Hôtel Terminus (1988) User Reviews

learning from the past

[mjneu59 · 9/10 · 28 November 2010]

Marcel Ophuls' mammoth four-and-one-half hour-long portrait of Gestapo commandant Klaus Barbie, the notorious Butcher of Lyon, is more than just a biography of another Nazi mass murderer. The film also provides a meticulous study of the forces which allowed him to survive for so long, from wartime anti-Semitism to post-war Communist paranoia to a prevailing what's-done-is-done attitude of retroactive amnesia. Ophuls is not so complacent, and makes no apologies for his sometimes confrontational approach to the subject. In his mind those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, and the sheer volume of verbal testimony, from enemies and friends alike, is only the director's way of ensuring we neither forgive nor forget. The scope of the film is vast, covering over forty years and spanning several continents, but the scale is intimate: one voice, one detail at a time, making it an exhaustive but hardly exhausting account of one monstrous but admittedly small cog in an evil machine, pieces of which are still well-oiled and operating even today.

Stick with it...

[matt-81 · 8/10 · 20 December 1998]

The film is very good but sags in the third hour. However, you must stay with it. Take a break, have some coffee, and come back. I saw this film a good five years ago, but the final few sentences were so moving I remember them still, word for word. It must be seen. We're talking hot tears and goosebumps.

Lengthy But Highly Intriguing

[cbleek12 · 9/10 · 28 July 2013]

I found this on Hulu, and I am obsessed with movies about WWII (the Holocaust in particular). Armed with my smartphone, I dove in. Initially, I was confused because the director/interviewer jumps into the French Revolution shortly after having some associates of Klaus Barbie describe his childhood. Then these leaders of the Revolution start talking about the betrayal of Jean Moulin. I had to hit pause and check it out on the web. After getting a bit more background, I moved on. I was disgusted when I heard back pedaling from Rene Hardy and Francoise Hemmerle. Ultimately learning that Hardy was framed, and seeing an interview with him towards the end of his life, I did start to pity him. However this Hemmerle woman would chuckle when talking about atrocities of torture then say "oh, I helped I the resistance, then proceeds to refer to the film 'Night & Fog' as "propaganda". This is where the running theme of "oh it was so long ago." This seems to be a running theme with the people who helped this butcher later on. The narrator really doesn't talk much about the Holocaust too much during the film, but focuses on the CIC (American intelligence) utilized Barbie as an informant. Woah, stop the bus! Then what really foxed me was if you Google any of these Americans, not a whisper. The person who drove me insane with his non-answers was a certain Eugene Kolb, who was Barbie's handler. He states that based on his relationship with Barbie, he doesn't believe he needed to use torture to get information out of people. I think that is similar to saying the Holocaust didn't happen. Every word out of his mouth is a contradiction or a back pedal. I knew that the US wanted nothing to do with the Jews until the very end of the war. This disgusts me as a human being. The film moves along with more people who "were just doing their jobs" (much like those who dropped Zyklon B into gas chambers) in the hunt and capture of Klaus Barbie. Turns out, that Barbie was involved in the capture of Che Guevara. The film alludes to this, but that was another topic of my own research. One person who is actually more candid than you would think is Barbie's former bodyguard. He was apprehensive at first, but through his story he tells of how he has to get people to go shopping for him as he was persona non grata in Bolivia. I think he realizes as he is speaking with Maurice that if he tells the truth, it may benefit him. It's a bit of a buildup, but watching him break is rather interesting. Well, as most know, there comes a point Barbie needs a lawyer at his trial. This lawyer is Jaques Verges, a well known defender of terrorists from Palestine and Algeria, and also a cohort of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge (this I learned more about from another film, Terror's Advocate). He did what he did more because he wanted France to acknowledge what they did to the French in Lyon and in Algeria. This is touched on, but never fully explained. The jury to me is still out on him, only because there is logic behind his intentions, even though I don't agree with him politically, or on a level of humanity. I won't ruin the end, but this four hour documentary is well worth the watch. I will say that it would be wise to get caught up on the French Resistance a little beforehand. Because I was so interested, I purchased The Sorrow and the Pity, so stay tuned for that review!

I was impressed

[davidaschoem · 10/10 · 3 March 2000]

Although this movie is quite disturbing at times, due to its subject matter, I would go as far as saying I enjoyed watching it. It has left me quite shaken up and I know I will be thinking about this film for a long time. As a lover of languages, I appreciated the jumping back and forth between French, German, and English. Overall, it is very well done. For such a serious topic, it is done with appropriate humor and pauses for reflection. It's intense, but not unbearably so. Because it made me want to learn more, to do research even, I have given Hotel Terminus a 10.

A Nazi story

[EdgarST · 10/10 · 15 February 2003]

I saw "Hôtel Terminus" as part of a cycle of films dealing with Second World War, its protagonists and its effects. This was the last in the series in chronological order, but the first I saw: it was the only one dealing with modern consequences of that war. The film is what some people call a "talking heads", referring to documentaries made primarily of interviews. I did not know the term and heard it for the first time in the late 1980's in the Havana Film School. Students used it in a derogatory way. But as we all know, some talking heads are good. This one is, and a very good one. I am supposing that most everybody knows that Klaus Barbie was a Nazi agent, a torturer, then an anti-Communist spy for the CIA, that he escaped from Europe with the help of the Catholic Church and that he finally dealt with gun traffic in South America. He was caught, sent to France and judged in Lyon. In four hours and a half, Marcel Ophüls (who is not a very nice subject on camera), not only reconstructs Barbie's life, but he covers so much ground that it's noteworthy how his editors were able to maintain one's attention in so many persons, facts, dates and abundant references in the testimonies. I have been told that the film worked as an alert for the resurgence of neo-Nazis and the so-called "ordinary fascism". Well, it should be seen every now and then, because it seems that as long as there are human beings there will be totalitarians, traitors and assassins, and as long as there is a group of nations that want to control the world, there will be new holocausts. We all know that because of all the Klaus Barbies we have seen in power. This one won the Oscar as Best Documentary.

Excellent

[cryanshadow · 10/10 · 28 January 2007]

This is a riveting film from start to finish. Marcel Ophuls very personal and wry take on the unfolding horror of Nazi Klaus Barbie's long and unimpeded criminal career exerts a powerful hold. The movie exudes a weird, creepy humor throughout, beginning with its title, the actual name of the French hotel which was the location of Barbie's headquarters in Lyons. "Hotel Terminus" is filled with unforgettably bizarre, real life characters. The voices of Barbie's torture victims and pursuers are given equal time alongside those of his collaborators and defenders. This is an important movie. It stands as one of the best documentaries of the twentieth century and of all time. The film is as much or more about French history as well as American and German. The United States ugly,collaborative role in Barbie's eluding of justice for so many years is revealed in terms like "ratline". The ratline was a transportation corridor set up by the CIA to funnel Nazi war criminals safely out of Europe to South America. This operation functioned with the help of the Vatican.It was fueled by the turn of the political tide after World War Two when fear of Communist takeover took hold over Europe and the West, and the Nazis were seen as specialists in their ability to ferret out Communists. There are numerous subtitles throughout, especially in Part one, but these do not detract from the film's unstoppable momentum. Parts of this true story seem almost unbelievable. Hannah Arendt's observation and comment on the banality of evil is again and again underscored in Ophuls extraordinary film.

Faces and places

[manuel-pestalozzi · 8 April 2003]

I have always been fascinated by history as a subject and just cannot understand why so few people show any interest in it. I have no illusions, Marcel Ophüls' long documentary about the life and times of Klaus Barbie, a brutally efficient German police chief in occupied France in World War Two, will hardly convert anyone into an avid historian. But I think it is a collective testimony that will outlive the present and could be used in history classes in a number of countries all over the world. Today and tomorrow.

The director, who throughout the movie appears as an interviewer, is an angry man. He acts accordingly and knows what he wants from the faces he encounters during the making of Hôtel Terminus. And he has an almost uncanny talent to get from the interviewed what he wants. But it feels real and I am positive that Hôtel Terminus is a frank and biased documentary. Its main aim is to convey information about facts and human nature. No one will ever be able to use it for any kind of indoctrination.

Basically, the movie is a biography of Barbie, from the beginnings in provincial Germany up to his trial in the late eighties in Lyon. Ophüls visits – apparently within a very short stretch of time - the places where Barbie lived: in Germany, France and Bolivia. He talks to people there. Some have to say something about Barbie and what he did, some have not – or do not want to. A wide range of statements and non-statements is artfully woven into a tissue that shows how concerned respectively unconcerned humanity as a whole can be about past events, however terrible they are. Shots of landscapes, short sequences of documentary footage and excerpts of local folkloric or popular tunes are cleverly inserted into that texture and give the statements additional emotional weight.

The movie is very concerned about two particular incidents. This maybe constitutes a weakness because the attention is directed away from Barbie. It probes deeply into the arrest and the disappearance of legendary French resistance leader Jean Moulin and into the abduction of the «enfants d'Isieux», Jewish children who found shelter in an isolated boarding school and were betrayed to the German forces of occupation. The point here is, that Barbie as the man held responsible for the two incidents had to count on French collaborators. There were suspicions that the French authorities were for a long time not very anxious to bring Barbie to trial as he had inside knowledge that would tarnish the official history of France during World War Two. The two «sub chapters» feel as if they were made specifically for a French audience, especially in the intricate Moulin affair it is difficult for an outsider to follow.

The most striking result of Hôtel Terminus is that it shows the brutal banality of terror in a totalitarian regime. Barbie, basically a public servant with a sadistic streak who executes orders he was given, does not really become alive as a character. Somehow he gradually vanishes further and further into the background. He does not play the chief villain in this movie but is used as an example of one of many ruthless henchmen of a tyranny. The message of Hôtel Terminus is, as I see it, that only the complicity or the indifference of the "general public" made Barbie's career and the atrocities he was capable of possible.

One of the best documentaries on WWII occupation ever made

[Aarlaan-1 · 10/10 · 7 October 2006]

Along with "The Sorrow and the Pity" (from same director), this is definitely one of the most gripping and informative documentaries you will ever get to see. Focusing of the life of the Klaus Barbie, a ruthless SS interrogator later labeled "The Butcher of Lyons", implicated in over 4000 deaths and the deportation of over 7000 Jews in occupied France, this documentary not only paints a relentless picture of the German occupation in France, but also of the 40-year manhunt of a Nazi war criminal. Employed by the American government after the war for his contacts, and later protected by several other governments eager to use his "talents", Marcel Ophuls exposes a complex web of political intrigue and deceit that spans over decades.

While some spectators seemed to get a bit lost having absolutely no prior knowledge about European war history not involving an American elite team saving the world, just knowing that France was occupied by Germans during WWII and that legendary French Resistance Leader Jean Moulin was one of Barbie's many victims should be enough to follow and understand this must-see documentary just fine!

I wish it had been a little shorter

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 6/10 · 9 January 2022]

Extremely detailed and long documentary about an infamous nazi war criminal who fled justice for decades before being tried for his crimes some 40 years after they were committed. This documentary looks at his history, his victims, those who wanted him to face justice for what he did, and looks at the idea that the US may have aided his escape.

There's some great stuff here for sure. I think it could be an extremely powerful and interesting documentary at a lengthy but not excessive 2.5 hours, but at 4.5, it really drags in the second half, and feels challenging to stick with.

Kind of feels like a heap of deleted scenes/interviews have been added in. And it's not quite like the 9-hour Holocaust documentary, Shoah, where the long runtime both enhances the film's message about the banality of evil and reflects the gargantuan tragedy that's covered.

Can cautiously recommend this if your attention span for long documentaries is strong, and if it looks really interesting to you, but it was just a bit too drawn out for me to really love.

Monumental

[JasparLamarCrabb · 10/10 · 26 December 2010]

A devastating, monumental work by Marcel Ophuls. Tracing the life of Klaus Barbie, the infamous "butcher of Lyon," Ophuls dissects the facts that led up to this Nazi's nearly forty years as a free man through interviews with citizens of Lyon, French resistance leaders, politicians, ex-CIC (CIA) operatives as well as with several of Barbie's victims. The film addresses not only Barbie's horrendous war crimes, but questions both French and American collusion during and after WWII (and the onset of the cold war). From France to Washington DC to South America, Ophuls travels the globe peeling back the mysteries of what allowed Barbie to live on for so many years after the war. It's a sad, sometimes horrifying account. Monumental, but NEVER slow. There are appearances by Lucie & Raymond Aubrac as well as famed "Nazi Hunter" Beate Klarsfeld. Ophuls also gets insight from writer Günter Grass, filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, and many, many others. In French, German, English and Spanish.

Long documentary about political malfeasance

[Big Dave-2 · 7/10 · 7 September 1998]

There are a group of movie (and TV) producers who think that subtitles are so chic!! Nothing could be farther from the truth and this movie is ruined by subtitles of people who didn't need to have their voices heard to be believed. The truths about the Second World War are having a hard enough time today being believed without the distractions that subtitling introduces.

everyone bears some responsibility

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 4 June 2022]

Marcel Ophuls's Academy Award-winning "Hôtel Terminus" is primarily a look at Nazi official Klaus Barbie, aka the Butcher of Lyon. But in focusing on Barbie's life - his plain childhood, his torturing of prisoners in France, his escape to South America, and his eventual capture - the movie addresses some points. One is the French authorities' complicity in the Nazis' deeds; much like how the police in Paris were responsible for the Vel d'Hiv roundup, the police in Lyon helped turn over Jews and resistance members to Barbie. Another is how the US helped Barbie avoid justice; his anti-communist views made him a natural ally to the US-backed juntas in Bolivia.

The point is that, much like how the Nazis' actions didn't come solely out of Hitler's evil little mind, Barbie's deeds and escape didn't happen in a vacuum. This was a carefully planned out scheme. All in all, it's a fine documentary, exactly the sort of thing that everyone should get required to see (especially since so many people have suddenly decided to defend Nazis).

Exploitation

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 7 July 2002]

What an infuriating documentary. Actually, as I write this, it has been almost exactly ten months since Al Qaida flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Center. A shocking event which killed more than two thousand innocent people and forever altered the skyline I admired so much as a kid. I wondered at the time if any entrepreneurs would have the chutzpah to somehow turn this appalling thing into a marketing gimmick and concluded that no one would. But I was wrong. Six months after the fact, ads began cropping up for medals made out of the actual steel frames of the collapsed towers. Little by little, other somber commercials appeared. Some brokerage firm now has TV commercials featuring real-life, actual SURVIVORS of the tragic WORLD TRADE CENTER catasrophe! The survivors, their pockets stuffed full of cash, face the camera and tell us of their experiences, ending with the conclusion that the best way to fight terrorism is to go right on working and to invest with Salomon Smith Barney or whomever.

I'm afraid "Hotel Terminus" generates the same feeling, a mixture of anger and disgust. The deportation, imprisonment, and murder of Jews and other minorities is far too horrifying an historical fact to serve as a vehicle for such an on-screen display of self righteousness. Ophuls did a superb job in "The Sorrow and the Pity," mainly by letting the participants and the newsreels speak for themselves about a situation filled with ambiguities. And how eloquent those sources were! Here, we get way too much of Marcel Ophuls telling us what we're supposed to be thinking and feeling, and about a situation in which good and evil were relatively clear cut.

It isn't that his self display fails to be engaging. He's a good performer. Searching for an unwilling interviewee, he wanders through the guy's garden patch, lifting cabbage leaves and asking, "Are you under here?" And he does a splendid reenactment of a telephone call to another prospective interviewee, playing both parts. Those participant who agreed to be interviewed do a pretty good job of hanging themselves, by the way. One of them comes up with something like, "Oh, yes, Barbie wasn't a bad fellow. He loved his dog." (No kidding.) It would have been fine if Ophuls had left it at that, although a viewer might understandably wonder how many snippets of conversation had been edited out, and what they consisted of. Weren't there any good guys at all? Can an entire population be so stupid and unfeeling? And Ophuls ridicules on camera those witnesses were were unwilling to speak to him about the carryings on that they clearly feel guilty about, or at least ashamed of, because, as they frequently argue, it all happened so long ago. What does Ophuls expect of them? That they should "come forward" like guests on Oprah Winfrey? If they could ablate their memories as easily as Ophuls can edit his film, they would surely do it.

One scene is especially irritating. On camera Ophuls visits a house or hotel that Barbi presumably once lived in. The proprietor emerges and begins to speak to Ophuls. The only language he knows is French. (Ophuls is equally good in French, German, and English.) As Ophuls begins to throw him some change-ups, though, the proprietor begins to back off, saying he'd rather not talk anymore. Ophuls then begins shouting accusations at the guy -- in ENGLISH. The guy is backing dumbly away, with occasional protests, while Ophuls screams things like, "The reason you don't want to talk is that you KNOW he lived in your house," and so on. Well -- this isn't an interview. This is Marcel Ophuls playing Yaweh for the rolling cameras, for the English-speaking audience.

It will be a sad day for the entrepreneurs when all of the participants and witnesses to these events have grown old and died. There will be no one left alive to humiliate and to blame. We'll need to start all over again, with only the historical record providing us with a guidebook about what not to do next.

Holocaust Movies: Part 9

[tieman64 · 16 December 2010]

Marcel Ophuls, son of esteemed film director Max Ophuls, directs "Hotel Terminus", an award winning documentary about Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie.

Beginning in childhood, and therefore innocence, and ending with Klaus becoming "the Butcher of Lyon", the film traces Klaus' life by assembling over forty years of footage and interviews culled from over 120 hours of discussion with former Nazis, American intelligence officers, South American government officials, victims of Nazi atrocities and witnesses.

A Gestapo Chief in Lyon, Klaus was responsible for torturing and murdering resistance fighters, Jewish men, woman and children, and had thousands deported to Hitler's death camps. After the war, like many German and SS officers, he was protected by and worked with the US Army, who hid him in Bolivia where he lived for 3 decades as a business man. It was only in 1987, when the Cold War was drawing to a close, and with it Klaus' usefulness to the US, that Klaus was brought to trial in a French courtroom for crimes against humanity.

Ophuls paints a truly complex portrait of evil, his film highlighting how responsibility is diffused in hierarchal structures, how Communist paranoia resulted in many Nazi officers being willingly absorbed by the amnesic Allies, and delineating the various forces which allowed Klaus to survive after the war. A stand out scene involves Ophuls (himself German born) revealing his Jewish identity to an associate of Klaus, but much of this 4 and a half hour documentary is rather low key, revoking easy sensationalism for an objective, probing tone.

Surprisingly, the film has a comedic streak, Ophuls pointing out the inconsistencies in testimonies, undermining the statements of various German officers with clever quips and using German folksongs as an ironic counterpoint to several scenes.

9/10 – Worth one viewing. Makes a good companion piece to Ophuls' "The Sorrow and the Pity". See "The Conformist".

Must-see document.

[punishmentpark · 9/10 · 9 November 2015]

Four and a half hours long, 'Hôtel Terminus' may test the viewer's endurance, but it is well worth the effort. Even though Klaus Barbie's youth and time in Lyon are given a good deal of time (I still would have preferred a little more, though) and attention, the greater part is spent on his life after WWII. I only knew a little about Klaus Barbie in connection with the French Vichy regime, but this documentary filled in countless blanks. There is a great amount of information here, and I had to 'rewind' a couple of times, but it never becomes truly chaotic.

Marcel Ophüls' particular and - understandably - fierce approach to the 'subject' is impressive to witness, and adds to the thorough investigation into this German war criminal. How the Americans, Germans and even members of the Vatican (and others) unscrupulously were able to aid to his 'revival' in South-America is downright shocking (some information I may have vaguely picked up on when I was much younger, but ), but this documentary also shows how perseverance and diligence pay off in the end - endless kudos.

In the final part there was something going on that confronted the state and people of France with their own past (after WWII) and almost thwarted the course of justice: the torture tactics (France) used in Algeria, even if they are, considering the circumstances, rather far apart. An interesting notion nonetheless, and one that can not be denied.

One could try seeing this in stages, but I'll warn you that it may be far too fascinating to stop once you've started.

9 out of 10.

A riveting documentary.

[ludivinereynaud · 10/10 · 1 June 2020]

Despite the length, I think the documentary was riveting until the end. However, most (but not all) of it was in French, my native language, so I don't know how comfortable that is to watch such a long documentary while relying on subtitles, if you don't understand French.

A fascinating documentary for those interested in WW2 / Holocaust

[david-4772 · 9/10 · 14 May 2012]

This is a fascinating insight into how senior Nazis eluded capture after the war by colluding with the intelligence services of their victors.

In particular it gives an explanation of how Klaus Barbie ('The Butcher of Lyons') operated before and after the war by his ability to manipulate people. I totally disagree with the last reviewers comments. He alludes to the director badgering old Nazis who obviously 'feel guilty'. These Gestapo chiefs put children on trains to their death and walk free, why shouldn't they be persecuted. I thought it was interesting to put faces to them anyway.

Personally I didn't think it was heavy handed and there was a great array of high profile interviewees from Resistance leaders to senior Nazi officers and families who suffered under Barbie.

Great documentary.

French self-indulgence strikes again

[MacacoBanditi · 3/10 · 21 January 2014]

This is a French documentary about the sadistic Gestapo commander in Lyon, who captured Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance, during WWII, and tortured and deported a load of other people along the way. Fascinating premise, too bad the result is as exciting as reading a phone-book. Seriously, all you get here is an uninterrupted strain of random people talking in the most monotone and grammatically convoluted way, with no context and no emotion whatsoever. Every single person interviewed, but particularly the director, M. Ophuls, are such boring self-indulgent drags. They seem to enjoy just listening to themselves instead of trying to engage the audience by conveying something other than an exaggerated love for their own mother tongue. Take for instance this question posed to Moulin's former secretary by Ophuls while the camera focuses on himself: "But isn't it incredibly arrogant to try to form an opinion to presume to judge the fragility of the behavior of people who were submitted to torture, or who have... who have, been submitted to torture or, or who have been threatened to be tortured?" Of course in French this takes almost twice the time to spell out. And then it cuts away to him (Ophuls) posing another question to another guy, always in that same overstretched, convoluted and elliptic fashion. The first 30 minutes are spent contrasting the testimonies of different people who disagree as to who was the whistle-blower for Moulin's arrest. But it's so horribly BORING. They might as well be neighbors arguing over who let the garbage bin open for stray dogs to make the sidewalk dirty, when in fact they are discussing matters of life and death. Very, very poor result for such a fascinating premise. I had high expectations for this documentary and was completely disappointed.

A long documentary for those who like long documentaries.

[turing77 · 8 January 2004]

Marcel Ophuls is an obnoxious jackass (think of a European Michael Moore), and he is overly obtrusive in this film, but it is a must-see nonetheless. We all know what Barbie did, but the role of the US government in shielding him from French authorities after the war is not so commonly known. This film leaves no stone unturned, and the bittersweet conclusion--Barbie finally was imprisoned, but only for four years, and after he had already lived free and wealthy for forty years--is sobering.

Where is the Primer?

[guyb · 3/10 · 15 January 2002]

As an affectionado of WWII movies, I was excited to discover this documentary at our local library. However, the problem I had with it was that I needed help understanding the background of this part of WWII. I know a lot about this period, but not about occupied France. For the length of this movie, you would have thought they could have spend a few minutes getting us all up to speed. What's the prerequisite for this course?

Ambitious and highly flawed

[classickai · 5/10 · 10 December 2002]

I had been considering renting this documentary from my video store for some time now, but I am glad I happened to notice it at the video section in my local Library. I only wish I hadn't bothered to watch it at all...

This documentary film is virtually incomprehensible to a viewer without specific knowledge of the background to Klaus Barbie and the situation in Lyons, France, during the war. Several rambling interviews are pieced together without much, if any, explanation of the figures being discussed.

From the other reviews I've read here and elsewhere, apparently the film becomes "better" near the end. I won't bother to find out for myself whether that is true or not.

(To those brave enough to wade through the entire documentary, I have one tip: Watch the subtitled sections at double-speed -- it'll save you time.)

Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

[jboothmillard · 5/10 · 14 January 2016]

"Klaus Barbie. Sometimes known as the Butcher of Lyons" is the quote I remember in the film Rat Race, obviously not the fashion doll Barbie that's made millions over the years haha. This is how I found out about Klaus Barbie, the focus in this French / German / English language film, that I found in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, directed by Marcel Ophüls (The Sorrow and the Pity). Narrated by Jeanne Moreau, basically this film deals with the life, career and trial of Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyons, virtually all aspects of his life are covered. This includes Barbie's childhood and school life in Germany, his early experiences in the military and progressing career, his role in the head of intelligence in Lyons, his employment before World War II by the U.S. military, his life in Bolivia, his return to Europe, and his trial and conviction for his crimes against humanity. Interviewed throughout the film are friends, enemies, associates, heroes and traitors of Barbie. I will be honest and say that I could not fully keep up with who was who in the contributions, especially when it kept changing languages and subtitle translations, but most of what was being discussed was interesting enough, so it was an alright documentary. It won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Worth watching, in my opinion!