The revelations of Klaus Barbie on the demise of Jean Moulin | EUROtoday

On May 4, 2025

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IIt is “the greatest find on the III^e Reich since the end of the war, ”according to the historian Thomas Weber, questioned by La Tribune on Sunday. The American University of Stanford has just unveiled audio recordings of an interview between a German journalist and Klaus Barbie, former Gestapo chief in Lyon. During this fourteen -hour conversation that France Info was able to listen to partly, the “Boucher de Lyon” tells in particular how the resistant Jean Moulin died in 1943 in Montluc prison in Lyon.

“He was not tortured, it was not touched,” stated Klaus Barbie, then in exile in Bolivia, throughout this interview in August 1979. If he at all times argued that Jean Moulin had dedicated suicide, this time he provides the German journalist particulars on the circumstances of his demise. “In prison, we had a cellar below. This is where he [Jean Moulin] made a suicide attempt, “he said first.

Read too Back to school: Ananda Devi, her night in Montluc prison in Lyon “He was certainly attached by the hands but I had not made him tie by the feet. I didn’t think about it. The guards did not pay attention. He was gaining momentum and entered his head into the wall and opened his skull. That’s why he died. Then, he was transported to Frankfurt and died during transport, ”he continues.

A version deemed plausible

“The oldest model was that Jean Moulin would have taken benefit of his journeys to Montluc jail, leaving or returning interrogations, to throw himself the primary on the steps,” says Bénédicte Vergez-Chaignon, historian specialist in the Second World War interviewed by France Info.

However, “this model raised questions for the connoisseurs of this jail, as a result of the steps usually are not very excessive, they’re half-palkers, so it was laborious to see how materially it appears attainable”, she specifies. For the expert, the version given by the “Boucher de Lyon” in this unprecedented document is thus completely plausible.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

“I discussed at length with him, politics and everything. He said to me at the time: “You lose war, you can’t get there.” A very intelligent man, ”additionally relates, in regards to the resistance fighter, the pinnacle of the Gestapo in Lyon throughout his dialogue with the German journalist.

“I tried, of course, to“ turn it over ”, slowly, however I could not. Nothing. Not a sound, not a phrase. As lengthy as we spoke with him political issues, he was open. But as quickly as I began to ask him to speak about London, his parachute bounce, his actions, it was over. This is why I respect him, ”reveals Klaus Barbie once more within the extracts broadcast.

https://www.lepoint.fr/histoire/on-ne-l-a-pas-touche-les-revelations-de-klaus-barbie-sur-la-mort-de-jean-moulin-04-05-2025-2588809_1615.php