Klaus Barbie: On the trail of a Nazi criminal

Klaus Barbie arrested and deported thousands of Jews and resistance fighters from the Lyon region during the war. After taking refuge in Germany, the "Butcher of Lyon" was hired by the American secret services during the Cold War. After several extradition requests from France, they would facilitate his exfiltration to Bolivia in 1951 via a channel close to the Vatican.

The Butcher of Lyon
Under his new identity, Klaus Altmann would quietly develop business, getting closer to the dictators in power. The determination of the Klarsfelds in the 1970s and the intervention of Robert Badinter, Minister of Justice, with President Mitterrand as soon as democracy returned to Bolivia, would lead to Barbie's arrest. He was brought back to France in 1983 to be tried after forty years on the run. His trial for crimes against humanity opened on May 11, 1987 before the Lyon Assize Court. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Barbie died four years later of cancer.

Klaus Barbie: On the Trail of a Nazi Criminal
Directed by Laurent Delahousse,
Camille Ménager and Florence Troquereau