Category: Colonia Dignidad

A little over two years ago former Nazi Paul Schaefer, who founded a secretive German cult in Southern Chile in the 1960s and was later convicted of sexually abusing children, died of heart failure in a prison hospital.

But today, ten years after Chilean police raided Colonia Dignidad’s properties, many of his victims are still seeking closure from the human rights abuses they experienced.

Police in Chile have arrested two suspected members of the secretive sect, Colonia Dignidad.

Rebeca Schaefer and Peter Schmidt are accused of kidnapping, manslaughter and membership of an illicit organisation.

The founder of a religious cult whose followers thought he was “God on earth” has been sentenced for torturing children.

He preached an unnamed religion that said harsh discipline would draw them closer to the supreme being.

Villa Baviera, the name now given to Chile’s famous cult colony Colonia Dignidad, may soon be no more than just a memory: the colony’s population has now dropped to only 198 residents. As many as 1,000 (mostly German) colonists once inhabited the colony’s compound. Colony spokesperson Herman Schwember said that 15 families left the colony last year because of fear that remaining residents may be prosecuted for involvement in crimes committed by colony founder Paul Schaefer. Of the 198 people left in the colony, there are 116 adults, 64 retirees, and 18 small children. No teenagers live in the colony.

SANTIAGO, Chile–At least 22 dissidents who disappeared under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet were killed at a secretive German commune and their bodies later burned with chemicals, the government-owned La Nacion newspaper reported Sunday. The killings occurred during the two months after the Sep. 11, 1973 military coup in which Pinochet toppled elected Marxist President Salvador Allende, the paper said. Pinochet ruled until 1990. The disclosure was made by Gerhard Mucke, one of the former leaders of Colonia Dignidad _ or Dignity Colony _ to Jorge Zepeda, the judge investigating human rights abuses at the sprawling farm 340 kilometers

VILLA BAVIERA, Chile (Reuters) – Dozens of German immigrants who once belonged to a secretive religious sect in southern Chile watched a televised football match for the first time on Friday when Germany beat Argentina in the World Cup. The group, including many elderly Germans who moved to Chile in the 1960s and did not watch television for 40 years under the strict rules of their cult, drank beer as they watched the game on a big screen adorned with German flags. “This is the first time that we’ve seen the World Cup together,” 56-year-old Wolfgang Muller told Reuters. “I

SANTIAGO — The leader of a now-dismantled colony founded by German immigrants in southern Chile was convicted of sexually abusing 25 children and sentenced to 20 years in jail. Judge Hernan Gonzalez also ordered Paul Schaefer, 84, on Wednesday to pay more than $1.4-million to 11 of the children whose families filed a civil suit against the former leader of Colonia Dignidad, or ‘Dignity Colony.’ The colony, about 350 kilometres south of Santiago, was founded by Mr. Schaefer and other German immigrants in the early 1960s and developed into a prosperous farming operation. It also had a hospital and school