Paul Schäfer
Encyclopedia
Paul Schäfer Schneider (December 4, 1921 – April 24, 2010) was the founder and former leader of a sect
and agricultural commune
of German
immigrants called Colonia Dignidad
("Dignity Colony")—later renamed Villa Baviera—located in the south of Chile
, about 340 km south of Santiago
. Investigations by Amnesty International
and the Chilean National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report have verified that Colonia Dignidad was used by DINA, the Chilean secret police
, as a torture
and detention
centre during Augusto Pinochet
's military dictatorship.
, Germany
, and joined the Hitler Youth
movement at a young age. He served as a medic in the Wehrmacht
during World War II
, where he reached the rank of Corporal
. Following the war he set up a children's home and Lutheran evangelical
ministry. In 1959, he created the Private Social Mission, purportedly a charitable organization. That same year, he was charged with sexually abusing two children and fled West Germany
with some of his followers.
Schäfer resurfaced in Chile in 1961, where the government at the time, led by conservative President Jorge Alessandri
, granted him permission to create the Dignidad Beneficent Society on a farm outside of Parral
. Founded primarily on Lutheranism and anti-communism
, this society evolved into the Colonia Dignidad community.
Schäfer disappeared on May 20, 1997, fleeing child sex abuse
charges, this time filed by Chilean authorities under Christian Democrat President Eduardo Frei, after 26 children who went to the commune's free clinic and school reported abuse. He was tried in Chile in his absence, and found guilty in late 2004. Schäfer was found on March 10, 2005, nearly eight years after his disappearance, hiding in a suburb known as Las Acacias, 40 km from Buenos Aires
, Argentina
. Following two days of negotiations between Chilean and Argentine authorities, Schäfer was sent back to Chile to face a court hearing. There, he was charged with being involved in the 1976 disappearance of the political activist Juan Maino
, and he remained in custody until his death. Schäfer was also under investigation in Chile in connection with the disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler
and alleged human rights abuses, and was wanted in Germany
and France
in connection with earlier child-abuse allegations.
On May 24, 2006, Schäfer was sentenced to 20 years in jail for sexually abusing 25 children and was ordered to pay 770 million pesos
(approximately US$1.5 million) to 11 minors whose representatives established suits. Schäfer was found guilty of 20 counts of dishonest abuses and five counts of child rape, all committed between 1993 and 1997.
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
and agricultural commune
Agricultural commune
-Karl Marx:In his 1881 letter to Vera Zasulich, Karl Marx wrote that historically the "agricultural commune" is the most recent type of archaic forms of societies...
of German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
immigrants called Colonia Dignidad
Colonia Dignidad
Villa Baviera , formerly known as Colonia Dignidad is a hamlet in Parral Commune, Linares Province, Maule Region, Chile. Located in an isolated area of central Chile, it lies 35 km southeast of the city of Parral, on the north bank of the Perquilauquén River. It was founded by a group of German...
("Dignity Colony")—later renamed Villa Baviera—located in the south of Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, about 340 km south of Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
. Investigations by Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
and the Chilean National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report have verified that Colonia Dignidad was used by DINA, the Chilean secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, as a torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and detention
Detention (imprisonment)
Detention is the process when a state, government or citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom of liberty at that time. This can be due to criminal charges being raised against the individual as part of a prosecution or to protect a person or property...
centre during Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
's military dictatorship.
Life and career
Schäfer was born in TroisdorfTroisdorf
Troisdorf is a town in the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis , in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Troisdorf is located approx. 22 kilometers south of Cologne and 13 kilometers north east of Bonn.-Division of the town:...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and joined the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
movement at a young age. He served as a medic in the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, where he reached the rank of Corporal
Unteroffizier
Unteroffizier is both a specific military rank as well as a collective term for non-commissioned officers of the German military that has existed since the 19th century. The rank existed as a title as early as the 17th century with the first widespread usage occurring in the Bavarian Army of the...
. Following the war he set up a children's home and Lutheran evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
ministry. In 1959, he created the Private Social Mission, purportedly a charitable organization. That same year, he was charged with sexually abusing two children and fled West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
with some of his followers.
Schäfer resurfaced in Chile in 1961, where the government at the time, led by conservative President Jorge Alessandri
Jorge Alessandri
Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez was the 27th President of Chile from 1958 to 1964, and was the candidate of the Chilean right in the crucial presidential election of 1970...
, granted him permission to create the Dignidad Beneficent Society on a farm outside of Parral
Parral, Chile
Parral is a city and commune and in the Linares Province of central Chile's seventh region of Maule.-History:Parral was founded in 1795 by the Viceroy of Peru, Ambrosio O'Higgins...
. Founded primarily on Lutheranism and anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, this society evolved into the Colonia Dignidad community.
Schäfer disappeared on May 20, 1997, fleeing child sex abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
charges, this time filed by Chilean authorities under Christian Democrat President Eduardo Frei, after 26 children who went to the commune's free clinic and school reported abuse. He was tried in Chile in his absence, and found guilty in late 2004. Schäfer was found on March 10, 2005, nearly eight years after his disappearance, hiding in a suburb known as Las Acacias, 40 km from Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. Following two days of negotiations between Chilean and Argentine authorities, Schäfer was sent back to Chile to face a court hearing. There, he was charged with being involved in the 1976 disappearance of the political activist Juan Maino
Juan Maino
Juan Bosco Maino Canales was a photographer, political activist, and opponent of Augusto Pinochet's regime in Chile. He was a leader in MAPU...
, and he remained in custody until his death. Schäfer was also under investigation in Chile in connection with the disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler
Boris Weisfeiler
Boris Weisfeiler is a Russian-born mathematician who lived in the United States before going missing in Chile in 1985, aged 43. The Chilean government claimed that he drowned, but his family believes he was forced to disappear near Colonia Dignidad, an enclave led by ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer.-...
and alleged human rights abuses, and was wanted in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in connection with earlier child-abuse allegations.
On May 24, 2006, Schäfer was sentenced to 20 years in jail for sexually abusing 25 children and was ordered to pay 770 million pesos
Chilean peso
The peso is the currency of Chile. The current peso has circulated since 1975, with a previous version circulating between 1817 and 1960. The symbol used locally for it is $. The ISO 4217 code for the present peso is CLP. It is subdivided into 100 centavos, although no centavo denominated coins...
(approximately US$1.5 million) to 11 minors whose representatives established suits. Schäfer was found guilty of 20 counts of dishonest abuses and five counts of child rape, all committed between 1993 and 1997.
Death
On April 24, 2010, Schäfer died at the Santiago de Chile's Ex-Penitentiary's Hospital due to a heart failure. He was 88 years old. It was later revealed that Schäfer was suffering from a severe cardiac illness.Literature
- Gero Gemballa: Colonia Dignidad: ein deutsches Lager in Chile. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1988. ISBN 3-499-12415-7. (Colonia Dignidad: A German camp in Chile)
- Friedrich Paul Heller: Lederhosen, Dutt und Giftgas: Die Hintergründe der Colonia Dignidad. Schmetterling Verlag, 2., erweiterte und aktualisierte Auflage, Stuttgart 2006. ISBN 3-89657-093-5. (Lederhosen, Dutt and poison gas: The backgrounds of the Colonia Dignidad)
- Ingo Lenz: Weg vom Leben. 36 Jahre Gefangenschaft in der deutschen Sekte, Ullstein Verlag, Berlin. ISBN 3-550-07613-4 (Way of life. 36 years imprisonment in the German sect)
- Claudio R. Salinas/ Hans Stange: Los amigos del "Dr." Schäfer. La complicidad entre el Estado chileno y Colonia Dignidad. Santiago de Chile 2006, ISBN 956-841006-6.