klaus barbie & che guevara
Barbie
As an officer in the German SS and head of a Gestapo branch in occupied France, he committed some of the most heinous crimes of the Second World War. Shielded from prosecution for decades, he went on to work as a US intelligence asset in Germany and South America.
Guevara
An idealistic Argentinian medical doctor, he joined the guerrilla army of Fidel Castro that took control of Cuba in 1959. In the 1960s “Che” tried to export the revolution to Africa, before meeting his doom during a disastrous military adventure in Bolivia.
The lives of Klaus Barbie and Ernesto Guevara seemingly intersected when, in 1966, a unit of the Bolivian army captured the Argentinian revolutionary.
Exiled in Bolivia, where he was evading a conviction in absentia for war crimes, Barbie served as an advisor to the US-backed Bolivian junta. In exchange for his new life in South America, Barbie readily offered the junta his particular set of skills, which he had honed during World War II: hunting down, torturing, and killing insurgent fighters.
While Barbie’s exact role in the assassination of Guevara remains unclear, one key witness claimed that Barbie communicated with US intelligence and special operations forces in Bolivia, aiding the capture of the man known to the world as “Che”.
recommended reading:
“Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program to Bring Nazi Scientists to America” by Annie Jacobsen
“The Devil's Agent: Life, Times and Crimes of Nazi Klaus Barbie” by Peter McFarren and Fadrique Iglesias
“Representing Nazism: Advocacy and Identity at the Trial of Klaus Barbie” [article] by Guyora Binder
“Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life” by Jon Lee Anderson
Attribution for music used in this episode:
Assassinations Podcast Theme Music (Intro, Outro, and Transitions) written and performed by Graeme Ronald