Original subtitles

Schäfer!

This gentleman isn't capable of any evil.

No evil! We are all witnesses.

Yes!

There are many stories about you.

That you are brainwashed,

that you all have to follow strict rules about how to act, how to live.

Isn't it true?

- No! - Absolutely not!

My name is Salo Luna Garrido.

I first went to Colonia Dignidad when I was eight.

When will that night come?

When everything will shine

With lanterns and torches

With justice, love, and peace

To me, it was paradise.

Or something very similar to paradise.

They helped us, they gave us food,

and we learned a lot.

It never occurred to me that, in time,

this would become a nightmare.

During the 1960s, specifically in 1961,

this group of Germans had arrived in Chile.

Honestly, few people believed they would be able to grow anything.

The soil was very rocky.

But of course.

Being Germans, they managed to make the soil flourish.

Paul Schäfer was their spiritual leader.

They worshiped him as if he were Jesus.

If God is involved in your life, hate becomes love.

Desperation becomes peace.

Restlessness becomes calm.

Everything moves away from darkness and comes close to God.

He was the devil.

For years.

For decades.

Colonia Dignidad wasn't what it appeared to be.

It was a horrific place.

The Kartoffelkeller,

also called the "potato cellar."

There was a torture school there.

General Pinochet,

our president back then,

was a good friend of Schäfer's.

We didn't come here to commit a crime.

We came here to help the children.

That's how it was.

I became a kind of spokesman for Chilean youth.

Which meant that I was directly involved with Schäfer.

Constantly.

The first time Schäfer saw me,

he became obsessed with me.

He would look at me almost lasciviously.

Until one day,

a group of young Germans caught me

and took me to his bedroom.

Then, I swore I would get revenge on Paul Schäfer.

I didn't know how,

but I had to get revenge at some point.

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES

I live in San Fabián,

a town at the base of the Andes.

Not too far from the colony.

Serve!

I work in the commune's administration,

and I'm in charge of the sports department.

Get it!

Go!

Go, Lucas!

I keep in touch with the colonists,

at least with some.

Nowadays, Colonia Dignidad is called Villa Baviera.

It's a corporation.

Despite all that happened,

they still have a great amount of power.

I don't see you clapping!

Yes.

A big applause for our friends from Villa Baviera!

The descendants of the founders

revived the German culture.

Like Anna Schnellenkamp, for instance.

She is part of the management of the new colony.

She manages the tourism area.

Anna is the daughter of the former financial director of the colony.

When I found out my father was one of the guilty ones, it was very difficult.

CAUQUENES PRISON, CHILE

It's not like I don't care about what he did,

but it's my family, I can't turn my back on him.

My father believed blindly in Schäfer.

I don't understand it, I can't explain it.

I regret having been so cruel. Cold as ice.

I kept going, I would go on with my chores.

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S FINANCIAL DIRECTOR

I just realized now the kind of man he was.

Really. I was crazy.

- And couldn't you change the system? - I couldn't.

All I could've done was run away.

Escape.

And why didn't you escape?

First of all,

because I wanted to take my wife, Elisabeth, with me, right?

And she would always tell me,

"If we leave, we'll get away from God."

He once told me how he met Schäfer

after World War II.

FRANCE, 1945 I was only 17 years old.

And I was already in the front.

We went on a mission with 150 other soldiers

from the company.

And only six of us survived.

Only six!

I implored God, I said,

"Lord, protect me. Take me out of this hell."

"I will make a promise to You, and I will always keep it."

"I belong to You."

I couldn't...

I couldn't take it anymore.

Then we found out there was one man

that preached the Gospel and maintained its teachings.

We found out he was at the Elbe River, on the border between East and West.

He was Paul Schäfer.

Paul Schäfer shows up one day…

penniless.

He once told me

that his two older brothers had died in World War II.

He had been a stretcher-bearer in this war.

GARTOW, GERMANY

It was precisely there

where Schäfer's first mission began.

He started gathering his first followers.

The church admitted him as a youth worker.

And that brought a great change into our lives.

We were never bored. There was always something.

There was nothing else to do in Gartow.

We were happy to have a youth group.

We made trips to the forest, we did all those things.

We sang. We used to sing a lot.

He was always in a good mood.

PAUL SCHÄFER'S FOLLOWER

I never saw him sad.

Always in a good mood.

The kids did everything he said.

And they would go see him at night.

That was...

Yes, that was suspicious.

But it was swept under the rug.

Just like it's done today.

And soon afterwards,

Paul Schäfer approached me

and told me, "They fired me. Effective immediately."

I couldn't believe it.

He was such a pious man, how could they fire him?

After Schäfer was fired,

he lived for a while in Gartow's forest.

He said he had a direct encounter with Jesus there.

And that Jesus

had chosen him for a mission:

founding something like a community of true Christians.

Everything shines intrinsically.

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE

Everything that's created under God's light and spirit.

The power of God Almighty permeates all creation.

Schäfer used to travel throughout Germany.

Visiting free churches.

He preached in many Baptist communities

with the purpose of getting members for his own group,

which was quickly growing.

What's comparable To the happiness of the hunter

For whom the chalice of life Spills over?

There was youthfulness, freshness, happiness.

And that showed in everything.

Following the deer Through bushes and ponds

It's a magnificent joy It's a masculine desire

It strengthens the limbs It seasons the meat

When someone preaches, sometimes their words don't come through,

but sometimes they do.

And they reached my deepest self.

"If a branch grows in me

which bears no fruit, He takes it away."

It's clear, isn't it?

If you don't bear fruit,

you will be taken away.

It's crystal clear!

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE "And the vines

that do bear fruit

are harvested," aren't they?

What does that mean?

That everything that's withering within you will be trimmed.

Do you understand?

- Did you understand? - Yes!

I had never lived something like that with any other group or youth gathering.

PAUL SCHÄFER'S FOLLOWER

When he talked, you could hear a pin drop.

Repent. Change.

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE

Move away. Ask God to forgive your sins.

So it's not too late.

It was like a gust of wind.

Everything disappeared, there was no more darkness.

That's how I felt.

And I told myself, "Yes, this is my home."

I thought we would see more miracles. We just had to be faithful.

It was a beautiful day.

We took our clothes off, we stayed in our underwear.

And Paul Schäfer baptized us.

He told me, "Ida, I want to have a place

where nobody can come and interfere."

HEIDE, GERMANY 1956

Then, I heard the news

that he had bought a cottage

with a quarter hectare of land.

Then, I felt an inner calling:

"I want to go there…

to build a home for young people."

A youth home.

That's what they told us:

a youth home for orphan children

or homeless children that had nowhere to go.

Yes.

The money I made working at Dynamit Nobel in Troisdorf,

which wasn't a little,

about 350 marks, if I remember well,

we donated everything for the work of the mission.

Sure, he knew it well, if you pool all the money,

you can accomplish a lot.

And you don't need much.

When people live in community, they don't need much.

We bought a film camera.

It was called Pathé.

Smells fine.

We filmed that to have a reminder,

so those coming after, the next generation,

could know how we worked.

Parties and all that.

We had a big party, and we filmed that too.

YOUTH HOME SIEGBURG - HEIDE 1960

If we endure the sorrow

Sooner or later…

There were several important figures present.

A representative of the German government

as well as Arturo Maschke,

then ambassador of Chile.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear youngsters.

I had never seen a group of young people

whose faces and demeanor

reflected such clarity, such cleanliness,

where we could see such magnanimity.

I had always thought

that he was like Adolf Hitler.

And I told him, "I can't help thinking that you are like Adolf Hitler."

He answered,

"Through you, God reveals what everybody else thinks."

And he yelled really loud, "God has spoken!"

"God has spoken!"

The devil plays his little game…

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE

…over and over again, with every generation on Earth.

Listen to me.

We were eight brothers and sisters.

And after the war, there wasn't much.

Food and things like that.

And they must have convinced my mother,

they told her it would be good.

YOUTH HOME'S CHILD

Because it was a children's home and all that.

It would be a relief for her and all that.

My stepfather came back from the war with many psychological problems.

My mother had suffered a lot when fleeing.

They sent me there so my needs would be covered.

YOUTH HOME'S CHILD

But I would never say they did it for love.

It happened the first night I spent at the home.

Paul Schäfer's large bedroom was at the end of the hallway.

He invited me into his room,

took my clothes off,

and said, "We will use the tanning lamp," and he turned it on.

In the meantime, while I couldn't see him,

he would move and do things to himself.

And at the end, you would lay with him in bed.

I came at night and went to his room.

He had boy of nine or ten years old in bed.

What could I think?

I simply thought, "How sweet. The kid sleeps with him."

Yes, he wasn't rough.

At least at that time.

In the things he did with me.

But

that was a problem.

And as a victim...

- As a child. - As a child,

you couldn't talk to anybody about that.

It was a great burden.

Then, there was a conflict.

Because my mother didn't believe me.

Schäfer was the nice uncle,

and I was a little boy.

During that time, Schäfer sexually abused two boys,

two young boys

that were visiting in Heide.

They told their parents what happened,

and the families pressed charges against Schäfer.

And each one of us had to go with him, by ourselves,

to talk.

He told me, "Yes,

some people may come here

to ask you some questions,

and they may use words like 'touch' and things like that,

but I didn't do that."

Obviously, we had to say he didn't.

"Don't talk to the police or the authorities,

because they will destroy everything, and I will go to jail."

He was suddenly afraid for his life?

Hello?

He was taken to Frankfurt's airport.

The case was open, but the police didn't stop him at the airport.

And that's how he left the country.

Everybody failed.

The German state turned a blind eye since 1957.

He fled to Italy first,

when the first accusations were made in Germany.

Then, he started a tour around the Middle East.

Jordan, Egypt.

He went to many countries.

Obviously, he was looking for a safe haven.

Basically a refuge where he could settle with his community.

By the end of his trip, he got really bad news from Germany.

A judge had issued an arrest warrant against Paul Schäfer.

He couldn't go back to Germany anymore.

The Valdivia earthquake.

A magnitude of more than nine.

A large part of my family home back then,

built in adobe, also collapsed.

They tell me that, for several days,

they slept under a huge chestnut tree

because of fear of the aftershocks.

And the Chilean ambassador

asked us for help.

He would say, "We need something like this in Chile!"

PAUL SCHÄFER'S CONFIDANT "People like you!"

So he invited us to come to Chile.

That's how everything started.

Thanks to Ambassador Arturo Maschke's recommendation,

Schäfer was welcomed with open arms at the presidential palace.

In a short period of time,

he was able to get visas for 300 adults and children,

plus a piece of land in the south.

As an advance party, a small group of men and boys flew to Chile

to prepare the territory.

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer to Thee!

E'en though it be a cross…

And we found an estate. It was…

It was called El Lavadero. It had about 3,000 hectares.

I thanked God.

To me, it was like paradise.

Six of us arrived.

We were the first ones at the estate.

We found basically nothing there.

There was nothing.

All we had was some tents.

We would wash ourselves in the cold water of the Perquilauquén River.

And we would make toothpaste out of mint and sand from the river.

To me, it was the worst shit ever.

The Germans arrived in Chile in September 1961,

as the Dignidad Charitable and Educational Society.

The most surprising thing for me was…

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S NEIGHBOR

…that these people, with so much technology,

chose poor quality land.

And it was so far inland.

After my father-in-law handed over the estate, El Lavadero,

3,000 hectares with its workers, its horses and everything,

my father-in-law had to leave his ID at the front desk

to go to his own field, which was inside Colonia Dignidad.

Later on, they installed gates.

What's more, that gate still exists, and it's a public road.

That's when I talked to Mr. Paul Schäfer.

He didn't stand out

as a German, as a big man. No, he was a common man.

EL LAVADERO ESTATE

But

he was distrustful. He was.

I noticed he was distrustful.

He had everything under control.

And we, the young ones,

that were 12 or 13 years old, had to help.

What we needed most urgently

was a house,

a refuge.

Everything was made with logs.

Those were our first jobs.

It's still standing today.

That was the dormitory and the kitchen.

A communal kitchen.

There was a copper pot to cook.

And we ate mostly

rabbits.

We prepared everything for the community.

HEIDE, GERMANY

I suddenly found out we had to emigrate immediately.

I asked myself, "Why? Why are we doing this?"

"We just finished the new building."

"And now we have to emigrate? Why?"

Then, they built the wall.

In 1961.

And my parents wanted to leave.

They wanted to leave Germany.

They didn't want to go through World War III

or any other war.

And I think Schäfer took advantage of that.

They made a list,

and those who wanted to participate

had to sign up.

And they took the bait.

We traveled by train to Italy.

And that was the first time I saw a ship so big,

so many windows,

like little houses on the water.

There are always decisions that define destiny.

I told them, "It's all lies and tricks, he has been using us."

I tried to convince them.

"He used us. Don't go."

This man's personality...

He was a pathological liar,

a swindler.

And a genuine Pied Piper of Hamelin.

And they all left. Like lambs to the slaughterhouse.

WELCOME