March 12, 2005
Times
Nazi child abuser who set up cult held after 8 years on run
From Tom Hennigan in São Paulo
SNIP:
Schaefer is also wanted in connection with the torture and disappearance of opponents of General Augusto Pinochet during Chile’s “dirty war”.
He disappeared in 1997 after being charged by Chilean authorities with abusing 26 children at the compound of the sect he ruled. He was convicted in absentia last year. A total of 22 of his followers were also found guilty of covering up the abuse and obstructing justice.
A corporal and medical specialist in the German Army, Schaefer became a fundamentalist preacher after the war. Forced to flee accusations of child abuse in Germany, he relocated with his followers to Chile in 1961, where he founded Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) 200 miles south of the capital Santiago.
Schaefer, who cultivated a god-like status among his followers, preached a harsh regime of work and discipline on the 55-square-mile compound as a way of leading his followers closer to the supreme being.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1521251,00.html