Colonia Dignidad: Germany will compensate the victims of the settlement founded in Chile by a former Nazi

Germany will pay compensation of up to € 10,000 (US $ 11,000) to the victims of the infamous Colonia Dignidad, founded in 1961 in southern Chile by a former Nazi soldier.

The town, located 350 km south of Santiago, was run as a secret cult and dozens of children were victims of badual abuse.

But hundreds of survivors, Germans and Chileans, will be able to claim compensation after a government commission on Friday approved the creation of a 3.5 million euro fund for this purpose.

According to the commission's report, compensation will be paid "exclusively for moral responsibility and without acknowledgment of a legal obligation".

The German decision comes a week after the prosecution of this country decided to suspend its investigation of a German doctor who worked in the town.

The doctor says he was not aware of these abuses and the German prosecutors said the evidence was insufficient to support the Chilean court's decision.

A Chilean court found Hartmut Hopp guilty of complicity in the badual badault on children by Paul Schäfer, the commune's founder, but Hopp escaped to Germany before being imprisoned.

Schäfer, meanwhile, fled Chile in 1997 while facing a series of legal demands for badual abuse, but was arrested in Argentina in 2005 and sentenced for serial pedophilia. He died in prison in 2010, at the age of 88.

What is Colonia dignidad?

The Colonia Dignidad was founded in Schäfer, in the remote region of Maule, with the aim of recreating life in his hometown, Baviera.

But the former Nazi soldier handled this operation as a secret cult. Its members practically lived as slaves unable to get out and were constantly monitored by guards armed with dogs.

At its peak, 300 Germans and Chileans lived in a complex of 137 square kilometers surrounded by barbed wire and dominated by an illuminated research tower.

The children were forced to live separated from their parents and dozens of them were badually badaulted by Schäfer.

But not only members of the Schäfer sect have been victims of abuse.

Under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, Colonia Dignidad also became a clandestine detention center.

Nearly 300 opponents of the regime were interrogated and tortured in its underground tunnels, both by members of the Chilean secret police and Schäfer employees.

It is thought that at least 100 people were killed there.

One of those killed on the site is US academic Boris Weisfeiler, who visited Chile in 1984.

In its report, published on Friday, the German commission stated that Schäfer "separated families, abused countless children and actively collaborated with the henchmen of the Pinochet dictatorship in the areas of torture, murder and murder. disappearances ".

"Survivors continue to suffer serious psychological and physical consequences after years of damage from violence, abuse, exploitation and forced labor," the report said.

Colonia Dignidad changed its name to Villa Baviera in 1991 and became a tourist center with a restaurant and a German themed hotel.

More than 100 people, many of whom are former members of the commune, live on the site and many say that it is the only house they have ever known.