Original subtitles

YOU… ASKED ME!

TODAY

COLONIA DIGNIDAD

Forty kilometers from Parral is the gate for Colonia Dignidad

or El Lavadero Estate.

They became known in Chile through the newspapers…

"ELECTRO SHOCK" - CHANNEL 9

…due to good and allegedly bad things.

Now, Channel 9 wants to go inside

to find out who they are, how they live, and what is Colonia Dignidad.

People may think

that, if you come together, if you have this way of life,

if you live to help others,

if you live in a close-knit and closeted way,

you could be either Nazis or Communists, to name both extremes.

Nazis?

COLONIST How can we be Nazis

when

some of us were persecuted by the Nazis?

Communists, then?

Communists? That's crazy.

Communists.

Most colonists

are refugees from East Germany, from East Prussia.

How would you define your philosophy? Why do you do it?

Helping others makes you happy.

We chose these words as the motto for our work:

"Helping makes you happy."

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES

If you don't jump, you're a rightist!

If you don't jump, you're a rightist!

If you don't jump, you're a rightist!

Chile cannot…

continue to tolerate

a regime and a system

where the vast majority of Chileans…

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF UNIDAD POPULAR

…live in anguish because of problems with food…

If you don't jump, you're a rightist!

…with school,

with work,

with health…

and recreation and housing.

Chile has seen the failure of traditional capitalism.

COMMUNIST YOUTH

There were several figures

I looked up to with tremendous admiration.

LEFT-WING MILITANT IN TALCA Che Guevara.

The priest Torres, from Colombia.

Fidel Castro,

in the beginning.

Well, Allende.

I was a teacher, I was a militant of the Communist Party.

I wanted social justice.

CHILE'S HAPPINESS BEGINS WITH ITS CHILDREN

I went there to teach the poor.

I had worked in the land reform.

The expropriations began.

Farm and estate expropriations.

My father worked on a large estate near the colony

as a horse trainer.

My father didn't support Allende's party.

He was a rightist among his peers.

Right away, they began to humiliate him.

COLONIA DIGNIDAD'S CHILD VISITOR

"You rightist. You awful conservative republican."

And so. The violence was extreme.

My father never agreed with this land-grabbing thing.

It happened very close to us, next to our estate.

They slaughtered the livestock and lived like kings.

They brought their flag, occupied a farm…

COLONIST

…chased away the owners and hoisted their flag.

And once the flag had been up for half an hour,

they considered the land theirs.

We were afraid of being raided as well.

We protested in Parral against the Germans.

My dad formed the small farmers' union.

He was the secretary.

PAUL SCHÄFER'S VOICE

Those damn criminals, criminals of the End Times.

Filthy pigs.

That's how the revolution was here.

They partied, ate and drank, day and night.

BE STRONG, FARMERS, TOGETHER

Paul Schäfer sent an emissary.

To...

He was a Christian Democrat. He came to our house, and he said,

"Listen, kid..." because my father was short.

FARMER AND ADVERSARY OF SCHÄFER

"Why are you messing with the Germans

if Schäfer wants to be your friend?"

My dad was stubborn.

He wouldn't give in or sell out for anything.

Schäfer made it very clear…

- That we had to fight back. - Fight back.

COLONIST

And if we couldn't defend our families, our women and children,

we would be at the mercy

of the communists' volatility.

Then, we started building watchtowers.

At the edge of the woods, in the woods, well hidden.

We called them "watchers." They were numbered: one, two, three.

And they sent women there.

We would take a path in the dark,

first thing in the morning, very early.

We would go up in silence.

And we had to watch the road

all day long, in complete silence.

ORIGINAL RADIO TRANSMISSION

Monday morning, from 6:00 a.m. Edeltraud Bohnau in Watcher 3.

6:50 a.m.

The rider from Watcher 4

is no longer visible from Watcher 3.

He is going towards G. Over and out.

I would call and let the phone ring three times

and hang up.

- That way, she knew... - It was him.

I would also find Bible passages

to give her some reassurance and strength.

That way, I knew what he wanted to tell me.

That's how he would tell me

how much he liked me and all that.

COLONIST And also

that, according to the Bible, it was okay to get married.

But on the other hand, I also knew

that if they heard us,

they couldn't say anything

because we didn't talk about private matters.

We, the children, also helped to build the fence.

We had blisters on our hands. We sweated.

COLONIST That work was hell for me.

We could say now that we built our own prison.

But Schäfer convinced me back then.

He told us there were too many left-wing extremists,

and we needed security measures so nobody could come in.

They authorized my group to build the small sensors for the fence.

With pincers and a magnifying glass.

COLONIST And we welded them.

Our group of women were very proud.

We told ourselves, "We were allowed to help with the security."

"We are valuable too, we are working for the security."

WE WILL WIN - ALLENDE

Greetings to the representatives of the media

who have arrived from other countries.

This is history in the making.

We are strengthening

our right to build

a future of justice and freedom

and making our way towards socialism.

We sat around the radio every day

to hear the latest news.

Schäfer preached first, and then we knelt

all together

- and asked God to hear us and… - Save us from communism.

…to send us a Gideon, as it was called.

A warrior to free us from that oppression,

from communism, from that threat.

We, the children, lived in constant fear

of being forced to leave at a moment's notice.

Each one of us had a clear plastic bag

in the closet, packed and ready to go.

In the bags, we also had some cereal,

oats and dried fruit.

The bags were ready for us to grab them if we had to flee.

I came to this estate, to El Lavadero,

which belonged to Colonia Dignidad.

I landed. The plane had a fake license, of course.

When President Salvador Allende took office,

I thought Chile was in danger of falling into communism, like Cuba.

I was the secretary general of the Patria y Libertad movement.

Nationalism!

Present!

- Nationalism! - Forward!

We were a new movement, recently created.

We were no more than 10,000 militants.

And Paul Schäfer was waiting for us at Colonia Dignidad.

They gave us a tour around the campus.

The hospital, the school, the brick factory…

SECRETARY GENERAL OF PATRIA Y LIBERTAD

…everything these Germans produced.

It was similar to a kibbutz,

but everything was free, it was all functional.

It was summer, they would go in the water.

And the kids looked well, very happy.

Everything was normal, everything was fine, nice.

Anyway, we stayed all afternoon, five or six hours.

A sober lunch, very German, no alcohol.

Everything was organized.

Paul Schäfer formed groups.

He put us together, these with these, and introduced us.

There were active officers from the area,

from the Chillán and Concepción regiments,

a key area for the Chilean army.

Also businessmen and big farmers from the area.

I mean, we were about 50 people.

We all wanted to put an end to Allende's government.

That day, that meeting at the colony,

was the instrument of change.

And in the end, I had a tête-à-tête with Paul Schäfer.

Schäfer pulled me aside and told me,

"We can do something for your group too."

"All right."

A peasant farmer called Gómez Asensio

had served in the military in Linares.

He told me, "Mr. Gustavo,

the Germans dropped a crate full of weapons."

He saw when the crate cracked open.

We were reporting those things since then.

How could the authorities not know?

That's why the authorities here in Chile

have turned a deaf ear to the issue of Colonia Dignidad.

Everything that happened could have been avoided

if they had been stopped at that time.

They placed 50 chairs in the hall,

and there was a pistol on each chair.

A Browning 7,65.

With ammunition, fully loaded.

And from that moment on,

we all had a gun, and we had to carry it always with us.

That was the first means of defense

we ever had.

Hello.

Hello.

We sent a package. Hello?

Yes?

It should arrive at 6:30 local time.

There is no bill of lading.

Customs is not to inspect it.

Their charity organization status

meant that container imports

were not controlled.

They could bring whatever they wanted into the country.

For example,

more weapons.

Suddenly, the first submachine gun appeared.

It looked as if it had been pulled out of the water or out of the soil.

It was corroded, full of rust marks.

We disassembled it, took it apart piece by piece.

The springs, the screws, the hinges, the levers.

Every part.

We copied them and rebuilt them.

With wonderful precision.

Then, Schäfer ordered us

to mass produce them.

Fifty units.

And that's how we were prepared for anything.

At Patria y Libertad,

we started to organize a national strike in Chile with the truckers.

Trucks can paralyze a country like Chile.

Then, other business sectors joined in.

That's a psychological war.

We realized people had nothing to eat under Allende.

I worked in the kitchen, and we made little packets

with cheese, bread, butter,

and something more valuable, like flour,

so people could survive

or make it through the week or the month.

There was a shortage of food,

and it was severe.

NO SUGAR - NO OIL OR FLOUR NO CIGARETTES

I don't know why,

but there were no newspapers.

There wasn't any newspaper in the toilets either.

And there was no TV, much less TV.

We were completely isolated.

Yes. I was convinced,

until I was 30 years old, that newspaper was poisonous.

We were taught that since we were children.

If we found a newspaper, we didn't even touch it.

This cabinet must put an end

to the fascist strike of the truck drivers,

knowing it has the support of the vast majority of Chileans,

that want to avoid a civil war in our country by all means.

Allende, the people defend you!

The nationalist militia Patria y Libertad

turned the streets of Santiago and other cities

into battlefields.

"Order and homeland" is our motto

The law is the mirror of our honor

We are the emblem of sacrifice

Carabineros of the nation

If evil stalks the peace of the nest

Where innocence takes shelter

We go fearlessly after the bandit

We protect the weak…

We are at a Dignidad boys' camp.

"ELECTRO SHOCK" - CHANNEL 9

They came here during their vacation to fish

and take sea bass and mackerel back to Colonia Dignidad.

Silence. Here, kid.

The girls that came fishing told me

that the girls caught more fish than the boys.

No.

Who won? It looks like we won.

Because we caught the longest fish.

It was 1,28 meters long.

Yeah, she says it was the longest fish, but that's all.

- Therein lies the secret. Go on. - In one day...

In two hours in one day, we caught 86 sea bass.

That's more than one fish.

What grade are you in?

I'm a senior.

What do you want to be when you're done with school?

I want to be a nurse.

Your mom is a pastry chef. Why do you want to be a nurse?

Because I prefer to help the poor and the sick.

And do you like cake?

Yes, I like it a lot.

COLONIST

I always thought that you had to work hard

and behave to have the privilege

of working at the hospital.

Then, another girl from my group and I

were allowed to work at the hospital's lab.

I was very excited, I was overjoyed.

I was happy.

The way we were raised, we weren't allowed to touch anybody.

And I missed that very much.

The Chilean children we looked after...

I poured all my love on them. We could hug them.

We weren't allowed to kiss them.

It was forbidden for hygiene reasons.

But I kissed them regardless.

Schäfer came often in his Mercedes to the hospital's patio.

He would go up to the ward.

I frequently saw him entering individual rooms.

Room 14, at least during the time I worked there,

was used for patients from the colony.

They were locked in there.

Of course, I had no idea what he did in there.

They never treated sick people there,

only young men that showed some resistance.

Their crime, which Schäfer wanted to eradicate,

was masturbation.

I would pray to God,

"Lord, free me from this, I can't control it."

COLONIST

I would say, "I won't do it again."

But there were times when I couldn't help it. It tortured me.

And I had to do something to get rid of that feeling.

Yes.

I touched myself, that was all.

That meant severe punishment.

I thought I would go to hell.

At the hospital, they gave us an injection.

They gave them the medicines crushed and mixed

into the breakfast porridge

whether they liked it or not.

They had to take them. And they also received injections.

When I think about what they did to me…

COLONIST

…it amazes me now that I was able to endure that.

We didn't even know why that was happening to us.

I remember the electric current treatments.

At night, they would put the beds in a huge dorm.

We had to lie down completely naked,

and we were connected to electric devices.

They connected our genitals.

They taped the contacts to our genitals.

And at the slightest movement,

we would get shocked.

I think we were about 13 years old.

It was horrible, we just lay there,

we couldn't sleep for fear of getting an erection.

I would cry on the inside.

For him, for the others. For many more. And I prayed.

Their faces were blank.

When they came out, their arms hung limp on their sides.

I knew them from before. They were normal people.

But they never looked normal again.

I saw no way of helping them.

We were completely powerless as individuals.

They experimented a lot on people.

As I said, the place was geographically remote.

ELECTRODE BOXES

They could do whatever they wanted.

ELECTROTHERAPY

They injected me with something like crude oil. It was green.

Right?

And they put something like...

Like a wet sponge.

And the pulse went from here to here.

ADOPTED BY THE COLONY Until suddenly

I didn't feel anything anymore.

I asked Schäfer once, "Why are you doing this to me?"

And he said, "So you lose your memory."

My dad was a communist.

And Paul Schäfer told a friend

that I was the devil, like my dad.

Eyes left!

They had turned us into robots.

Schäfer's orders were the law.

We were so broken from being raised that way

that we didn't resist.

I took off, everything was in order.

It was a local flight

in communication with the Concepción control tower.

And ten minutes later, I declared an emergency.

A mayday call.

"I'm falling into the sea with smoke in the cockpit."

An oil slick appeared in the ocean. I was declared dead.

I mean, it was a perfect operation.

And I landed in the colony.

I went to Paul Schäfer,

and I presented him with a plan to form a paramilitary group.

I got more involved with airplanes

because Schmidt was a former German Air Force pilot.

He helped me a lot to fly with instruments.

And there were other German ex-military men,

driving tractors and herding cows.

That helped me a lot.

The plans for the coup were moving forward

with the help of the colony.

I was at the guest house, I changed my appearance,

burnt documents.

I immediately dyed my hair.

I wasn't so gray back then, I was blonder.

I dyed it dark.

I wore a fake beard,

glasses.

In the Guevarist line, right?

To look like a left-wing extremist.

I accept my responsibility as a promoter of the military intervention.

The navy initiated the plot to overthrow Allende.

And a couple of commanders asked to meet with me.

They told me, "Roberto,

we need you and your people…

to help us with the sabotage operations."

We had to cut some electrical towers

to cause power outages.

CHIEFS

And the Marines said, "You need to blow out the pipelines

to cut off the power for transportation, to cut the fuel supply."

Pinochet supported Allende until two days before the coup.

He swore all kinds of allegiances to Allende.

Allende named Pinochet commander of the military

to bring some order, to control the situation.

Pinochet wasn't by any means

the organizer, commander or planner of the coup.

He opportunistically jumped on the bandwagon in the end.

He wasn't a brute like he's portrayed.

He had an instinct to know how and where things were going.

Over.

This guy is crooked.

I'll tell you what.

AUGUSTO PINOCHET'S VOICE

He can surrender to the three commanders

at the Ministry of Defense.

We will bomb at 11:00.

I remember I was in the shower.

And my friend Jimena turned up the volume on the radio.

And I listened to Allende's speech.

I am not going to resign.

SALVADOR ALLENDE'S VOICE

I want to thank you for the loyalty you always had,

for the trust you placed in a man

that was just an interpreter of a deep longing for justice.

Everything was falling apart.

It was so sad, there was so much grief.

LEFT-WING MILITANT IN TALCA

But it was a shared grief.

The government house was on fire.

The smoke and the tear gas bombs made the air unbreathable.

However, he had an amazing gesture…

ALLENDE'S BODYGUARD …of chivalry.

He shook hands with all of us who were in line.

He shook our hands one by one

and thanked us.

He told us, "You get out, I'll be the last one to surrender."

But he went to the Independence Hall.

He went in, and we heard a couple of shots.

I couldn't bring myself to see him,

but my colleagues that went inside said, "The doctor killed himself."

They made us lie on the floor,

all the prisoners, with the tank next to us.

I think their intention was to kill us.

I guess

they didn't kill us,

the detectives,

because we were witnesses to the doctor's suicide,

we knew the military hadn't killed him.

That was, of course…

our salvation.

We had prayed for three years for that to happen.

We had succeeded. In spite of everything.

In the most horrible way.

HEAD OF THE MILITARY JUNTA First of all,

our interest is to return normalcy to the country.

Then,

all of our lives changed.

This was a poor, leftist neighborhood.

They would shoot at the neighborhood from there.

Houses were made out of wood. Some are still standing.

And they used large-caliber war bullets

that would go through the houses from wall to wall.

It was terrible.

There were rumors about the colony.

People talked, sotto voce, about the colony.

That they facilitated their infrastructure and…

supported...

That they supported all this.

The lake is still The branches sway gently

With God's holy breath

The flowers on the shore

Quietly say

Their evening prayer

At 5:00 a.m. there was a big "operativo," that's how it was called.

Everything started at our estate.

A whole regiment came.

There were 100 or 150 men.

Then they left in their vehicles.

And I suddenly woke up

because they were banging really hard on the house next door.

They were asking for me.

I thought, "It's my turn. They're taking me."

I had time to go to my little girl's bed, to her bedroom,

and hug her.

She was seven years old.