BARBIE' S CONNECTION

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370052-5
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
June 28, 2010
Sequence Number: 
52
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
July 3, 1983
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370052-5.pdf89.74 KB
Body: 
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370052-5 ARTICLE A~ c' ::. k ) _ ON PAGE______ WASHINGTON POST 3 Tuly 1983 Barbie's Connection Tom Bower is deputy editor of the British Sibert was deeply suspicious of the Broadcasting Corp.'s 'Panorama' program. Russians, a view not wholly shared by his This is the first-of three articles adapted from superiors at the time, the summer of 1945. his forthcoming book, "Barbie: Butcher of Gehlen was taken to Washington for exten- Lyon,' to be published in the United States sive interrogations at the War Department. by the Pantheon Press. The department subsequently informed Si- By Tom Bower bert by telex that Germans were not to be used to gather intelligence about the Rus- Klaus Barbie began working for the Counter sians. Intelligence Corps of the U.S. Army in the. Sibert ignored that directive. It was the spring of 1947. He remained on the Army's ? Army's vie, in Europe that such intelligence payroll as an intelligence agent-until early 1951 when he was smuggled out of Germany to Gen- was needed and that only experienced Ger- oa, Italy, with the help of CIC and the Central Intelligence Agency. From Genoa, Barbie made his way with his family to Bolivia where he prospered as a businessman. _.In February of this year he was arrested and extradited to France to stand trial for "crimes: against hu- manity." This is the story of his American connection. It is based on interviews with several of-the Americans directly involved with him, on his- torical records of CIC operations in Germany at the end of World _War 11 and on records deposited in the national archives of France. During the German occupation of France, Barbie was the Gestapo chief at Lyon where, according to French indictments, be ordered and participated in numerous atrocities-mur- ders and acts of torture-inflicted on Jews and members of the French resistance. In the face of the Allied advance in 1944, he fled to Ger- many and turned up in 1947 in Bavaria. He - was spotted there one day, standing on a railroad platform in Augsburg, by Kurt Merk who had spent the war in Dijon, France, as a member of the Abwehr, the intelligence arm of the German army. hierk already had an American con- nection. It came about in this way. Soon af- ter the German. surrender, Reinhard Gehlen -the head of Fremde Heere Ost, the sec- tion of the German General Staff which, through the Abwehr, specialized in eastern Europe-made a deal with an American in- telligence officer, Gen. Edwin Sibert, to hand over to the Americans all his invaluable records. mans could provide it. A recruitment effort was launched. Kurt Merk was signed on in April, 1946, by an officer of the 970th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment, Robert Taylor, who now lives in Syracuse, N.Y. The CIC's mission at war's end had been thoughtfully considered during the months before the D-day landings and was detailed by Allied headquarters in handbooks and numerous briefing papers. That mission was to spearhead the demilitarization and dena- zification of Germany. CIC was under orders to arrest any German who might pose a threat to the Allied occupation, arrest nearly all Nazi Party officials and any member of a paramilitary 'force which was part of the Nazi regime. Within, a year this task was largely accom- plished and a new mission for CIC rapidly evolved. The divisions in Germany between the Russians and the other Allies had hard- ened. The Cold War had begun. Former al- lies had become enemies and German ene- mies had become friends. There was now a place for Germans in the CIC's scheme of things. . Merk became a valued and trusted CIC informant in the year before he spotted Bar- bie at the railroad station. After their chance meeting, he persuaded Barbie to join him in this new career. Barbie's interview for the job took place at an office of the 970th CIC at the small Ba- varian town of Kempten, 60 miles from Munich. Barbie was hired in April, 1947, with the approval of a regional CIC officer, Dale Garvey, who now lives in Kansas. Bar- bie's first handler was a young CIC officer, Robert Taylor. Today, Taylor and Garvey claim to have no specific recollection of Bar- bie. JMvz4vvF_D. STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370052-5