Torture,
slavery, child abuse: Germany's foreign minister met with victims of a German
sect run in Chile for decades. At the same time, the government in Berlin is
declassifying the Colonia Dignidad files.
Human rights
groups welcome as a "positive step" plans by the German government to
make public files on the notorious Colonia Dignidad colony in Chile.
Files that
would have remained sealed for another decade will be made available to
journalists and researchers in the coming weeks, German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. The documents detail how informed German
diplomats were about what was going on in the colony from 1986 to 1996. The
foreign ministry isn't responsible for what Paul Schäfer and his cronies did,
but the German embassy denied the colony's residents the protection they would
have needed. "I salute the victims of Colonia Dignidad," Steinmeier
told a group of victims Tuesday in Berlin.
 |
Wolfgang Kneese managed to flee
when he was 20 |
Steinmeier
conceded that German diplomats for decades turned a blind eye to the human
tragedy playing out before them, adding that embassy staff in Chile should have
been able to see what was going on at the Colonia Dignidad commune. From the
60s to the 80s, German diplomats looked the other way, and "did too little
to protect their citizens in this commune," he said.
Respect for
the victims
The foreign
ministry in Berlin has pledged that it will find out what role German diplomats
played. "Transparency is imperative," Steinmeier told the victims,
who had traveled from Chile to Berlin to hear just those words.
Colonia
Dignidad was founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, a German lay preacher, former
soldier and convicted pedophile who fled the country to Chile after World War
II.
Today,
victims estimate that over the course of 30 years, more than 30,000 boys were
raped at the remote commune hidden behind security fences. Schäfer brutally
suppressed and controlled his followers, including brainwashing, draconic
punishments and enforcing a vow of secrecy. Chilean military dictator Augusto
Pinochet used the German commune, which was situated about 350 kilometers south
of the capital Santiago, as a torture camp, and hid weapons and poison gas on
the premises.
 |
| A scene from the film Colonia |
One of the
few who managed to extricate himself from the sect's grip doesn't like to be
reminded of the role the German embassy played. "When I left the colony, I
was wary of the foreign ministry," Wolfgang Kneese said, adding that Paul
Schäfer's system involved people who profited from Colonia Dignidad, who went
along with the sect's well-oiled apparatus of repression, and who looked the
other way.
Emotionally
crippled
A feature
film about Colonia Dignidad actually got the ball rolling.
"Colonia"
by Florian Gallenberger aired in Germany last year after the director had put
in five years of research. The film reminded the foreign ministry of this dark
chapter of German diplomacy, Steinmeier said, adding that it goes to show how
culture can "act as a trigger for politics."
 |
The commune is the only home Anna
Schnellenberger ever knew |
Anna
Schnellenkamp still lives on the premises of the former colony. She was
surprised at how well the film depicts Schäfer's harsh rule. "But in
truth, it was much worse," she admitted.
Fleeing sex
abuse charges by Chilean authorities, Schäfer disappeared in 1997. Almost eight
years later, he was found hiding in Argentina, sent back to Chile and sentenced
to 33 years in jail for sexual abuse of children. He died in 2010 in a Chilean
prison. Meanwhile, life at the colony continued as before.
Today, the
commune with its roughly 130 residents calls itself Villa Baviera and tries to
attract tourists with Bavarian music and Oktoberfest events.
Many of the
original followers stayed on, in part because "no one had documents, no
one had money," Schellenkamp said, adding another reason: two out of three
are older than 65 years of age. Many of Schäfer's victims feel like emotional
cripples, Wolfgang Kneese says. Some hope the German government will grant them
psychological support, others demand compensation.
It's time
"the burden is taken from our shoulders," Schnellenkamp said.
Traumatized
victims, open questions
Many
victims find hard to bear the thought that perpetrators have gotten away.
Hartmut Hopp, a former colony deputy, fled to Germany in 2011 to avoid
imprisonment in Chile, where he was sentenced to five years in jail for child
sex abuse in 2005. It's surprising that people, like Hopp, "continue to
live freely in Germany," Wolfgang Kneese said. Hopp lives in the western
German town of Krefeld, and it remains unclear whether Germany will enforce the
Chilean verdict, start new proceedings, or simply put the matter aside. The
latter is almost unbearable to many victims.
It's also
not clear what will happen to the sect's isolated premises in Chile. Turn it
into a memorial, urges film director Florian Gallenberger, who visited the area
many times. They have some tourism, but that's all, the director argues.
Perhaps an upcoming visit by German President Joachim Gauck to Chile will help
resolve matters.
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