The other day, on a streaming platform, I was watching Tracking Down Klaus Barbie, a documentary about the notorious Nazi war criminal. During the German occupation of France, Barbie was the head of the Gestapo in Lyon, earning the nickname, the Butcher of Lyon. He caused more than 7500 Jews to be sent to death camps, and was responsible for torture and deportation of 14000 French resistance fighters.
After the war, he was recruited by American intelligence, and this association enabled him to escape justice and migrate to Bolivia, where he worked for military dictators and associates of drug barons. It was not until 1981 that he was extradited to France, and in 1987, he was convicted of 17 counts of crimes against humanity. He died in prison in 1991.
There was not much to fault with this documentary, aside from one factual error. It incorrectly states that Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, was a defendant in the Nuremberg war crimes trials. As he was missing and presumed dead at the time, he was actually tried and convicted in absentia. He was not formally declared dead until 1973.
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