1944, when he
came to your house to arrest you.

I wasn't charged with
working with the enemy then.

[Int.] Maybe he wasn't
so innocent after all.

He kept hiding behind
different uniforms.

What was I charged with then?
Not working with the enemy?

Payot himself made the arrest!

Later, in prison,

I was shocked to see how
the women had been tortured.

One, with broomsticks up the
anus, was forced to walk like that.

Others were injured,

bleeding profusely, their heads shaved.

After the war, you sat
in a committee

responsible for
purging, or at least for...

Yes, I was on a tribunal, but
no capital of fences came up.

If I'd had any cases of people
informing on partisans or Jews,

I wouldn't have acted with the same...

- But my cases were...
- The same what?

Tolerance... leniency.

Contempt...

There was a conscious effort to downplay

the heinous crimes of the occupation.

Betrayals, denunciations,

were later compared to the few summary
executions just after the liberation.

Horrible things!
I wasn't proud to be French.

I'd had my fill of it!

I'm far from condoning Barbie,

but what the French did
to the French, was terrible.

At least Barbie did it
to his enemy.

I remember the revelation of
seeing Resnais' film, Night and Fog.

Things I'd never suspected.
Nor did most people.

I had no idea the
slaughter had been so vast...

and so systematic.

It's almost impossible
to imagine, even now.

[Int.] You've written "I won't deny
the horror of German camps..."

"That I once saw depicted
in a propaganda film."

You saw a propaganda film about camps?

Concentration camps?

Do you remember the
name of this propaganda film?

- Was it "Night and Fog"?
- I don't recall.

[Choral singing]

[Int.]
Why do you say "propaganda"?

You think the stories are a bit
exaggerated about those camps?

Well, in fact...

I was told a mass grave
had been found in Bron,

full of people shot by Barbie,
or on orders from Barbie.

I invited some Swiss journalists

to watch while the bodies were
exhumed by the Red Cross, see?

[Int.]
And you?

I was there smoking a cigarette
to cover the stench of death.

Besides, when a war's
declared, all sorts of things go on.

Why not go back to the
burning of Joan of Arc?

I'm amazed, that 40 or
so years after the fact,

we're still harping on
this Barbie business.

Lyon liberated.

[Int. German]
Do you know who lived in this house?

- The white one?
- That's the one.

[Woman]
Where the Brothers Grimm lived.

[Int.]
Jacob Grimm, the fairy-tale writer.

But someone else lived here, 1945-46.
Klaus Barbie.

- Know who he is?
- [Man] Afraid not.

I heard he lived here once.

But I didn't know that was the house.

For Marburg, this is...

Nazism got big here, you could say,

within the student movement.

My family didn't care for their ideas.

We were aware of some
things, but his living here...

The name doesn't ring a
bell, or his awful activity.

[former counter-intelligence
officer] He'd been arrested

in Marburg, which is part
of the Bad Manheim region

He'd been arrested
there, and he escaped.

[U.S. Secret Service,
retired] Barbie's the only one

who escapes, out of Marburg,
out of a bathroom window...

It was ridiculous... allegedly...

I ordered him to be arrested, because
he was a wanted person on our list.

He was in contact with
the Americans before?

Of course... he must have
been with them before...

Why should he be the
only German officer who

slipped through that
one great paper-chase.

U.S. counterintelligence, retired.
Towards the end of February

1947 there was a big search
operation all over Germany

which was called, the code name
was "Operation Selection Board".

To arrest Nazi underground
and SS underground

and those who were very active
against our occupation policies

and against the
democratisation of Germany

[CIC officer retired]
And I thought at the

time, that the whole
operation was a fiasco.

That the real
"Underground" that they were

terribly concerned
about, didn't exist.

And the whole
operation was run in the

manner that Max
Sennet would like to film.

Max Sennet comedy... Keystone Cops.

That's a reference to what was
called Operation Paper Chase.

Which was a major Gestapo-like spoof!

Klaus Barbie was target
No. 3. of the whole operation.

I was involved in that operation, and so
3 months later he was hired by the CIC.

["We are all German
Jews!"] Barbie's career

exemplifies the career
of West Germany.

Because... well... after
the war, the problem was...

East-West.

And through this, the Americans, and
the English and the French could use

all the knowledge... of the Nazis, in
the Cold War against the Russians.

It worked!...And Barbie worked... you
know... He didn't fool the Americans...

He was... say OK... Now it was finished
against the English and the Americans...

The main enemy..."I am a
specialist of police methods"...

The main enemy is the
communists..."And I have to!"

Please teacher, teach me something
Nice teacher, teach me something

I'm as awkward as a camel
That's not the worst

My two feet haven't met yet
But I'll be teacher's pet yet

Cause I'm gonna learn
To dance or burst

I'll get that pin yet!

Nothing is impossible I have found
For when my chin is on the ground

I pick myself up, dust myself off
Start all over again!

The American president in Bergen-Belsen

Don't lose my confidence if I slip
I'm grateful for a pleasant trip

I pick myself up, dust myself off
And start all over again!

[President of The
Academy of Arts] [German]

My generation grant
me at least this much...

has learned a thing I didn't know.

I grew up in the Nazi period
and in 1945 was defeated,

only partially liberated
from fear of the top sergeant.

I still had to learn

to work with freedom as the
basis for human existence.

Ladies and Gentleman

thanks to a slight but
sufficient shrapnel wound,

I spent the day of Germany's
unconditional surrender

in a hospital.

Yes, by the end of
the war, doubts arose,

but no Resistance to speak of.

Since I was 15, I knew
that near my home town

the Stutthof concentration camp

was located in a
picturesque area near the sea.

It is all too tempting to count
yourself amongst the liberated,

hiding the painful knowledge

that a majority of the German people

did their utmost to prevent liberation.

I took the train to Wittlich...
a woman sat beside me.

This was after the war.

I was just out of POW camp,
and didn't recognize her.

She spoke suddenly.
"Johann, don't you remember me?"

I said no.
"It's me, Mrs Barbie."

Well I really apologized.

And I said, "Mrs Barbie, where's Sonny?"

"Poor Sonny's in jail, banned from
Germany" she said. "He was in the SS."

That's all we knew.

[former SS officer]
[Int.] What did you say

on the phone, when
you agreed to see us?

As I recall, I said...

When I met Barbie in 1945, I
thought he was a fantastic guy.

In Germany, it's easier
to find 200,000 people,

fighting against the
destruction of 6 million trees,

than 200,000 people fighting against
the destruction of 6 million Jews.

[German] It's high time
we finish this business.

[Int.] Finish how?

Well, be done with it, once and for all,

this stuff that's 40 years back.

I was a born fighter. I'll
show you. High decorations.

I got a citation from the German army...

I'm an Iron-Cross
Knight of the Waffen SS...

Cited in the Army honor roll for merit.

- "In the name of Hitler"...
- Stop there.

I'd like to show...

[Int.] And do you still
have the SS tattoo?

- No I don't.
- They come off?

Yes, well... I don't
know how to put this...

Anyway, mine looked like...
a bullet passed through here.

That's all I'll say.

- You volunteered.
- Yes, I did.

Do you still stand by those ideals?

- Mr Olsen...
- Ophuls.

Mr Ophuls... I have
reason to be proud...

for the incomparable
comradeship and the consideration.

I'll say this to all watching.

In my view, the West owes
a debt to a few SS units...

I'll name them in a
moment... that in 1943-44...

the Russians weren't already
standing at the English Channel.

As a former SS company
commander, I should know.

The units were Hitler
Guard, Death's Head,

Vikings, and mine, Das Reich.

- You were in the Reich Division?
- Yes sir!

The one blamed for Oradour?

Afraid so. I'm still not
sure what happened.

[Int.]
You weren't at the massacre were you?

I was in France, twice, on leave.

If I had been there,
I wouldn't conceal it.

If such a thing really did happen,

I can only suppose there
was a reason, a good reason.

For example, because of some treachery,

like my men being shot at

by unidentified partisans,
something like that.

[Int.] Later, people here
in town knew about you,

and protected you from the allies...

Well, yes.

Yes, I'm grateful.

Anyway, I met Klaus Barbie
in 1945, through a buddy.

I was soon deeply impressed,
and thought he was a great guy.

It may sound far-fetched, but
my dogs were crazy about him.

And I thought

an animal could
clearly tell the difference

between good and evil.

- Dogs?
- Yes, dogs... as an example.

- What kind?
- Dachshunds.

[Int.] Was it ever
raised that men like

Barbie took part in
the "Final Solution"?

Did he comment on it?

Well he... we never...

Maybe he wanted a pact of
silence about some things.

Anyway, no one brought up such matters.

[Int.] Did he say where
he'd been hiding?

Yes, but I'd rather...
I can name the cities.

Sometimes, he said
Marburg, sometimes Kassel.

I'll tell you that, but no address.

I know this house belonged to
an SA man I knew... Schmidt.

Maybe he hid here first
because they put pressure on him.

I even slept there once.
Great people, if you ask me.

Did US intelligence
services cover up for him?

I can only assure you that
he would have told me so.

But if it were true, and I
knew it, I wouldn't tell you.

He once asked if I would
go with him to South America.

I said only if I could take
my wife and mother-in-law.

And the best horse in the stable.

- The best horse?!
- Yes, well...

[Int.]
So you'd have gone to South America?

With a clean conscience, mind you.

[Int.] How long did you know him?

From about '45 to carnival time '47.

[Int.] Dr Knittell, you represent
the Ministry of Justice...

and will read a statement
about Barbie to us.

On June 22, 1971, the
federal courts of Munich

dropped proceedings against K. Barbie

that had been initiated in 1963.

Barbie's whereabouts were unknown.

As Gestapo chief of Lyon,
he was accused of collusion

in deporting the local Jewish
population to Auschwitz.

Prosecutors felt proof was lacking.

Other colleagues claimed
to have no knowledge

of why local Jews were sent
to the Drancy Transit Camp.

Had Barbie himself made this claim

it could not have been disproved.

State prosecutors had clearly
shown the annihilation of Jews

was a state secret,
known only to top officials.

Nazi command clearly sought to limit
this information to a small circle.

[attorney at law, French]
Rabl was a young prosecutor.

Also, his father was Jewish,

and his decision struck us as dangerous,

since he was so young,

and backed up by other
German magistrates.

[Int.]
And by Bavarian politicians?

Well, it was in Bavaria.

[German] In conclusion, the lack
of evidence made it impossible

to establish that Barbie
had subjective knowledge

of the impending annihilation

of the Jews he arrested and deported.

Even French military court
documents gave no clear evidence

of other killings.

[Int.] - Is that it?
- Yes, it is

One more question.
Judges can't talk, right?

Dr Rabl has no comment?

No, it's our opinion that decisions...

- Opinion or law?
- Not laws, but guidelines.

That's different.
There are guidelines.

Are you recording?

Sorry, I thought...

I'm just asking if there's
a law or not, that Rabl

No. Sorry.
We only agreed... So sorry.

This is February something-or-other 1986

and I represent Memory Pictures

and I'm about to make a statement.

This is a house where Barbie was
recruited, by the Americans, by the CIC.

After the war.

In 1947, which is, as so many
people keep reminding us...

39, almost 40 years ago.

Think of that, almost 40 years ago.

The Peterson Bureau
was a list of some 50 names

of people recruited by
Barbie and his friend Merck,

who worked for American intelligence.

There are notes on all of these
people in the American files.

[German] 40 years have passed.
Back then I acted out of need.

And now I have out
friend Dieter Reifharth here,

who for the past weeks has
been phoning these people

because we found their
addresses through various means...

consulting old telephone
books, they'd moved, they'd died...

[German] They promised
to help me financially...

and with food and so forth.

Let's say you're in a Munich suburb,
and you phone a woman in town.

So, what's the procedure?

I phone and say, "Hello, ma'am",

"I'm Mr Reifharth from Memory Pictures."

- "Mammary vot?"
- Memory Pictures.

An American film company.

We're making a documentary.

How interesting! A documentary!

How nice. What's it about?

- Post-war Germany...
- Interesting!

...And the relationships
of victors and vanquished.

[Ophuls]
- Where did you get my name?

I've nothing to do with those
people... I'm quite apolitical myself.

[former subagent for the CIC]
I swore I wouldn't go hungry.

Times were hard, so I
agreed to work for the CIC.

The State of Bavaria gave
me ration tickets... What a help!

That's 40 years ago.
They killed my husband.

I was with the Americans in Oberursel.
I was also questioned.

Oh, they killed your husband.

But I've absolutely nothing
to do with the subject.

What's it all about?

Now comes the point when
you spring the name Barbie.

"Barbie" they say...

"Who's that Barbie?
He's a total stranger to me.

"No, I'm really sorry"

"Never heard the name."

"Guess I've nothing to say on camera!"

Goodbye Mr Reifarth!

- You are the man responsible for hiring.
- Yes

No doubt about that.

On May 27, 1947 you addressed
a memo to the officer in charge.

And point [d.] said "Barbie impressed
this agent as an honest man"...

"both intellectually and personally."

"Absolutely without
nerves or fear, he is

firmly anti-communist
and a Nazi idealist."

"He believes he and his beliefs
were betrayed by the Nazis in power."

I wish I could rewrite that today.

So, what is a "Nazi idealist"?

You're asking me what
I wrote 40 years ago?

Obviously these are the
reasons for hiring him.

So what's the Nazi idealism all about?

Probably...

My goodness!...I have no idea.

[Wife - German accent]
Should I think out loud?

No, not necessarily.

No, because you needed someone
who was against the communists

As the Nazis were.

Yeah, that's one thing,
but... this term "idealist"...

That's like the first
thing I'd account for.

I'm not sure I can answer
that today, I really don't know.

If he ever would have known who Barbie
was, he would never have hired him.

But at that time you didn't
have much time to investigate it,

like what you have now.

Tell us more about the difference
in the attitude after the war...

immediately aftermath of the
war where we encountered Merck

and then later encountered Barbie.

What was the attitude then?

The attitude was very happy
to be over with the war, to finish.

- We'd been through for
so many years with no food.

- You people don't realise that.

- Get an end to that! Just finish it!

We were just glad that
everything was over!

How did that end to...
affect intelligence work?

Well, that's not entirely
true by the way...

Because many Germans
wanted us to continue on

to the east.

And wondering in fact why we
were sending the boys home.

Why we didn't just continue
fighting the communists.

These were people who were
generally right-wing or Nazis.

Who felt this was
probably the continuation

of what they saw as their struggle.

So you did get a sense of that?

Oh, yes, very definitely.

Merck was this way... not strongly so.

Apparently you "went native".

Well, to a certain extent, I suppose...

Living weekends with Leni...
and Merck and his fianc�e...

and other Germans were in and
out of the apartment all the time.

[German] The Americans weren't

experienced in spying
and counter-spying.

It's why Germans and
Austrians were recruited.

[Int.] Who had the experience?

- That's right.
- In the Abwehr? [Military Intelligence]

- Or even the Gestapo?
- More the Abwehr.

What happened at your wedding?

Well, no Americans came, in
fact I'm not sure I invited them...

I don't remember.

But Merck and his
fianc�e, our witnesses.

[Int. German] Mr Polke, you
asked before how we got you name...

Yes.

Your name is on a list

of people who, according
to American sources,

worked for the American CIC.

First off, maybe there's no shame
in having worked for the Americans.

So now I'd like to
know if you think that.

Yes, I do. I was recruited.

Times were hard. They helped me.

I was a homeless veteran, hungry.

I was a radio man in a dive-bomber.

You and your officers at CIC were
putting a lot of people on the payroll

that you didn't know much about...

What guarantee that your
Abwehr American department

didn't put a lot of those
names just on there,

because they were fighting with their
neighbors and could keep the money?

Trust and gullibility!

[Int. German]
When you relayed information to the CIC

how often would you go to
Memmingen or Augsburg?

Every 2 to 4 weeks.

Does the name Kurt Merck ring a bell?

I might have heard it.

I don't think it's unfamiliar.

But of course, everyone uses aliases.

Apparently there WAS a Nazi underground.

Yeah...

It was the background of
the list of the Peterson Bureau.

It may have been built
around that organization.

Verified?

No, not in any formal sense, no.

Did you ask them?

Did you ask them what
they'd done during the war?

I don't know... I may
...I probably did... yes!

I took orders and carried messages.

Nothing more.

Several times I met Barbie
downtown in Augsburg

with 4 or 5 shady characters...

Black marketeers.

He had them all on the payroll.

And when they needed new ID
cards, he'd come to me and say

"Let's go down and get
new ID cards for these guys."

Because they'd been picked up
since they didn't have the red stamp

of being de-Nazified... on
the outside of the German card.

And I would go to my clerk,
through the police department,

CIC... we could do anything we wanted...

Like get these guys get new ID cards.

[German] I have the list
we got from Washington...

and I see under "P", Karl Polke.

You had a number.

- Really?
- 1-8-4-5-2-9.

And above it, the name...

Please take a look.
Right above is the name "Klaus Barbie".

Let me jot that number down.

So what is our job?...Find out
what the Russians are doing.

And he had contact with
some of his former SS officers...

He claimed he had
informants up as far as Moscow.

Barbie said, "From Lisbon
to Moscow, I have agents."

I said, "That's a heck
of a good network..."

And... I gotta work with these people.

[German] I can tell you I had
contacts there, in a major city,

to Department H5 in East Germany.

- The Soviet Sector.
- Yes.

Counter-intelligence headquarters.

And I had...

- The Soviets?
- Yes.

Good ties.

I could tell them who was
captured, why, how long, how, etc.

- Tell whom? The Americans?
- Yes.

Who was the man in the
string of controlling officers...

...you were the one who made the

evaluation that he
was better than Merck.

- Oh yes.
- Better results.

He could get a good many sources for us.

He had a good set of
eyes and ears, if you will...

for determining where a particular
source in the Communist party,

or other target group, was
available, could be "turned" for us...

become an informant "in
place", or an agent "in place"...

whatever you want to refer to them...

and he could do a good
job of recruiting them.

[Int. German]
Barbie was top agent with Merck,

of the Peterson Bureau.

- So?
- So... you know?

No... it's news to me.

But I've read about Barbie in the press.

[Int.] Ah, the press.

Here's a picture of
Barbie from the occupation.

Do you recognize Eugene Kolb?

Kurt Merck, the whole CIC group...

Do you recognize any of them?

- That one?
- Could be.

That's Kurt Merck... Do you know him?

Alias Peterson... eh?

Ah, yes, I've got it
now... it's clear now.

The one thing you're looking
for in the intelligence game...

is the reliability of your sources.

So you're looking for
good family fathers?

There's a world of difference
between high moral standards,

high intelligence, and the
ability to manipulate people.

As you have to do in
the intelligence business.

And that he was extremely good at.

[German]
You can be blackmailed, you know.

They sent messengers... It floored me!

Even beautiful women..."to
pick something up", right?

But I got out OK, and I was
glad, because I could have...

been in hot water.

Will this be shown in Germany?

[Int.] I'm not sure...
you've given your release.

I don't want repercussions.

No repercussions.

I pulled out...

when it got too hot to handle.

I'm surprised I wasn't
blackmailed... and grateful.

But I wonder why my name
is there, right next to Barbie!

For purely bureaucratic reasons.

No doubt.

Barbie was not the type that
NEEDED to engage in torture.

Not that he was adamantly opposed to it,

that it appeared to him to be immoral...

By our impression
was he didn't need to...

because he was a damned
shrewd, skilful interrogator.

I remember one case, but I don't
remember how he got the information...

It was very important
information and it worked.

Where he brought
information to the effect

that the present chief of the
Bavarian Communist Party

had survived in the West because
he had worked for the Gestapo.

They should have sent
Barbie, it might have worked...

practically blackmailed him there.

You should have sent Barbie?

Yes, I think he'd have
been a much better recruiter.

But I was fearful of doing so...
I think I thought... perhaps...

the level was a little
bit too high and it

might have been too
much of an insult...

to send an ex-Gestapo
individual down to

make the threat...
offer... whatever it was.

Anyway, it didn't work.

I'm afraid, a week
or so later, the whole

thing was in the
Communist newspaper.

"CIC tries to blackmail KPD leader so-and-so."
I've forgotten the man's name.

And of course the
man paid the price for it.

A few weeks after that he disappeared...
another one of Stalin's victims.

Well, one thing I recall
was that he found out...

that the Russians were
mining uranium ore...

and now they were going
to have an atomic bomb.

And they did get one in '49.

That was very important for us...
and we knew the exact location.

In the town of Aue.

It's on the border of
Czechoslovakia and Saxony there...

- That was one bit of information I recall...
- You sent that off?

- That's my job.
- But you were happy to get that.

Of course... in fact I
did get a promotion!

I went from a 9 to a 10,
or something like that.

$1500 more.

Dabringhaus was not really
an agent or a controlling agent...

He never controlled anybody.

He was what we call a
"housekeeping agent".

Those were people who
took care of "safe houses"...

Took care of the
feeding... the payment...

and other support a
source might need,

That was my recollection of the files
is concerned, was his primary role.

[Int.] But... excuse me,
there is a contradiction.

Because here in the memo
of May 11, 1950, you say...

"In June 1948, when control
of the net was taken over

by special agent Erhardt Dabringhaus."

- Did I say that?
- Yes, you did.

I stand corrected,
then... my memory's off.

- No big deal.

[Int.] In '83 you were the first one...
- To identify Barbie as a former informant for CIC.

Here was a man who called
a news organization and said

"Of course Barbie used to
work for the US government."

I mean, it's a fact.

[former US attorney
for Nazi crimes] But it

doesn't... it neither
endears me or repels me...

- I'm much more interested in... what the fellow was.
- The facts.

That's what the fact was.

[Int.] Didn't you like him at all?

I don't think Dabringhaus
was very credible.

[Int.] You're not Jewish?

No I'm not Jewish... they
always ask me that too because

you're supposed to be
Jewish if you're an anti-Nazi.

But I get the feeling that in the CIC

there's a strong suspicion that
you must be secretly Jewish.

No, I'm as Kraut as they come,
and we're Lutherans from Essen

in the Ruhr valley... my father
was a long time a Krupp steel worker

There is no Jewish blood
anywhere in our family.

But I think Barbie got
the wrong idea about me.

When we penetrated the
Communist cell in Augsburg...

That's when Barbie found
out that he couldn't trust me.

Because I knew the first verse of the
Communist national anthem in German.

[Communist national anthem]

There's no American
that knows that in German.

You know... so he must have thought
"Oh my God, this guy's a Commie!"

So I gotta be careful
of him, and I think

he passed that on up
to our headquarters.

[Int.] Boy!...That must
have laid a bomb effect.

I think that's still in Ryan's
idea or in Browning's idea...

That I was left of center.

What did you think of
Dabringhaus's whistle-blowing?

Well, I guess my feeling was
that he was trying to protect himself.

I think he was trying
to blow the whistle...

so that he could at least get
credit for blowing the whistle.

They thought I was making America
look bad in reference to France...

because they now had to
admit that they hid information...

so long... and they should have
told the French, for after all...

I think we're allies... we're friends!

The United States apologised
to the French government...

as a result of the Ryan report...

and I guess on the
recommendation of the Ryan report.

You recommended that they do so.

That was a very
spectacular act... very unusual.

Unprecedented.

The idea of an apology just occurred to
me as the right and decent thing to do.

It would give some tangible
expression to the fact

that we recognized out wrongdoing.

How come the US administration
followed so easily in this?

The very time that President
Reagan visited a military cemetery

at Bitburg in Germany... put flowers on
the graves of those German soldiers...

both with the Wehrmacht
and the Waffen SS...

He didn't seem so
terribly eager at the

time to take a minute
for anti-Nazi efforts.

How could he apologize?

It must have been the
force of my brilliant argument.

All the investigators that were on
the Ryan report seem to have been...

you know..."company
officials"...working for the government.

And maybe the fact that
they had to spend some money

to get this investigative report on
Barbie and the US government out,

which must have cost
considerable money...

Maybe they thought...
"I caused all that!".

The world is shot through and
through with moral ambiguities.

I feel very ambiguous about
the moral aspects of the case.

I don't like it, I've never liked the
idea of using Barbie, particularly...

simply because we know...
there' no doubt about it...

We knew he was a Gestapo agent.

Merck told me the whole story

about several very important
resistance organizations

that they were able to eliminate.

Merck was glad that he'd
got it off his chest and told me.

"Dabringhaus, if you knew what
this guy had done in France..."

"During the war... even
Eisenhower wouldn't

be able to protect
him in Germany."

General Eisenhower, the
Supreme Allied Commander,

gave the order of non-fraternisation.

No making friends... no human
contact with the Germans,

who, by the war crimes
they have committed,

have put themselves outside
of the society of civilised nations.

[former chief of French secret service]
The Americans had no excuse

for not respecting the
agreements that we had drawn up.

[former French police
chief] After the war, almost

everybody used certain
war criminals... everybody.

The Russians, the English,
the Americans... even us.

Everyone was guilty of that,
but Barbie was particularly bad.

In this document from the end of
1944, Barbie's name appears on page 13.

It describes his height and his
personality, calling him "very brutal".

In late March, 1947, Kurt
Merck brought to me a statement

called the "Der Gegner um Ren� Hardy"...

Written by Klaus Barbie.

This was the introduction, that Merck
gave me, so that I would talk about it.

The Ren� Hardy thing.

[Int.] When you were
talking to Barbie about Hardy,

he admitted that he had harmed Hardy.

Boasted about it, if it comes to that.

Did you know at that point, that
Moulin had died under torture?

I don't think so... I doubt it.

Had you heard he was dead?

I'm not even sure of that.

You're going back 35 or 40
years... I don't remember that.

[French] In the Paris criminal
courtroom, a military tribunal

will re-try Ren� Hardy.

Chiefly the key figure of
Hardy was one of his closest...

Yes, but Hardy was brought to
trial because of Jean Moulin's death.

Surely the two things were connected...
it was connected in the papers.

Connected in the demands
for Barbie's testimony.

It was connected
perhaps in the papers...

You have to go back to the
situation in Germany in the late '40s.

You didn't get any newspapers.

The newspapers we got
were "The Stars & Stripes"...

But intelligence people aren't
supposed to read newspapers...

Yes, of course, but we were
not reading French newspapers.

We were reading the Herald-Tribune...

I don't know if it appeared in the
Herald-Tribune that he'd been...

But, anyhow...

Is it a matter of the language
in the papers that you get?

Well we got "The Stars & Stripes"!

The Resistance fighters, or something
like that, through newspaper articles...

started demanding that
he be brought to account.

That much we heard, and
that's when I had to apply...

Why did you call him
"something like that"?

You said "Resistance fighters,
or something like that"...

Something like what?

As a political scientist I like to know
"what's the politics of this outfit?"...

What kind of a political group are they?

And I have my strong
suspicions what they are.

Commies.

Yes... no doubt.

[French] Don't forget
Communists were brought

into the first French
government by de Gaulle.

The French secret
service were distraught.

They were so concerned, I
was made to leave this house.

The French were sending repeated
requests to the Americans, for Barbie.

They were misspelling his name...
they were giving incorrect addresses...

and they were getting
nowhere... and people at...

Do you think they weren't
getting anywhere on purpose?

Yes, I suspect that's the case.

[French] If the American's
allowed Barbie's hearing...

it's because my secret
services made it possible.

If they wanted to get Barbie,

it seems to me they could have done it
much more intelligently than they did.

The same way as theses
2 French officers from

the Sur�t� come to
talk to me in Augsburg.

They don't tell me "Hey if you know
where Barbie is, he's a war criminal..."

"He'd killed thousands of Frenchmen."

They don't say that, they say
"How do you like our French wine?"...

And I say "I love it... c'est
formidable!"...You know...

2 - 4 minutes later, they say "Oh,
sorry you don't know where he is..."

"Thank you very much", and
they leave... like nice gentlemen.

They weren't pushing me... though
I think... and I told my wife this...

If they had come to me at that
time, and said "Listen Dabringhaus,"

"You're working
with a real no.1 war

criminal, and I know
how many guys he killed."

I think I would've gotten up and said

"To hell with my CIC... let's go
get him and you can have him."

I would have done
it. I probably would've.

Because I'd already learned
by that time, from Kurt Merck...

that he'd once strung up Frenchmen
by their thumbs, until they were dead.

Repeatedly, we made Barbie available.

And when the entire
trial of Ren� Hardy...

when that trial
came up in Paris...

They came to us and said they
wanted to use Barbie as a witness.

And we said fine, we'll
let you take him to Paris.

We didn't know that he was
condemned to death in absentia.

Dadi came back and said "I can't
guarantee that he will be returned."

And we said "Forget the
whole thing, we won't do it."

The real major reason why...
We did not want to give Barbie up.

Simply, he had recruited too
many people. He knew names.

And we... rightly or wrongly...
suspected very strongly at the time...

that the French intelligence services
had been thoroughly penetrated...

by Communist agents.

And we were very very fearful
that the moment they got Barbie...

their first interrogation task would not
be his work against the Resistance...

his work in Lyon... but
rather his work for us,

and what are the names of the
people who we have recruited.

And that we could not afford to do.

Some time in the summer of
1949, before I left Germany...

we got hold of a press clipping
from a French newspaper...

alleging some horrible
atrocities to Barbie.

And we seized on this as the ammunition
we needed to get rid of Barbie, finally.

[Int.] After the French
newspaper reports began,

there was an order that
came from CIC Central,

to you... that said
to interrogate Barbie

about the allegations
that he was a torturer.

- What did you do?

Interrogated him...
not directly in terms of

he sits there and I
sit across the desk...

you know... interrogate him
like any prisoner suspect etc...

I did once or twice, or maybe more...

We'd go down to a bierst�be and
have some good bockwurst and beer...

or something of that sort...

Certainly that was
the form for example

of the so-called
"discrete interrogation".

A kind of technique, you
know over a few beers.

- During the bratwurst... that's why the
interrogation would be most effective?

Of course... that kind of thing.

But I never got the impression
that he was really guilty of atrocities.

What does the phrase "drafting Barbie
administratively as an informant" mean?

Well the idea was that he would
be terminated as an informant, but...

we didn't want him to
be cut off completely.

Isn't that rank hypocrisy
to compromise in that way?

Well, I thought it was wrong, but I...

Have any sleepless nights?

No... I didn't lose
any sleep over this...

I felt it was wrong, and I
regretted having to do it, but...

It was just part of the job.

This type of subterfuge in
your work... was this routine?

No. It was unusual.

Because the case of Barbie was unusual.

Not only Barbie... there
were many in that case.

[Int.] Tip of the iceberg?

Many. Barbie is the tip of the iceberg.

I ran into so many
illegally-living German Nazis,

whom we shielded while
they were still in Germany.

[Int.] If they were doing it
in Memming and Augsburg...

what makes you suppose they
weren't doing it in Munich or Frankfurt?

I think they were doing it
in Munich and Frankfurt.

I don't think Barbie was exceptional.

I am in not in any sense trying
to minimise the responsibility

of the United States government.

I thought I made that
quite clear in my report.

But at the same time,
one has to recognize

that the US High
Commissioner for Germany

is not aware of the identities,
let alone the day-to-day actions

of every single spy that the US employs.

Any more than the President today
knows every spy that the CIA uses.

[Int.] The name of Barbie was
hitting the headlines in Paris...

And in the exchanges between Washington,

the State Department,
and ICAC at the time,

you would guess that even in the social
evenings with Andr� Fran�ois Fran�ais,

you would suppose the name Barbie
would come up in ordinary conversation.

It might have come up in ordinary
conversation, and ICAC under Mr McCoy,

specifically queried
the army intelligence

as to what it knew
about Klaus Barbie.

The Director of Intelligence
for the Army said, untruthfully

Barbie used to work for us, he doesn't
any more... we don't know where he is...

If we find him, we'll let you know.

The highest I had to
go in my own region,

was to go to the
Commander once in a while...

Who not only didn't give a damn,
he didn't know anything about us...

This was Major Williams...
who couldn't have

cared less, except
his main credo was...

"Do what you have to do,
but keep me out of trouble!"

That is an instruction, in a sense.

Do you think the American government was
justified in this rather unusual step

[former director of intelligence,
HICOG] of apologising to the

French government after the
publication of the Ryan report.

Yes certainly. It was an arm of American
government which consciously deceived...

the rest of us.

[int.] "The rest of us"?

The State Department was being
requested by the French government...

to give information about Barbie.

Sent a cable to McCoy... Was Barbie
in Germany?...McCoy sent it to me...

and I asked the army
and the counter-intelligence

people what they knew about him.

Because they were the
ones that would know.

I had no basis for
finding out myself, really.

You seem almost militant about
the man called Benjamin Shute.

Who was of course, the
civilian chief of intelligence.

Who did conduct an investigation
when the charges came up.

We've talked to Shute and...

all he says is he doesn't remember.

I don't remember doing that... ever...

and I don't remember
noticing anybody I employed.

What am I to Benjamin
Shute... what is he to me?

I don't know exactly.

Shute was the Director of Intelligence,

he was not a name that I have
come across before or since...

He was one of the actors in the drama.

He was the cut-off
point in the hierarchy.

What did you do with
the knowledge that

they had just cut off
relations with Barbie?

I don't remember... I really don't.

Would it seem reasonable
for civilian intelligence to say

What, you've been employing
this man the last 3 years...

Where does he live?...where
does he hang out?...who's his sister?

Where would he go
if he is to "disappear"?

Sure.

They didn't... or
there's no indication...

Well, if that is not an example of
"controlled ignorance" then what is?

It may well be also a question of controlled
ignorance... I'm not denying that.

But controlled ignorance
is still ignorance.

I didn't really didn't
cross-examine them...

Cross-examining wouldn't
have done any good anyway.

You mean they would
have kept lying to you?

Oh, sure.

I came to the conclusion
that in fact Shute was lied to.

And Shute, based on everything
he knew or could have known...

had no reason to suspect
he was being lied to.

Why would you have
both been so uninterested?

Well, of course, it doesn't
answer the question

to say we weren't reading
the French newspapers.

We were "worked"...I wasn't.

I don't know whether anybody
in McCoy's entourage was or not.

[Newsreader, German] Allied honor guards
stood by at High Commission headquarters

After talks with German politicians,

the three commissioners

declared an end to the occupation

and an end to the military regime.

It's hard to take a shot at John
McCoy in the United States these days...

you have to get a
number and stand in line.

Because he is being pilloried for
the decision to bomb Hiroshima

and the decision not to bomb
the death camps at Auschwitz.

He is being criticized
for the internment

of the American
Japanese in California

He is hardly a sacred cow.

I can assure the German people
that they start on their journey

attended by the great hope and good
will of the people of the United States,

who will follow the progress of the new
government with the greatest interest.

Why do you get stuck with Bock?

You do don't you? It's your
level that gets interviewed.

Well, because, at the top
level it's basically a question of

do we want to approve or disapprove...

What Kolb and his people
down at Augsburg are doing.

We were operating completely with
the knowledge of our headquarters.

Does history really care today whether
it was General Taylor or John McCoy

or Lieutenant Kolb, who
made the final decisions.

I think the point that has to be made
is that these were conscious decisions

made by the United States government
in the course of occupying Germany.

We want peace and prosperity
for the world as a whole.

We want to see the time come
when we can do the things in peace

that we have been able to do in
war. That's what we propose to do.

I didn't know when
Bradis went to Bolivia.

I heard about the 'Rat Line'...I only
know it as the 'Monastery Route'.

We had several names for it, you know.

We used it sometimes.

It was 'Monastery Route' because
there were several priests involved.

Draganovic, Hudal and a few
other bishops or something like that...

In Rome...

And you used it?

Not me personally, but we...

American intelligence
used it... we know that.

If John McCoy had called up the
commanding general and said...

"Get Klaus Barbie."

"Get him up and put him on
the carpet in front of my desk..."

"By next Tuesday morning...

or you're gonna be running the
stockade in Fort Wakachi, Arizona..."

Of course it would have happened!

The army was subordinate to
the civilian authority over there.

It would have happened.

In fact, though McCoy
probably didn't realise it...

He could have told the army to
have Klaus Barbie up in 20 minutes.

And it could have happened.

Sure... all of this could have happened.

But it didn't... it didn't.

Now where do we go from here?