Erich Schnake

Álvaro Erich Schnake Silva (22 July 1930 – 22 November 2005) was a Chilean lawyer and politician.

He served as Deputy (1969–1973) and Senator (1973) until the military coup, later becoming a prominent socialist leader, political prisoner, and co-founder of the Party for Democracy (PPD), which he presided over from 1990 to 1992.

Biography He was born in Chillán in 1930, the son of Enrique Schnake Vergara and Marina Silva Maturana. He studied at the Liceo José Victorino Lastarria and the Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas, then graduated as a lawyer from the University of Chile in 1953 with a thesis on mining safety.

He practiced labor law and represented workers from major Chilean unions. Active in the Socialist Party of Chile, he became a key leader during the Unidad Popular era, close to President Salvador Allende.

Elected Deputy in 1969 for the 7th Departmental Group and Senator in 1973 for the 6th Provincial Group, his mandate was cut short by the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Arrested, tortured, and imprisoned — including at Dawson Island concentration camp — he was later forced into exile, contributing to the renewal of Chilean socialism abroad.

Returning in the 1980s, he co-founded the PPD and became its first president. In his later years, he wrote his memoirs, Schnake, un socialista con historia, before dying in Peñalolén, Santiago, in 2005.