In January 1943 Hardy was seduced by the 20-year-old Lydie Bastien, described by one journalist as a great "French beauty" whose true loyalty was to her German lover, Gestapo officer Harry Stengritt.
""[1] Faced with the prospect of losing Bastien forever, and unaware of her true loyalties or the fact that she secretly hated him, Hardy agreed to start working for Barbie.
[1] When, in 1943, Gestapo officers under the orders of Klaus Barbie stormed the house in Caluire where the French Resistance leadership was secretly meeting, only Hardy was not put in handcuffs.
[4] After his trials, Hardy became a novelist and wrote the book Bitter Victory (French title Amère victoire) which was adapted for the cinema in a Franco-US co-production starring Richard Burton and directed by Nicholas Ray.
[5] Shortly before his death, a destitute, broken-down Hardy, dressed in pajamas and apparently living in somebody's attic, was interviewed by film-maker Marcel Ophüls for Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie.