The Devil's Agent, a new book by Peter McFarren and Fadrique Iglesias, reveals a startling inner and detailed portrait of the Nazi Klaus Barbie known as the Butcher of Lyon using previously unpublished letters he wrote from his cell in Lyon, France, documents released since the removal of the Berlin Wall confirming his work as a U.S. and West German spy and over a hundred photographs of his family, business associates and Nazi friends.
This 624-page book also details Barbie's family history, the role he played as a Gestapo officer in German-occupied France, his responsibility for the murders of more than 14,000 Jews and French Resistance fighters during the Nazi Holocaust, his flight from Europe after the war with the backing of the U.S. Government, the Vatican and the International Red Cross, and his settlement in Bolivia with his wife Regine and two children.
His nefarious past exemplifies "Collective and Personal Evil" that is also addressed in this book. The Devil's Agent goes deep into Barbie's life in Bolivia and relays information that has never been written about, as some of his closest allies and friends have just recently exposed some of his darkest secrets.
During 1942-1944, Klaus Barbie was a mid-level Nazi officer in charge of the Gestapo HQ in Lyon, France. His treatment of prisoners ranged from banal indifference to pleasure as he sadistically tortured and murdered his victims. After the war, what set him apart was the public role he played as an unscrupulous businessman and adviser to military rulers, and Western intelligence agencies, in close alliance with other escaped Nazis, while living in Bolivia. The unrepentant war criminal was the most important Nazi to continue operating as a public figure after World War II.
In Bolivia, Barbie trafficked in tanks and weapons and supported the hunt for the Argentine-Cuban guerrilla leader "Che" Guevara. He collaborated with cocaine trafficking kingpin Roberto Suárez Gómez, authoritarian right-wing military governments and a network of escaped Nazis, paramilitaries and mercenaries from Europe and South America to overthrow a Bolivian civilian government in 1980.
The Devils Agent describes co-author Peter McFarren's personal encounters with Klaus Barbie in 1981, when McFarren and his colleague Maribel Schumacher were arrested in front of the Nazi's Bolivian home after trying to interview him for a story for The New York Times.
After an extensive, decades-long search by Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, Barbie was identified, captured and extradited to France. He was one of the few escaped Nazis tried and sentenced for crimes against humanity in occupied France. His expulsion from Bolivia to France in 1983 and his unprecedented trial and conviction generated tremendous publicity and deep soul-searching for a country that had still not faced up to its mixed record of supporting the Nazi regime while also resisting its occupation.
The Devil's Agent serves not only as a reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust; it takes us inside the inhuman and merciless mindsets that were behind these crimes and continue to plague our world today.
Peter McFarren is a Bolivian-U.S. journalist, photographer, filmmaker, and social entrepreneur who has written about Klaus Barbie since 1980 and worked on several documentaries and many books about him. He currently lives in Cairo, Egypt.
Fadrique Iglesias is a Bolivian columnist and writer specializing in cultural and arts management. He currently works as a cultural management specialist for a multilateral organization in Washington, DC.
