The opening of the trial against Klaus Barbie on the lunch hour news show"Midi 2" dated May 11 1987. Press were only allowed to film the opening of the trial. Shots include the arrival of Klaus Barbie and the President of the Court (the steward of the trial, Andre Cerdini), the roll call of attorneys and present witnesses, and commentary by Midi 2's reporter on the trial itself. The press are dismissed at the end of the clip, as they aren't allowed to film anything beyond the very start of the session before jurors are selected. As the dismissal takes place, the reporter (Paul Lefevre) describes how the trial itself will be filmed by government cameras.
Reporters cover the opening of the Barbie Trial
Klaus Barbie (1913-1991), was the SS-Obersturmfuehrer and the Gestapo Chief of Lyon in German occupied France. Barbie was born in Bad Godesberg, Germany on October 25, 1913. Following a stint in the Hitler Youth, Barbie joined the SS and SD after September 26, 1935. He joined the NSDAP later, in May 1937. In Lyons, he was head of Section IV, the Gestapo, at SD headquarters. From 1942 to 1944, Barbie allegedly committed numerous war crimes which earned him the name"The Butcher of Lyons" Most notably, he was responsible for the torture of French Resistance hero Jean Moulin and the deportation of the children from the village of Izieu. A military court in Lyons sentenced him to death in absentia in 1954. Both French and German authorities sought to track Barbie down, but after the war the United States helped him escape to South America in return for information he had. He lived under the pseudonym Klaus Altmann. He was discovered living in La Paz, Bolivia in 1960, but extradition attempts to Germany and France failed. In 1983, he was expelled from Bolivia and captured in French Guiana. On July 4, 1987 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Rhone Court of Assize after a highly publicized trial. [Source: Zentner, Christian."Encyclopedia of the Third Reich" MacMillan, 1991.]