The disastrous fire of 10 August 1903 that resulted in eighty deaths at Couronnes station began at Barbès–Rochechouart. During World War II, on 21 August 1941, Pierre Georges and three companions of the French Resistance shot and killed a German naval cadet named Alfons Moser when he was boarding a train at the Barbès station at eight in the morning. The killing was in revenge for the execution of Samuel Tyszelman for taking part in an anti-German demonstration.