The Barbie Tapes is a groundbreaking documentary that reveals newly uncovered audio recordings of Klaus Barbie and Karl Wolff, two key Nazi figures, as they openly discuss their roles in the atrocities of the Third Reich. In these rare and candid tapes, Barbie and Wolff reminisce about what they call the "good old days" under Hitler, offering an unsettling and frank glimpse into the minds of men responsible for some of history's most heinous crimes.
The documentary also brings into focus the legacy of Gerd Heidemann, the journalist who obtained these tapes, and the newly available Gerd Heidemann collection at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. Now open for research, this collection offers invaluable insights into Heidemann’s role in documenting the lives of Nazi war criminals.
This film is in Dutch and German with English subtitles. The film screening will be followed by discussion with the filmmaker and scholars, Q&A, and a reception with light refreshments until 6:30 pm
For more information about the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, click here.
To explore the digitized audio recordings from the Gerd Heidemann collection, click here.
To watch the recording from a related event, click here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Foeke de Koe is an award-winning Dutch documentary filmmaker. For 15 years, he worked as an international correspondent, covering stories from the 9/11 attacks in New York and the war in Iraq to the Bataclan terror attacks in Paris. Over the years, De Koe interviewed dozens of international stakeholders, including Tariq Aziz in Baghdad, Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mikhail Gorbachev. After leaving news and current affairs, De Koe transitioned to documentary filmmaking, focusing on untold historical stories. He won a prestigious European award for his three-part series The Downing of the SS Von Imhoff, which recounts the killing of 650 German civilians by a group of Dutch sailors in 1942. For his latest project, De Koe and his crew retraced the 1979 journey of German journalist Gerd Heidemann and former SS general Karl Wolff as they traveled to La Paz, Bolivia, to meet Klaus Barbie. The travel logs, audiotapes, and photographs from Heidemann’s archives serve as the foundation for his new documentary, The Barbie Tapes.
Katharina Friedla is a research fellow and the Taube Family Curator for European Collections at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University. She studied History, East European and Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Free University in Berlin, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Basel, Switzerland. Before her appointment at Hoover Library & Archives, Friedla worked as an associate professor, translator, and scientific advisor for universities and institutions in Germany, Israel, and Poland. Friedla has published several books and dozens of articles on Holocaust, nationalism, identity politics, and forced migration in twentieth-century Europe.
Thomas Weber is Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of Aberdeen as well as a Visiting Fellow of the Hoover Institution. An expert on extremism, national and international order, and democratic breakdown and resilience, he also has taught or has held fellowships at Harvard, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago. The recipient of several publication prizes, including the Duc d’Arenberg History Prize for the best book on European History, Weber’s books include Hitler's First War, Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi, and Als die Demokratie starb.
