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Colonia Dignidad was founded by former Nazi soldier Paul Schäfer in 1961.
Germany will pay compensation of up to €10,000 (£8,700; $11,000) to victims of a notorious and abusive commune in southern Chile.
The commune, which was located 350km (220 miles) south of Santiago, was run as a secretive cult . Hundreds of German and Chilean survivors will now be eligible for compensation. The decision to pay the victims was made by a government commission in Berlin on Friday. A fund of €3.5m will be set aside to do so.
In its report, released on Friday, the German commission said Schäfer "tore families apart, abused countless children and actively collaborated with Pinochet dictatorship henchmen on torture, murder and disappearances. The compensation would be paid "exclusively out of moral responsibility and without recognition of a legal obligation," it added.
Colonia Dignidad was a colony set up by Schäfer in 1961 (until today) in the remote Maule area. He ran it as a secretive cult with victims living as virtual slaves and prevented from leaving by armed guards with dogs.
Hundreds of German and Chilean survivors will now be eligible for compensation. The decision to pay the victims was made by a government commission in Berlin on Friday. A fund of €3.5m will be set aside to do so.
It comes a week after prosecutors dropped their investigation into a German doctor who worked at the commune. A court in Chile had found Hartmut Hopp guilty of complicity in child sex abuse committed by Schäfer, but he fled to Germany before he could be jailed. German prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to uphold the ruling.
Hopp, who is 74, ran the clinic within Colinia Dignidad. Hopp, who had moved to Chile with Schäfer in 1961, was one of the very few members of the colony who was allowed to leave the compound to go abroad and study. In the 1980s he became the right-hand man of Paul Schäfer, acting as a spokesman for the colony.
He was convicted by a Chilean court of complicity in the rapes and sexual abuse committed by Schäfer. He fled Chile for Germany before the sentencing. A German court upheld the Chilean ruling in 2017 and sentenced Hopp to five years in prison but the ruling was overturned by a higher court in September 2018.
The court said at the time that it had found no concrete evidence that Hopp had actively aided and abetted the abuses committed by Schäfer. However an investigation by German prosecutors continued. That investigation has now been dropped with prosecutors saying that "after exhausting all promising investigative leads, it was not possible to substantiate a sufficient suspicion under any legal aspect necessary for an indictment".
Pinochet assumed power in Chile following a United States-backed coup d'état on 11 September 1973 that overthrew the democratically elected socialist Unidad Popular government of President Salvador Allende and ended civilian rule. Several academics – including Peter Winn, Peter Kornbluh and Tim Weiner – have stated that the support of the United States was crucial to the coup and the consolidation of power afterward
Pinochet and his government have been characterised as fascist.[94] For example, journalist and author Samuel Chavkin,[95] in his book Storm Over Chile: The Junta Under Siege, repeatedly characterizes both Pinochet himself and the military dictatorship as fascist.[96] However, he and his government are generally excluded from academic typologies of fascism.[97][98][99][100] Roger Griffin included Pinochet in a group of pseudo-populist despots distinct from fascism, which included the likes of Saddam Hussein
originally posted by: rickymouse
That colony must have had some high ranking German Officials frequenting it pretty often to offer to pay these people off with their taxpayers money.
Those predominant families in Germany are not paying anything, the German citizens are. That is just the way it works. It has been that way as far back as I can remember in my lifetime, I remember all the corruption going on in the sixties.
originally posted by: MisterSpock
originally posted by: rickymouse
That colony must have had some high ranking German Officials frequenting it pretty often to offer to pay these people off with their taxpayers money.
Probably, also likely that some of the families still in power in germany had relatives that frequented it and or participated in it.
But, they are paying out a few bucks. So it's all better now.
Colonia Dignidad changed its name to Villa Baviera in 1991 and has become a tourist resort with a German-themed restaurant and hotel. More than 100 people, many of them former members of Colonia Dignidad live at the site with many saying it is the only home they have ever known.
So the question really is , why does Germany feel moral responsibility over this ?
Why on earth is there no upheld conviction against Doctor Hopp ?