Paul Schäfer

Paul Schäfer Schneider (4 December 1921 – 24 April 2010) was a German-Chilean Christian minister, convicted sexual 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 south of Santiago from 1961 to 2005. Schäfer was strongly influenced by 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 from former victims, led to the issuance of a warrant for Schäfer's arrest. He fled Chile and lived underground in Argentina for eight years. Following extradition back to Chile and a conviction for sexual abuse, he spent the last five years of his life in prison in Chile. He was convicted of homicide and other felonies in several trials that followed his initial conviction.

Early life and education Schäfer was born in Bonn as the third child of Jakob and Anna (née Schneider; later Schmitz) Schäfer. He was raised Lutheran in the Ortschaft , part of Troisdorf. At age six, Schäfer accidentally stabbed his right eye with a fork while attempting to undo a knot in his shoelace. The eye had to be removed and was replaced with a glass eye. Already the target of frequent bullying, he acquired the nickname "Glass Eye" (German: Glasauge) following the accident. Schäfer's parents divorced in 1932, 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 the , a German YMCA sports group. He refused to attend mandatory Hitler Youth meetings. Branham held multiple revival campaigns across Europe during the early 1950s. Schäfer had followed Branham's ministry from Germany and was eager to meet Branham when he visited the country in 1955. Schäfer and other members of his church served as Branham's personal security detail on his 1955 European tour. Branham's teachings promoted a return to what he viewed as a more pristine age of religious and racial purity. He advocated strict adherence to the Bible, taught that wives should obey their husbands, and promoted apocalyptic visions, including the prediction that Los Angeles would sink into the ocean. During the 1950s, Paul Schäfer became a follower of the teachings of William Branham (pictured in 1947).

Strong ties developed among Schäfer, Branham, and Ewald Frank during Branham's time in Germany. 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."

Proceeds from the sale of the cult's property in Germany financed the purchase of a stone crusher, which Schäfer exported to Chile and used for quarrying. The quarry proved profitable through business with local Chileans. Within six years, the colony harvested its first wheat crop, converted its barracks into houses, and built a hospital. Successful treatment of Chilean children at the hospital brought Schäfer considerable local prestige. A lawyer representing the colony subsequently initiated defamation proceedings against him. Schäfer induced another teenager named Hartmut Hopp to accuse Kneese of sexual misconduct. Fearing that he would fall into Schäfer's hands again, Kneese ultimately fled across the Andes to Argentina before returning to Germany. (Kneese's conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Chile in 2017.) Schäfer rewarded Hopp by financing his medical education, which also provided a much-needed physician for the colony's hospital.

Relationship with the Allende and Pinochet governments After the election of Salvador Allende in 1970, Schäfer turned the compound into a fortress, fearing that the new socialist government would expropriate the colony's property. Knowing that containers for his charitable organization were not checked by customs, Schäfer began smuggling weapons from Germany, including machine guns, which were soon copied in the colony's machine shop.

After the US arms embargo against Chile, Schäfer dealt with German arms dealer Gerhard Mertins, who supplied Pinochet with weapons including rockets, tanks, and equipment to produce biological weapons. In 1976, Amnesty International published evidence about torture at Colonia Dignidad (later verified in the 1991 Chilean National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report). The West German embassy dispatched a delegation to investigate the allegations, but subsequently stated that it had found no evidence supporting them. A delegation from the CSU also visited the colony and was welcomed with a program that included Bavarian folk dances. He later called the colony "a model farm of contempt for mankind". In 1988, the German Public Prosecutor General started proceedings against members of the colony.

Several local farming families reported that Schäfer had also molested children outside his community. Children continued to attend the boarding school, but support from local parents dwindled. In July 1997, two boys fled to the German embassy; one of them, Tobias Müller, was flown out to Germany.

Arrest and trials In March 2005, Schäfer was found in Argentina nearly eight years after his flight from Chile, hiding in a gated community in the city of Tortuguitas, near Buenos Aires. After two days of negotiations between Chilean and Argentine authorities, Schäfer was extradited to Chile to face a court hearing. He was subsequently investigated for alleged involvement in the 1976 disappearance of political activist Juan Maino. In July 2005, police uncovered Schäfer's buried cache of military weapons, much of it dating from World War II but also including automatic weapons and grenades produced in the colony's own facilities.

From 2006 to 2008, Schäfer was convicted of a series of other crimes in three further trials, adding to his prison sentence. The additional convictions included:

A sentence of 7 years for the aggravated homicide of Miguel Ángel Becerra Hidalgo (a DINA agent stationed at Colonia Dignidad who had attempted to leave the agency); A sentence of 3 years and one day for causing bodily harm arising from the torture of five former colony residents; A sentence of 3 years and 300 days for unlawful weapons possession, stemming from the extensive weapons cache found at Colonia Dignidad in 2005. Schäfer was also the subject of three investigations for kidnapping at the time of his death in 2010. from heart failure in the prison infirmary of the in Santiago.

In popular culture Actor Mikael Nyqvist portrays Schäfer in the 2015 film Colonia.