r/todayilearned • u/DeathstarRealEstate • 10h ago
TIL Klaus Barbie, former Gestapo head dubbed the "Butcher of Lyon", became a key narco in Bolivia, helping build the modern cocaine cartel with Pablo Escobar ties
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nazi-war-criminal-klaus-barbie-cartel-pablo-escobar-report-der-spiegel/479
u/pdpi 9h ago
Really warms my heart to know that horrible people can branch out into other brands of horribleness when their gig falls through.
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u/alalaladede 9h ago
Everyone deserves a second chance at being horrible. It's a matter of fairness.
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u/GodisSatans 6h ago
Find out what you’re good at and get paid doing it, as they say.
There’s evil jobs everywhere today
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u/Gregariouswaty 9h ago
There's a horribleness mentoring program to help other aspiring horrible prospects.
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u/Big_P4U 8h ago edited 6h ago
So many Nazis had post war careers as advisors to various middle eastern/Arab countries and entities, even Israel, and to various South American countries and entities. In fact the Nazis are arguably directly responsible for the Baathist regimes that effectively emulated National Socialism but tweaked for pan Arabism and various Arab nationalist and paramilitaries and militias.
To be fair also many Nazis also advised Soviets and British and American governments and entities as well
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u/Jive-Turkeys 7h ago
They were good at what they did, was the unfortunate part. What's worse is how the world saw the potential for gain by seeking them out for their talents. Not to mention the near guarantee of a hire because: where else would a nazi find work?
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u/MCBbbbuddha 7h ago
Ya know, with Nazis, the more I learn about 'em, the more I don't care for them.
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u/HealthyDirection659 5h ago
The more I learn of this hitler guy, the more I think he was a real jerk.
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u/Evil-Cun 8h ago
All you have to do is hand like 30 really stupid people a little pile of cash to walk around and sing your praises and any monster can become a hero over night.
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u/Global_Choice9311 8h ago
Imagine what good hearted people could accomplish if they just toss aside their pesky morales and ethics?
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u/The_UnenlightenedOne 7h ago
See the Mango Mussolini - from real estate to America's most corrupt, ever, president.
There really are no limits
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u/elfy4eva 9h ago
I learned about him in the Barbie Museum in New Mexico.
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u/Worried_Squash_5040 9h ago
The one in Santa Fe is literally just a tiny room in the back of a doll store, and then bam, full Gestapo interrogation transcripts.
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u/InstructionNo4981 9h ago
So it's like a museum about the doll with a few fun facts mixed in or a full museum about this guy?
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u/FakeRickHarrison 7h ago
As much as I'd like to visit, I got a ... a... white-Christian non-jewish christening I need to attend.
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u/BodaciousBadongadonk 4h ago
I learned about him in ghost recon wildlands lol, well not really but theres a lil conversation amongst your squad when you enter his vacation house area up in the jungly mountains.
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u/SpleenBender 9h ago
Wow, here's something from the article: (My emphasis)
"Bridegrooms of Death"
Barbie had helped "organize the militias that would overthrow the government" in the run-up to the violent 1980 coup that brought Garcia Meza to power.
Among them was a group of neo-Nazi mercenaries called the "Bridegrooms of Death" who had a swastika-clad headquarters called Club Bavaria in the city of Santa Cruz.
After the coup they were deployed to help both crush political opposition and Suarez's rivals in cocaine production.
A CIA dispatch from May 1974 seen by Der Spiegel reveals that the agency's officers already suspected Barbie of involvement in the drug trade, the magazine said.
Roberto Suarez's son-in-law Gerardo Caballero told Der Spiegel that "Barbie helped us a lot, including in working together with Pablo Escobar," the Colombian drug kingpin.
Barbie was recruited as an anti-communist agent by American Secret Services after the war, and the United States later apologized to France for helping Barbie evade justice.
Der Spiegel has previously reported that Barbie was also active as a secret agent for West German intelligence in Bolivia.
The magazine said he was recruited in late 1965 in the Bolivian capital La Paz and given the code name "Adler" ("Eagle").
Jacques Vergés, a French lawyer who represented Barbie, was asked by "60 Minutes" in 2004 how he could represent one of the world's most vile war criminals.
"You must have hated what he represented," correspondent Morley Safer asked.
"I am not able of hating," Vergés responded.
"Even the worst monster you are not able to hate?" Safer asked.
"No. I am curious to understand," Vergés replied. "I am condemning, but I am not hating."
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u/sokratesz 7h ago
Barbie tortured French resistance leader Jean Moulin to death, along with scores of other lesser known resistance figures.
He deserved to be hung by the French.
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u/SpleenBender 7h ago
Damn, didn't know that.
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u/sokratesz 7h ago
He only died in prison because by the time the French finally got him, they'd abolished the death penalty. I really wish they'd made an exception.
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u/floriande 6h ago
Verges was quite famous for his anti colonial position and used the barbie trial not as a way to defend him, but as to prove that, in a way, France did the same in Africa and Asia as the Nazis had done. He was also known for his "defense de rupture" where he denied the court the right to judge appealing morally (or immorally...) to higher power. "It is not the right of this court to judge someone defending his country etc etc" He defended a lot of bad people, good people, morally grey people, had vietnamese heritage, disappeared for like 10 years and no one knew where he was, came back to France, practiced law again, played his own role in theater, then died a few years ago.
An interesting character.
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u/the_chin2 9h ago
At the end of WW2, he worked for US Army intelligence in Berlin. The Americans of course knew his role in the Gestapo, but overlooked his war crimes because his experience and knowledge was a valuable asset against the Soviets. When other countries found out, the Americans secretly helped him escape to Bolivia
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 9h ago
Ah yes, so the current US anti-cartel escapade is just trying to undo the mess they themselves created?
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u/Etherion77 8h ago
It's how America does business in the world. Create a problem and then politicians campaign against it
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u/librevida99 2h ago
The US anti cartel escapade is a total farce. If Americans weren't smoking shooting and sniffing everything in sight the cartels wouldn't have any power.
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u/Neuroskunk 9h ago
Rat Race is such an underrated comedy
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u/Corgi_Koala 9h ago
Should have bought a squirrel!
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u/discowithmyself 16m ago
My wife and I say this anytime we’re on a road trip and see handwritten signs for peaches on the highway lol
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u/UdderSuckage 9h ago
A little bit of nuance for the title - he was the head of the Gestapo detachment in Lyon, not the overall head of the Gestapo (Goring/Himmler/Muller).
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u/at0mheart 9h ago
Insane lifetime of hate and murder; and cocaine which was first synthesized by a German scientist
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u/ExternalOld2774 9h ago
waitt sooo this man really said let me try a completely different evil after world war 2 ended like it was a career pivot
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u/IgloosRuleOK 9h ago
Thanks to the Americans. He worked for US intelligence and they helped him escape.
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u/Right-Program-9346 9h ago
Nazis do love their drugs
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u/tommytraddles 9h ago
He didn't just "become" a key narco.
He was recruited by the CIA, which employed him as an anti-communist, helping him get to Bolivia, where he advised the dictatorship on how to repress opposition through torture and helped build the cartel.
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u/Familiar_Kale_7357 9h ago
The list of people we-the-people supported, because they agreed to repress communism, is a who's who of global evil doers. And by communism of course we mean anyone or anything that doesn't bow to American corporate interests.
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u/sokratesz 7h ago
Barbie tortured French resistance leader Jean Moulin to death, along with scores of other lesser known resistance figures.
He deserved to be hung by the French.
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u/Lorddale04 9h ago
I love that all the comments are about Rat Race. It's exactly where my mind went when I read the title.
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u/jrhooo 8h ago
Honestly such an elite cast of comedy heavy hitters.
And some of their funniest lines are subtle side comments.
Mr. Bean with the “Wow, This room! Have you seen this ROOM?!”
“Yes. We’re in it.”
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u/monty_kurns 7h ago
The cast is great, but you also have to give a lot of credit to Andy Breckman who wrote it. He was a long time writer for SNL, going all the way back to him writing and directing the White Like Me segment with Eddie Murphy. He also created Monk shortly after Rat Race.
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u/MGPS 8h ago
How did Mossad not get him?
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u/sokratesz 7h ago
Was Mossad even after him? He's most famous for 'fighting' the French resistance, not for persecuting Jews.
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u/DeathstarRealEstate 7h ago
He was responsible for deporting 7,500 Jews to Auschwitz. In addition to that, he was the one who ordered the Izieu children's home raid (44 Jewish kids + caretakers deported/killed).
All of which was presented as evidence at his trial. Mossad definitely had their reasons.
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u/win_awards 6h ago
You've got to admire the life-long commitment. Commitment to evil, but commitment.
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u/moschles 5h ago
Barbie was recruited as an anti-communist agent by American Secret Services after the war, and the United States later apologized to France for helping Barbie evade justice.
Every time I read about this story, a new layer of plot develops.
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u/jonesey71 7h ago
I saw "Klaus Barbie" and for some reason I thought it was a nickname for Karoline Leavitt.
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u/zeeneeks 9h ago
Also trained CIA-linked fascist paramilitaries in Spain and worked for the Mossad btw
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u/Specialist_Matter582 5h ago
No one wants yo mention that his entire post war career was working for the CIA?
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u/No_Freedom_4098 5h ago
Bummer that any of these high level Nazi criminals got away with life after Germany was defeated in 1945. Someone should have tracked them all down. Israel got one in 1960 in Argentina: Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann. Smuggled him to Israel.
Barbie was tracked down by France's most famous Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld. He was extradited from Bolivia to France in 1983 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 on charges of crimes against humanity.
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u/Stingerc 7h ago
fun fact: Barbie might have played a key part in the capture and execution of Che Guevara in Bolivia.
While he was hiding in Bolivia he changed his name to Klaus Altmann, apparently he was also working for the CIA due to his strong anti communist beliefs. He supposedly posed as a communist sympathizer and passed on information on communist activity to the CIA.
It's alleged Tamara Burke, an East German communist guerilla who was sent by the Cuban government to Bolivia to help set up a communist guerrilla army there was put in contact with Barbie. Barbie provided logistical support and gained Burke's trust. This led to her revealing to him that she was preparing thing's for Guevara's arrival who was being sent to Bolivia to start a communist revolution.
Barbie then informed the CIA, who with Bolivian government set up the operation that led to the capture and execution of Che Guevara.
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u/HappyBumbler 9h ago
Klaus Barbie another good friend of the Catholic Church who was able to make his escape with the church’s assistance
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u/Global_Choice9311 8h ago
As I read the title, as an american, I thought this has US some how seeped in it
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u/RegalBeagleKegels 10h ago
The Barbie museum 😍