The Hunt For France's Traitorous War Criminal | Nazi Hunters | Timeline

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paul tuvier [Music] now a high-ranking french detective has the job of hunting him down it was in march 1988. when a magistrate of the paris court gave me the two vehicles is someone who's very determined when he decides to do something he'll do everything he can to make it happen over the years the french national police have tried and failed to bring the war criminal to justice but colonel jean-louis recorded has a hard-won reputation as a tough and skilled investigator his latest mission is top secret for roughly 40 years tuvier was hidden somewhere and nobody was able to arrest him [Music] going through the 2v8 case files rico dawn is transported back to one of the darkest periods in french history when the nazis invaded france some frenchmen heroically resisted others like paul tuvier wholeheartedly collaborated he worked with the germans during the war in fact they joined with german units to actually fight against the resistance as one of the leaders of a pro-nazi paramilitary force 2va's job was hunting down enemies of the state two va selected seven people and he said himself it was because they were jewish they were stood up against the wall and shot simple as that he's a france's worst villain [Music] even in the 1980s there are people in high places who collaborated with the nazis [Music] people who are sympathetic to paul tuvier i was concerned about potential leaks because i was fully aware about the fact that in the french administration but not only in the french administration in the french society to va other supporters [Music] when someone's been hiding for 40 years the chances of finding him are next to nothing i mentioned to the magistrate the fact that this case should be an impossible mission but when i started nothing could stop me [Music] for this mission impossible colonel ricardo teams up with seasoned investigator dominique bellange [Music] when i received the portuguese file i knew it was very sensitive our division only dealt with very sensitive cases it was a secret investigation i was fully blind i would say i have no information about his current physical appearance of course the problem the problem with searching for portuguese was that we didn't even know if he was alive faked his own death because at some point he had put a notice in the newspaper paul duvier is dead but since there was no proof of his death we continued with the investigation i started to define the 2va networks his relatives his supporters and all people mentioning in the dossier and i was interested by one fact i noticed several times the influence of the catholic church [Music] it has long been rumored that paul tuvier has been sheltered by elements within the french catholic church he clearly had received some important support if it's true it wouldn't be the first time that sympathetic clergy have aided and abetted nazi fugitives i think members of the catholic church who were pro-nazi helped people escape after the war the church had this tradition of standing outside the secular authority and assisting those people in trouble without asking any questions this part of the french story is always very controversial it does seem very fishy that everybody who helped the nazis happen to be connected to the catholic church the hunt for war criminal paul tuvier has exposed deep religious and political divisions in france that date back decades when the germans defeated france in 1940 they carved the nation in half the nazis occupied the north in the south they set up a puppet government based in the town of vichy the vichy government created their own version of the gestapo the fearsome middle east the middle east was created essentially as a paramilitary police force to fight the resistance it's an expression in its ideology of the most extreme elements in in vichy it's overtly anti-semitic and 2va made a career uh in the middle east and he really took to it and he did so well that he was promoted he became the person in charge of intelligence gathering for the release office he was an absolute ideological fanatic the jews and the resistance these were enemies of france and they were to be eliminated after the war there was a serious effort in france to purge french society of people who had collaborated with the germans collaborators like paul tuvier who was desperate to avoid the hangman's noose to became a devout catholic family and he was a devout catholic himself and when he looked around for help he thought perhaps the church could help him i assumed the catholic church could be an important element to be investigated record all discovers that 2va's last known mailing address is the leon archdiocese we wanted to obtain the authorization to examine the archives of the archbishop it was quite a delicate inquiry the magistrate and the detective drive 300 miles south to lyon they decide the magistrate will meet with the archbishop alone to gain his trust [Music] we obtain a meeting with the archbishop but i stay outside the archbishop office i was very anxious [Music] it was sensitive the archer bishop was very reluctant to authorize the police to investigate a catholic archives record on's request to see the archive is turned down flat only fueling his suspicions for me it's an habit to meet numerous people who don't want to cooperate with me is not a problem for me okay you don't want to cooperate directly okay i will use another way nine months into the investigation record law is convinced that duvier is being hidden by elements within the catholic church to remain impossible to find to stay hidden while in france the perfect place for this was a religious setting whether in monasteries or abby's that could shelter entire families or individuals police concentrate on the right-wing fundamentalist movement within the church we were focused mainly on one in the monastery due to the fact that the 2va worked for a certain time in the 70s around this monastery it is the notre dame de dome monastery in central france i decided to send belonging inside the monastery in order to find some clues of the presence of tourie or his family officer bellagie goes undercover posing as an ex-convict seeking charity we were stepping into a privileged secretive place it's another world cloistered and also protected [Music] it was a very impenetrable system and very effective it's very difficult to infiltrate these religious communities there's an element of mistrust very few lay people gain access i worked there during the day and at night had the run of the abbey bellagio searches for clues every detail we gathered motivated us but the undercover operation yields little there were several people staying at the monastery but none of them resembled touvier it was demoralizing we had to come up with another strategy so the team tries another tag they tap the phones of a number of fundamentalist religious communities we had created a network of phone taps in every place where paul duvier could have been called [Music] all while taping devices were remotely connected to the basement of my offices when you do phone tabs you hear many different voices but when you listen to the same people constantly you start to recognize voices you know how they speak what they're talking about and who's there that's the technique of phone tapping and then we got a lucky break an article appeared in a national newspaper talking about paul tuffy's relationship with elements of the church by chance an investigative reporter has also been delving into the war criminal's past like the police the reporter concludes the 2va is likely being helped by catholic fundamentalists the article gives investigators their first major break as soon as the article was published we started overhearing phone conversations certain people were worried about how the press had discovered this information right after the article came out at one point we heard a phrase we understood perfectly to be our friend paul is not going to be happy for me it was a marvelous very very nice thing and people were saying and we have to help our friend paul paul is now under surveillance we have to take care of one another one call in particular offers a strong lead on the phone is jean-pierre lefeve the head of a renegade right-wing catholic group called the knights of notre dame the knights are part of the fundamentalist movement at the other end of the line dom lefon abbott of a benedictine monastery called saint paul dewisk it seems that the whisk monastery on the the home of jean-pierre lefevre could be two lengths of the chain detectives have evidence linking war criminal paul tuvier to a monastery in northern france and a secretive far-right catholic sect i decided with the agreement of the magistrate to launch the operation i sent two different teams one in wisconsin in order to make an investigation in the monastery and the other team to the home of jean-pierre lefevre the manhunt intensifies velashe arrives at the whisk monastery armed with a search warrant it wasn't normal practice to enter religious institutions he wanted to phone his superiors and tell them what was happening he thought that would scare us the phone was smiling thinking we had no chance to find a tv we conducted a search didn't believe it police just didn't search a convent belanger grills the abbot but lafawn insists he knows nothing of the warcraft we said we would stay with him we detained him for 48 hours he realized we weren't going anywhere eventually the abbott cracks in a startling admission he reveals he is part of a conspiracy to protect paul tuvik he puts us on to the knights of notre dame [Music] now detectives pull in the leader of the catholic sect john pierre lefeve for questioning [Music] when jean-pierre lefeve was in the hand of an investigator for interrogation he started to deny puno to va but the teams already discovered that lethev and truvier share a dark past the militant religious leader once fought alongside nazi ss officers first in the basement of the house of jean-pierre the investigators discovered numerous documents related to world war ii like paul tuvier the theve was one of thousands of french who betrayed his country [Music] duvier worked closely with the notorious klaus barbie barbie was known as the butcher of lyon duvier the hangman of lyon klaus barbara was the head of the intelligence branch of the gestapo office in leo and duvier was the head of the intelligence branch of the police office in in leo and they were certainly in the same line of work but barbie was german duvier had no such excuse he was a traitor who terrorized his own countrymen eighty thousand jews died in france during the occupation about seventy six thousand of them were deported his activities as a member of the middle east um combined combine hounding jews persecuting chasing down jews fighting the resistance but also he becomes very much of a mafia-like figure vladimir zant's mother was at a lyon synagogue when tuvier and his henchmen showed up paul tuvier come with his truck and stop in front of the synagogue till seat and some men enter the synagogue he took all jewish people among them my mother and was directed to a prison in yeon then deported to auschwitz it is crimes like this that have led detectives to question the leader of the knights of notre dame about paul tuvier several hours later the investigator came in my office saying he don't want to speak he don't want to cooperate it's why i decided to join the interrogation recorder tries a ruse to get his witness to open up i made a remark saying there is other hunters who are on the track of portuguese and these people are going to work for their own interests and are very ill intentioned regarding poltuhi when i said this la fevre look at me carefully visital clears i shred the shoulders it could be he hopes lefeb will think it's safer to turn tuvi over to police than to risk nazi hunters like the clarksvilles or simon wiesenthal getting hold of him and i said if something wrong happened to tui on this family you will be responsible the ploy works the former ss officer admits the knights of notre dame have been funneling money to the war commander lefevre told me that each monster is sent 3 000 french franc roughly 600 us dollars to a women located in paris paul tubier's flight from justice has been more than 40 years in the making after the war he was convicted in absentia of treason and war crimes to va it manages to stay in hiding and to survive until the 20-year statute of limitations runs out on on the charges against him what he wanted was to be able to inherit and to move back into his father's home move in with his wife and children lead a normal life if you will while the charges against touvier had expired he was still banned from owning property in his hometown he was keen to reclaim his property and his reputation the only way he could get an inheritance when his dad died was to get a presidential pardon from president pompadou [Music] in the 1960s and 70s 2va still had friends high in the french government and clergy after a long and vigorous campaign by a sympathetic bishop in november 1971 he received his partner when president pompey do pardon him of his last remaining charges it backfired protests erupted across france famous nazi hunters sergeant pieta clarksfeld spearheaded the demonstrations the reaction of the world of the resistance was impressive many protests there was outrage that first of all that these crimes had essentially gone unpunished after all regardless of the legal questions i mean this man was a murderer unquestionably a murderer we protested immediately and we invaded even the house of 2va duvier was under siege desperate he agreed to do a television interview in disguise to defend his war record but what could i have done what faced with the germans who were the masters of the country but his victims weren't fooled they filed lawsuits against duvier as a result he was now charged with crimes against humanity charges which hold no statute of limitation duvier goes from being a man who looks like he's going to slide back into kind of a comfortable anonymity and live in his family home to a celebrity of of of the worst kind and then he's forced to go into hiding again it's these charges of crimes against humanity that have led record all and his men to pursue paul tuvier now the detectives follow the money trail to paris and the elderly secretary of a catholic charity we confirmed that there was a network set up to collect money the money was passed on to tuvye through a woman named genevieve [Music] record on pays a visit to penu to question her about the money i explained to this woman the purpose of my investigation but she answered she don't want to help i was amazed by this kind of answer [Music] finally record all wears her down she requested to phone a priest in order to obtain his agreement because she don't want to be in infringement with the divine justice it was it was amazing it was amazing the priest advised the woman please give the information to the investigator madame penue reveals that she has been sending money to paul duvier at a fundamentalist carmelite convent 200 miles south of paris forever it was an obligation according to the catholic role to help this family at this stage of the investigation things started to accelerate very quickly so the team left paris by plane at that time the police had their own planes and four of us left another group went by car with you after four decades the net is closing on paul tuvier but there is a real danger if he gets wind of the operation he will vanish it's why i decided to move very quickly french detectives are closing in on war criminal paul chuvier they have flown to his last known hiding place a convent 200 miles south of paris a sister was surprised about a huge number of police officers in front of her i said i am in charge to perform an investigation in your convent we met the mother superior and the abbot we told them why we're there we had to conduct a search the team questions the nuns while record all confronts the abbot and i started to interrogate this priest two years i don't know to there was a small chapel behind some buildings and garages i was at the entrance discussing with the priest when one of an investigator came to me saying we have found some suitcases with the name of paula in one building we found some cases labeled with a name that we recognized as one of paul duvet's aliases we opened the cases and discovered paul to year's past and the first thing we saw was the iron cross i look at the priest you don't know to va my investigator look at the documents poltu vie po 2 va and so on you don't know this guy investigators haven't found the war criminal but they have found solid proof that the fundamentalists have been sheltering him in one trunk they discover writings by nazi propagandist philippe penrio it is a direct link to one of the worst wartime atrocities committed by tuvye was the minister of propaganda under vichy and he was a hero of the middle east phoenix was an extremely effective radio commentator [Applause] he was doing quite a lot of damage to the allied cause he was uh really getting somewhere these radio broadcasts the resistance uh assassinated him on the 28th of june and throughout france medician groups and other supporters of vichy decided to exact vengeance the account that finally emerges is that he rounded up a number of jews and then he took seven of these and took them out early in the morning at the end of june 1944 lined them up against the cemetery wall and shot them and left the bodies as examples for people to see paul tuffy must have been living there but left very quickly there were current photos of him with his children his wife this was our treasure we had a photo that was important because the most recent photo we had was from 1973 we questioned the abbot he said he didn't know anything i said you have to respect the french law now where is paul portugal the mother superior takes matters into her own hands mother superior asked the abbot to swear on the cross that he didn't know anything he was trapped mother superior really shook him up she made him admit that he knew where paul tuvier was he said me to va for two weeks he's at the san jose monastery in nissan it's a critical point in the case but nice it's 500 miles south on the mediterranean coast there is no time to lose [Music] it was 11 pm due to the fact that my team was very tired and more tired than me i decided to take the wheel and to drive myself until anthony's nothing could stop my investigation french detectives drive through the night they're heading for a monastery in nice after more than a year the hunt for war criminal paul tuvier is entering the end game we had to move fast we hadn't slept since monday we've been on the go with no rest we drove at 150 116 i took one photograph with me and with this photograph now i can put an image on a guy now to va for me was very well identified colonel ricardo calls ahead to authorities in nice he asks them to surround the monastery so that no one can arrive or leave and i said it was a very important case i cannot spoke about it by phone but i have in my pocket an arrest warrant at dawn we arrived on the outskirts of nice there were already six or seven undercover police officers surrounding the monastery so we could enter from the rear and the front at the same time but we weren't sure if he was inside we had our doubts we just didn't know [Music] i knocked at the door and the priest opened the door he was surprised and i suppose a little bit terrified the panic priest tries to keep the investigators out i had placed my foot in the door and violently i opened the door in the meantime we were in the courtyard broke down a door and met up with rocco four of us were inside but there was only one central staircase and my investigators rush in the staircase i grasped the sleeve of the priest and together we climbed the staircase at the top of the stairs there were two corridors local john went left with one colleague and i went right with another my investigator a few second opening on each side the door and i followed taking the priest by the sleeve and at this stage my heart was bumping quickly and near the end of the corridor i noticed an investigator stand still in the frame of the door and in the middle of the room i saw altuv after more than four decades on the run nazi collaborator paul tuvier is cornered when i saw this guy standing in the middle of the room instantaneously i recognized i remembered war films with blue eye nazis and that shook me up a few seconds later a wife came followed by her son and her daughter crying nasty order of them shut up go back to your rooms what they did without a worm and i recognize the guy in charge of the intelligent service of the military when he spoke to the resistance to the jew i think it was the same guy he's a bad guy very bad guy as for his children it was sad they were 35 or 36 years old and they'd never had a life they had always lived in a monastery or abbey colonel called me to tell me that paul had been arrested this was a big moment for me because all of the efforts we had put in together had concluded in a positive result it was a clap of thunder fantastic for me i won i just won my investigation i don't know how in english i say sulaijay i will release after the two vrest i have a thought concerning the poor people in the concentration camps and i thought now is the justice time we had after 40 years finally arrested paul duvier there was a flood of journalists journalists two va faces six counts of crimes against humanity he read a statement to me i dispute having committed crimes against humanity i was only doing my job he had no regrets the investigation has shown a revealing light on a dark and secretive corner of the french catholic church paul tuvier's arrest also shows that anti-semitism is alive and kicking in modern france within days death to jews is scrawled on a synagogue in rural five years after duvier's capture his trial opens in versailles once home to france's kings and queens tensions run high in a nation still scarred by the war one of the big moments in the trial is that during the 80s he kept these notebooks called the green notebooks and while he at his trial denied that he had maintained the same animosities he'd had before the war when the green notebooks are read at his trial it's clear that ideologically this is a man absolutely frozen in the past it became clear that he was very much the same man who had joined the middle east and was willing to carry out crimes today was a very hateful man these secret notebooks help seal 2va's fate he is found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison it's an historic verdict duvet was the first french citizen to be tried for and found guilty of crimes against humanity in a french court and that's really quite extraordinary uh there are not many countries that have prosecuted their own citizens for crimes against humanity i was looking for my mother all my life paul tuvier was the man who arrested my mother [Music] and sent my mother to auschwitz portovier has to assume the responsibility of my life or my health the end of two years for me was a classical inquiry challenging demanding and also the right will the determination it was possible to succeed [Music] you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, cineflix, nazi hunters, nazi war criminals, paris crimes, ww2 france, occupied france, ww2 europe, paul touvier, nazi collaborators, justice after ww2, nuremberg trials, adolf eichmann, nazi war crimes

Id: yfFvB70TIrw

Length: 41min 57sec (2517 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 24 2021