Paul Schäfer

Paul Schäfer Schneider (4 December 1921 – 24 April 2010) was a German-Chilean Christian minister, convicted sex offender, and the founder and leader of a sect and agricultural commune of 300 German immigrants called Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) (later renamed Villa Baviera) located in Parral in southern Chile, about 340 km (210 miles) south of Santiago from 1961 to 2005. Schäfer led his followers in the teachings of William Branham.
Aside from human rights abuses against members of Colonia Dignidad, including rape and sexual and physical abuse (including torture) of young children, Schäfer maintained a relationship with Pinochet's military dictatorship (1973–1990) and was involved in weapons smuggling and the torture and extrajudicial killings of political dissidents. After the end of Pinochet's government, increased public awareness of the activities of Colonia Dignidad following testimony by former victims led to the issuing of a warrant for Schäfer's arrest. Living underground for eight years, he spent the last five years of his life in prison in Chile.
Schäfer was born in Bonn, as the third child to Anna (née Schneider; later Schmitz) and Jakob Schäfer. He was raised Lutheran in the Ortschaft Spich [de], part of Troisdorf. At age six, Schäfer accidentally stabbed himself in the right eye with a fork while using it to undo a knot in his shoelace. The eye had to be removed and replaced with a prosthesis. He had already been frequently bullied by other children and the incident earned him the nickname "Glass Eye" ("Glasauge"). Schäfer's parents divorced in 1932, after which he never saw his father again and grew resentful of his mother for remarrying the following year to Peter Schmitz. During his school years, he was described as a poor and clumsy student, who had to repeat two grades in a row. In 1933, when Schäfer was eleven or twelve years old, he joined a German YMCA-„Eichenkreuz“-Group. He refused to attend mandatory Hitler Youth meetings. Schäfer dropped out at age 14 in the sixth grade and undertook an apprenticeship with Dynamit Nobel AG as a munitions factory worker.
At 18, Schäfer moved to Siegburg and in October 1940, he was conscripted into the Reich Labour Service. Due to his impaired sight, he was not deployed to the front lines. On 6 February 1941, he was drafted for military service in a paramedic capacity. He received basic nurse training in Münster and spent the majority of his service carrying stretchers of the wounded in a German field hospital in occupied France. Schäfer claimed later in life that his glass eye was the result of a war wound and that he believed his father and two older brothers were killed in action while serving in the Wehrmacht. There has been research into Schäfer's potential involvement in German war crimes, specifically possible stationing at forced labour camps for Dynamit Nobel in Troisdorf or at a HASAG-run subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, but none could be confirmed by government records.
After the end of the war, Schäfer moved back with his mother and stepfather. He was frequently unemployed and found occasional work as a carnival worker through a former classmate. In 1946, he was named the leader of the youth group "Leubelfing" in Troisdorf, as the previous head, Schäfer's brother Walter, was killed during World War II. He expanded greatly on the choir and theatre projects of the group and by the end of the year, Schäfer made contact with the Evangelical Free Church at a YMCA convention. Between 1947 and 1949, Schäfer lived in Benroth, near Waldbröl, on the grounds of an Evangelical bible school, owned by Friedrich Baron von der Ropp [de]. Schäfer is suspected of committing his first acts of child molestation at the school, since he was known to invite boys into his living quarters for "private prayer".
He then moved to Gartow, where he worked at a diaconia retirement home and as a youth warden at the St. George Church, but was terminated from both positions for "negative influence on youths and cult-esque behaviour". A father complained that his 13-year-old sons had lost a considerable amount of weight and that they would sneak out of the house every evening and return at 4:00 in the morning, claiming to have prayed and sang hymns with Schäfer and other youths in the forest. After the dismissal Schäfer became homeless for several days and lived in the forest, shortly after telling an acquaintance that he had an encounter Jesus during this time. He subsequently founded and ran his own Christian youth clubs in Gartow as a lay preacher, occasionally guest speaking for Pentecostal events in the area, until leaving town in summer 1952. For two years, while still maintaining his own groups, Schäfer was again employed as a youth leader for several Christian organisation in Heidenheim, Brilon and Mönchengladbach, but all eventually expelled him, officially for his "teaching methods", but by this point, the local church communities shared rumours of child sexual abuse perpetrated by Schäfer, which were not reported to police.
Willi Georg, who had frequently attended Schäfer's night-time "sermons" as a child, stated that Schäfer once declared "We serve the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is me" and was occasionally accompanied by other adult preachers. Schäfer instructed the boys to obey his teachings and encouraged informing on disloyalty, which was punished by beatings carried out by the eldest of the boys, who were aged 11 to 20. Schäfer openly talked about his misogynist views, saying "women have nothing to say and ought to keep silent", and called relationships with women "carnal lust" and "devil's stuff". Exposure of such would lead to "ritualistic thrashing orgies" performed by Schäfer, during which the victim was drugged with psychedelics, zapped with electric shocks and finally beaten for several minutes by the other members while being screamed at, in what Schäfer likened to an exorcism. Afterwards, a penalty of days-long fasting was enforced.
During the 1950s, Schäfer became a follower and promoter of the teachings of American preacher, William M. Branham, one of the founders of the post-World War II healing revival who was also an influence on Jim Jones. Schäfer had been following the ministry of Branham from Germany, and was very excited when Branham made a personal visit to Germany in 1955. Schäfer and other members of his church served as William Branham's personal security detail on his 1955 European tour. Branham advocated "a strict adherence to the Bible, a woman's duty to obey her husband and apocalyptic visions, such as Los Angeles sinking beneath the ocean." Branham held multiple revival campaigns across Europe and Germany during the early 1950s. Schäfer became a friend of Branham who promoted a return to "a more pristine time" of religious and racial purity.
"Strong ties were forged" between Schäfer, William Branham, and Ewald Frank during Branham's time in Germany. Schäfer "was completely fascinated" by Branham, "not only because of his supposed healings, but because behind the latter rain doctrine, the axis of what Branham preached, there was a totalitarian, misogynistic and apocalyptic message, perfect to brainwash all those who were willing to follow him." William Branham's second sermon during his visit to Karlsruhe, Germany, left a deep impression on Schäfer. The sermon was about the Pool of Bethesda, and in it Branham strongly taught that all illness and all sin are actually demons entrenched in the people's bodies. Schäfer claimed to experience a healing in the meeting, and thereafter began to preach very strongly that all sin and illness was the result of demonic possession.
Following the 1955 meetings with Branham, Schäfer began to put more of William Branham's doctrines into practice in his group, and began to insist to his followers that they were the "only faithful ones" to William Branham's teachings.
By 1952 Schäfer had gathered a number of followers and in 1953 set up a children's home and orphanage. Schäfer's early followers were predominantly made up of war widows and their children who were refugees from Soviet occupied East Prussia. In 1959, he created the Private Sociale Mission, purportedly a charitable organization. That same year, Schäfer was charged with sexually abusing two young boys. Schäfer was charged and a warrant issued for his arrest by local authorities in Germany. Schäfer fled the children's home in Siegburg, West Germany with some of his followers to the Middle East to relocate his congregation. He came into contact with the Chilean ambassador to Germany, who invited him to Chile.
In January 1961 Schäfer surfaced in Chile, where the government at the time, led by conservative President Jorge Alessandri, had granted him permission to create the "Dignidad Beneficent Society" on a farm outside of Parral. Schäfer purchased a 4400 acre ranch which he and 10 of his followers began to prepare for his congregation. In 1963, 230 members of his congregation traveled to Chile in the first wave of immigrants. Another 15 families immigrated in two more waves in 1966 and 1973. Schäfer may have been influenced to move to South America by prophecies of William Branham who repeatedly predicted an imminent nuclear war that would devastate the western nations. Schäfer founded his new community on principles espoused by William Branham, including anti-communism, and the society gradually evolved into the Colonia Dignidad cult community.
Schäfer kept children away from their parents in a children's house. He said, "the problems in child education aren't the children; they are always the parents because the parents are responsible for the sins of the children". With the sale of the German children's home, he bought a German stonecrusher, which he used in a quarry. The latter proved profitable in business with Chileans and after six years the first wheat could be harvested, barracks turned into houses and a hospital could be built. When Chilean children were treated and survived, their rescue brought fame to Schäfer in the region.
After a nocturnal hunting accident with a gun, Schäfer was treated in a Santiago hospital for several months. Upon his return, he forbade all festivities, and separated boys from girls and men from women. In 1966, teenage fugitive Wolfgang Kneese hid in the German embassy in Chile and later talked to the press. Schäfer induced another teen named Hartmut Hopp to smear Kneese, accusing him of sexual misconduct at a trial. Kneese managed to flee to Germany. As a reward, Schäfer allowed Hopp to study medicine, because he needed a physician in his hospital.
After Salvador Allende came to power in 1970, Schäfer's community turned the compound into a fortress in fear of dispossession. Knowing that containers for his charitable organization were not checked by customs, Schäfer began smuggling weapons from Germany to the colony, including machine guns which were soon copied in his machine shops. He invited political dissidents including Roberto Thieme, the leader of the neo-Fascist group Patria y Libertad, to the Colonia and offered it to them as a base to plan a coup against Allende. During this time, Schäfer also started punishing children with electric shocks to their bodies, including to their genitalia, to keep them in line.
After Augusto Pinochet came to power in 1973, Colonia Dignidad became one of the secret detention, torture and execution centers of the Chilean secret police, the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the National Intelligence Directorate during the Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–90).
In 1974, Pinochet visited Schäfer at Colonia Dignidad. Schäfer received the right to dig for gold and uranium, and Pinochet a Mercedes-Benz limousine. After the US weapon embargo against Chile, Schäfer dealt with Gerhard Mertins, who supplied Pinochet with weapons including rockets, tanks and equipment to produce biological weapons. In 1976, the UN published a report about Pinochet and Amnesty International found evidence of torture at the colony, which was later verified by the Chilean National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report. The German Embassy could no longer ignore the reports and sent a delegation to visit the colony, but said that the suspicions were without evidence. A delegation of the CSU visited as well and was greeted with Bavarian folkdances.
In 1986, Norbert Blüm visited Chile to ask Pinochet to stop the torture. Schäfer did not allow Blüm to visit the colony, which Blüm later said was a "model farm of contempt for mankind".
In 1988, the German attorney general finally started proceedings against members of the colony.
In 1990, after Pinochet had stepped down, Patricio Aylwin cut off state funding for Schäfer's hospital, revoking its nonprofit and charitable status, then audited the colony's businesses. In 1991, Schäfer privatized his various enterprises. When German Chancellor Helmut Kohl visited Chile, he said that Chile needed to open the colony, but nothing further. Schäfer then mobilized the local residents to demonstrate against the closing of his hospital until the Chilean government reopened it. Chilean children were admitted to the colony, as the colony itself had no offspring. Schäfer started molesting Chilean boys; when they resisted, he used sedatives prescribed by the colony's physician Hartmut Hopp to rape them.
Only after 26 "colono" children who had attended the commune's free clinic and school reported their abuse, a judge in Santiago issued a warrant for Schäfer’s arrest, 6 years into Chile's democratic transition. Police could not find him on the compound. Children continued to attend the boarding school, but support of local parents dwindled. Schäfer turned teary-eyed departures into propaganda to prove his innocence. Schäfer finally staged a farewell ceremony and disappeared into the network of tunnels and bunkers under Colonia Dignidad. He disappeared on 20 May 1997, escaping child sex abuse charges, filed by Chilean authorities under President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle. Several local farming families reported that Schäfer had also molested children outside his community. In July 1997, two boys fled to the German embassy; one of them, Tobias Müller, was flown out to Germany. Schäfer was tried in absence and in late 2004 the Chilean court found him guilty.
He was also under investigation in Chile in connection with the disappearance of Russian mathematician Boris Weisfeiler and alleged human rights abuses.
As of 2005, Schäfer was also wanted in Germany and France in connection with earlier child abuse allegations.
In March 2005, Schäfer was found nearly eight years after his disappearance, hiding in a townhouse in an expensive gated community known as Las Acacias, 40 km (25 miles) from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Following two days of negotiations between Chilean and Argentine authorities, Schäfer was extradited to Chile to face a court hearing. There, he was charged with being involved in the 1976 disappearance of the political activist Juan Maino.
In July 2005, police unearthed Schäfer’s buried military weaponry, much of it World War II vintage, including grenades and machine guns that were produced by the colony.
On 24 May 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 had filed claims against Schäfer. Schäfer was found guilty of 20 counts of dishonest abuses and five counts of child rape, all committed between 1993 and 1997.
On 24 April 2010, Schäfer died aged 88 years at the Santiago de Chile's Ex-Penitentiary's Hospital due to heart failure. It was later revealed that he was suffering from a severe cardiac illness.