Ally of Pinochet and leader of cult colony sentenced to 7 more years in prison

[ck4829]

The former leader of a secretive colony of German immigrants in Chile has been sentenced to seven years in prison for a dictatorship-era killing.

Judge Jorge Cepeda says he sentenced Paul Schaefer on Thursday.

The 87-year-old Schafer is already serving a 20-year prison term for child abuse at Colonia Dignidad, or Dignity Colony.

He was convicted in the fatal poisoning of a renegade security agent during the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

He and other leaders were accused serious human rights abuses and of allowing Pinochet's security services to use the colony to detain, torture and execute of dissidents.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/27/news/LT-Chile-German-Colony.php

This article, unfortunately, does not say what form of child abuse Schaefer was doing in Colonia Dignidad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sch%C3%A4fer#Biography

[SharonAnn]

1. My story about visiting in the German area of Chile

My spouse and I went to Chile for a month-long trip and spent two weeks of it driving around the South of Chile, where the beautiful volcanoes, temperate rain forests, and mountain lakes are.

It's an area that has some largely German populated areas. The reason is that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Chile offered free land and even help with tools, etc.to German families to come and farm the sparsely populated area. So there are some communities that are almost completely of German heritage. Naturally, relatives and friends followed in later years, some of them after WWII and some of them had connections with Nazis. However, the founding families were primarily disadvantaged families who were looking for opportunities to own land and make a living as farmers.

There are various "hostel" type places in the area where people have a large home or attached hostel where they rent out rooms to travelers and we usually stayed at one of these. At one of these places, I noticed a beautiful display in a glassed in cabinet in the lounge area. It was small figures (in gold or gold plated) displayed in a long parade that covered several shelves. There were floats and various types of chariots, people carrying flags and banners, and seemed Teutonic in appearance. I complimented the proprietor about the beautiful display and asked him about it. He said it was a representation of an actual parade that was held in Germany under the Nazis, commemorating German history. It was a representation of various gods, Germanic heroes, and figures from Teutonic folklore. This set was one of an official limited edition that was made by a jeweler, commemorating the occasion, and made available to designated people. I said something like "How nice!" and returned to my husband and our group in the lounge. I didn't want to know any more about the display or the proprietor or any of his beliefs.

Obviously, this proprietor was either one of the "designated people" or connected with one of them.

It was kind of scary to realize that I was talking to someone with such intimate connections to an ugly part of history.

But then, in South Dakota, there is a large German heritage in the populace who are descendants of German immigrants who came to the US in the latter part of 1800s to get land and start a farm. Some of them were real isolationists who thought that America should stay out of any war that pitted the US against Germany. Others supported the United States against Germany.