Germany Paid Two Million Euros to Victims of Colonia Dignidad
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March 6, 2025 Hour: 8:20 am
During the Chilean dictatorship, the colony became a detention and torture center, as well as a weapons manufacturing site.
On Thursday, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported that Germany paid nearly two million euros in aid to victims of Colonia Dignidad during the last legislative term, according to a report by the joint commission of the Government and Parliament tasked with addressing the crimes of the sect that operated for several decades in Chile.
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A total of 398 aid applications have been received, of which 49 have been rejected. According to the report, it is often difficult to distinguish between victims and perpetrators, as many people who were initially victims later became perpetrators themselves.
In 2023, a dedicated fund was created to assist elderly individuals who lived in Colonia Dignidad, located approximately 400 kilometers from Santiago, Chile. Numerous aid requests are expected to be submitted in the coming years. The commission has welcomed Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s decision to push for the expropriation of buildings located on the sect’s grounds.
Colonia Dignidad was founded and led by former Nazi Paul Schäfer, who ruled with tyranny, including brainwashing his victims while using the setting to indulge his pedophilia.
With the rise to power of dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973, the colony also became a detention and torture center, as well as a weapons manufacturing site for the regime.
The German Parliament acknowledged that the crimes of Colonia Dignidad were enabled by the apathy of many German diplomats in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s and that the enclave cooperated with Pinochet’s dictatorship, which also granted it impunity.
The sect’s leader fled Germany in the early 1960s to escape an arrest warrant for child abuse and was followed by many of his followers. Schäfer, who was never prosecuted in Germany, died in prison in Santiago, Chile, in 2010 after serving five years behind bars.
German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier was the first high-ranking German official to acknowledge, in 2016 while serving as Foreign Minister, Germany’s responsibility for the crimes of Colonia Dignidad due to the complicity of some diplomats.
Subsequently, the creation of an aid fund for the victims was proposed, along with the establishment of a memorial and a remembrance center.
teleSUR/ JF
Sources: EFE – Der Spiegel
