Join us for a screening of Foeke de Koe’s The Barbie Tapes, a documentary retracing the secretive 1979 journey of Gerd Heidemann, a German undercover journalist, and Karl Wolff, a former high-ranking SS officer, as they traveled to South America to seek out Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo official known as the “Butcher of Lyon.”

Heidemann brought a recorder along for the journey, capturing conversations that would remain hidden for decades. Now housed at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University, these recordings form the heart of the film, offering a rare glimpse into the lives and recollections of men responsible for some of the worst crimes of the Nazi regime.  

Intimate and unsettling, the tapes capture these former Nazi officials speaking candidly about their pasts, far from the scrutiny of a courtroom or an interrogation. Through this extraordinary archival material, The Barbie Tapes bring a hidden chapter of the postwar world to light.

Following the screening, filmmaker Foeke de Koe and historian Thomas Weber, who collaborated on this film, will participate in a discussion about the film and the story behind these extraordinary recordings.

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.

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 has taught or 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 Nach der Nacht: Holocaustüberlebende über die Zukunft der Demokratie.  

A reception will follow the program.

This program is supported by DutchCultureUSA, a program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United States.