The Butcher of Lyon by Brendan Murphy (1983, Hardcover)

The Butcher of Lyon
The Story of Infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie
by Brendan Murphy
Publisher:  Empire Books
Copyright 1983
Book Club Edition

The name Klaus Barbie is becoming synonymous with the evils of the Nazi era.  As a 29-year-old Gestapo lieutenant in Lyon, France, during WWII, Barbie wielded enormous power in his brutal oppression of French Resistance fighters and Jews.

Today Barbie is incarcerated in a French jail on a charge of crimes against humanity.  Despite the fact that Barbie cannot be executed because of a new French law, his trial -- the first prominent prosecution of a Nazi in almost a generation -- has rekindled the question of complicity with those who designed and executed Nazi inhumanity.

Barbie's survival for almost 40 years after the commission of his crimes was made possible only by the assistance of those who would have been his natural enemies:  The French, who collaborated with him during the war; American counterintelligence, which used him as an informant after WWII and sent him to a safe haven in South America when they feared their involvement would become known; and various South American rulers who proteted Barbie for over 30 years.

The author, a bilingual American living in Paris, has spoken to scores of victims and others connected with Barbie's career in France, Germany, the United States, and South America and re-created a modern tale of astonishing dimensions.

He describes Barbie's development into a Nazi youth right out of secondary school, his appointment to a key position as a Gestapo chief, Barbie's capture of Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance, his torture of Resistance fighters, his persecution and deportation of Jews, his turning of patriotic Frenchmen into collaborators with the Third Reich, his cleverness in finding a new life and home under American protection while avoiding French justice, his rise to a powerful position of intelligence advisor to the leaders of Bolivia.

Discovered in South America by a husband-and-wife team of Nazi hunters, Barbie continued to elude prosecution for a decade, until a sudden change in Bolivian government triggered his secret expulsion to French territory.

The author shows how Barbie manipulated society for 40 years and played on the worst instincts of man to ensure his own survival.  His pending trial in Lyon will be witnessed not only to his culpability but to the fact that evil requires willing accomplices.

Condition:  Used.  Hardcover.  Dust cover.  Pages are tanned and darkening from age.  Previous owner's "Library Of" stamp is on the front endpaper.  Dust cover shows edge wear and tear, and creases.  Dust cover flaps may be tanning from age.

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