In new unpublished recordings revealed by the American University of Stanford, Klaus Barbie says that Jean Moulin was not tortured and committed suicide.
“The moral and physical responsibility for the death of Jean Moulin is that of Klaus Barbie”. Stéphane Nivet, historian Lyon, was invited on the set of BFM Lyon, this Tuesday, May 6, to talk about the recordings of Klaus Barbie revealed by the American University of Stanford and published in the last edition of the Tribune Sunday.
In these recordings, made in 1979 when he was exiled in Bolivia, the “Boucher de Lyon” returns to the death of Jean Moulin and assures that he did not tortured the latter, but that he committed suicide.
“The guards did not pay attention”
“In prison, we had a cellar below. This is where Jean Moulin made a suicide attempt. He was certainly attached by the hands but I had not been tied by the feet. I did not think about it,” said Klaus Barbie.
“The guards did not pay attention. He was gaining momentum and entered his head in the wall and opened the skull. (…) That’s why he died, then he was transported to Frankfurt and he died during transport. They buried him, with a number, in a cemetery in Paris. But I did not know anything about it!
A false thesis
According to Stéphane Nivet, this version, which Klaus Barbie himself contradicted in other recordings, is not plausible.
-“What Barbie says cannot resist the analysis of the facts. There are many testimonies on what was going on on rue Bertelot,” says Stéphane Nivet. “The state in which Moulin found himself when he is sent to Paris, he is someone who is half dead and a single man cannot do this type of injury,” he continues.
“The moral and physical responsibility for the death of Jean Moulin is that of Klaus Barbie”, reaffirms the historian.
As for torture, which Klaus Barbie denies having exercised on Jean Moulin, this version is contradicted by the exchanges of the time.
“The superiors of Barbie will ask that (Jean Moulin) be brought back to Paris. Discovering the state in which he is, Barbie is reproached for the state in which he put mill, because he is more able to speak,” concludes Stéphane Nivet.
Four years after this new interview, Klaus Barbie is extradited in France. He was found guilty in 1987 of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison in 1991.
