i have infinite respect for that mother that manged to not only break her son out of the colony, but also go all the way to the capital to get the authorities involved. what an amazing woman
The attention this mini-group gets is unbelievable. Any rumor or hearsay is picked upon and crafted into a dystopic narrative. The volume of attention is however telling? Not really about the colony, but more about those that are obviously obsessed with it.
@@bogwife7942 Hehehe, yeah. They probably had all kind of cliched features attached to it. A 50 foot Hitler statue. And a gas chamber in the basement. And stories will keep on growing like they used to be about witchcraft allegation in the early modern era. Since witnesses aren't scrutinized and will not be threatened with penalties for perjury... Expect the stories to grow taller and taller.
As a chilean, i gotta say Simon did a great job summarizing this huge topic down to his usual format, of course it deserves much more detail but Fact Boy still has to work for his other channels.
Hi from Dublin Ireland Could I politely ask you a question. How did you or your elders feel when the awful English prime minister Margaret Thatcher invited the mass murderer Pinochet to England ( We Irish think Thatcher was a mass murderer too!) just so they could have dinner together. If you don’t could you ask your elders for me,please. It caused outrage in Ireland 🇮🇪 Peace and happiness from Dublin
@@CashelOConnolly that is a highly polarized piece of history here. One half of the country believes that Pinochet has been the worst to ever happen to the country and the seed of most modern issues. The other half believes Pinochet saved Chile from communism and the country owes it’s present wealth to the policies created during Pinochet’s goverment (some even wish we still had someone like him in power). If you were asking for my personal opinion, i don’t really have one, i do my best to keep a neutral perspective to learn as much as possible from both sides avoiding biases to best comprehend history. (That said i obviously recognize that thousands died and that’s horrible, but the issue extends far away Chile and the political spectrum, so taking a stand seems to me that only would make anyone miss the ugly of the other side) Thanks for asking!
Fact boy has like 15 channels by now but does each one so well. The amount of effort and time put into these is definitely noticed! Great job as always!
"He was fired after being accused of sexually assaulting the boys that he was working with." Considering what he ultimately led to, I'm more than willing to believe that's less an accusation and more a direct statement of fact.
I'm curious about whether or not the church informed the police of those allegations. It would be one thing if the police, in that day and age, simply didn't have the ability to investigate thoroughly enough, or even if they dismissed the report entirely because of how outlandish the accusations may have seemed (again, it was a different time). On the other hand, if the church just dropped him out into the world and didn't tell anyone that their former employee was a nonce... Well, that's depressingly par for the course.
This is not covered enough, thank you for sharing this story, even though it’s dark it’s important to keep alive the pain of the past so we don’t make the same mistakes again. I know these videos must be hard but it’s needed thank you Simon.
It would be weird if it was covered more regularly. Pinochet was heavily supported by the US and nobody likes to talk about that. The CIA released a bunch of documents in 2000 dealing with CIA activities in Pinochet’s Chile. They knew what was going on in the colony because they transported Pinochet opponents there and brought them the drugs and medical supplies used to torture the prisoners. Bad stuff.
yeah, then dont forget the uncountable warcrimes in Vietnam, The long march victims in china, the tianmen massacre, the forcing of palestine peoole into arid wastes, the uigur genocide, armenian genocide, the allied warcrimes in WW2 (like rather bombing civilian residential areas than the factories nearby so there is more to loot), the Highway of Death, guantanamo... dont get me wrong, those are all atrocities that should not be forgotten and never repeated, but people tend to be very selectivewhat to remember...
“The enemies of the colony were the Devil and Communism” “The colonists were expected to give their labor for free, for the greater good of the colony” 🤔
@@actung4044right up until the night of the long knifes after they get in power You must think The Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea is democratic too.
Getting a populace to work for free is actually a capitalist goal. Sure they can get "paid" but if its so low it all goes right back to only debt and basic essentials like food and housing, its basically slavery with extra steps.
Thank you, thank you thank you for covering this topic! I was born in Chile in the 70s, but raised in the United States. It means so much to have people in the English-speaking world cover this topic I have one very small correction to make, and that is where he creates a difference between communism and democracy and Chile. The communist party was democratically elected in Chile. I know this is very small, but given the ramifications it had for the next 20 years, it’s an important one! Thank you again, Simon. This was beautiful and so needed.
If you like this and want a way more in-depth look, there's actually a Netflix series about it. And the Behind the Bastards podcast did a two-part episode on it. It's a fascinating story!
It's kinda like a train wreck or a huge explosion captivating yet horrifying in its ability to be captivating. Humans are simultaneously capable of great good, and great evil. Ah the dichotomy of life...
Well done, Colonia Dignidad doesn't have the same degree of infamy of Jonestown but the long lasting insidiousness and mundanity of Paul Schäfer and company is worse.
Before Jim Jones got into drugs he was one of the leading figures in civil rights. He personally desegregated more businesses and civil institutions than any of the other big name civil rights activists and was lauded for popularizing mixed race adoptions. He also had a number of old folks homes where poor congregates were allowed to finish their lives with dignity and real healthcare. It’s a shame he screwed all that up. But he at least did some good before he went all bad. Paul Schäfer Schneider can’t be shown to have ever done anything good. He was always a wretched creature.
@@CashelOConnolly No doubt. He’s right up there with the worst of the most positively atrocious people of the 20th Century. The betrayal he made of his people’s trust was simply deplorable. My point was just that he did do some good while Schäfer never did any.
I grew up in a cult that was tied to both Schafer and Jones (William Branham's "Message of the Hour"), as well as several more incidents in the US. He had so many evil cults branch off of his
@@StoneInMySandal At no point in time was Jim Jones ever "one of the leading figures in civil rights". I don't know where you got that from, but it's totally false. He was a piece of sh*t at the beginning and even more of a piece of sh*t at the end.
It's a shame that it took Carola Fuentes, an amazing journalist to find and cover this story. I remember seen her as well covering the news in London when Pinochet was held there. She also helped to uncover a case here un Chile of "girls slavery" (don't know how you call that in english), young women that were kidnapped or promise a job in another country, but were send there to be prostitutes. In many cases it takes great journalist to uncover this horrible situations, because the local police just don't do what they're supposed to do.
@@Chiclevic de nada :) parece inentendible cómo una sola periodista logre hacer una labor investigativa mucho mejor que las propias autoridades. prueba de la mediocridad de la burocracia...
This is one of the most horrible and heartbreaking atrocities I have ever heard. I had to pause this 3 times to cry. I did complete watching because horrors like this deserve to be heard for those who suffered through and for the sake of history so it isn't repeated. How can people be so horrible? I realize similar things happen every second of every day.
So sad, but im glad you have decided to simply walk off screen after this and other such regrettable topics are covered. *Excellent decision, My Man. Very tactful, respectful, and respectable.*
At some point one of these videos isn't going to have a comment about him walking off and it fading to black stuck at the top of the comments. Someday, one day...a person can hope...
One thing you left out was the role of the german embassy in Chile and the german government. They flat out ignored the stories of abuse and torture, even after getting reports from freshly escaped inmates in the Colonia, just to "protect the standing of a german community abroad".
Also the German government that existed after the war had many Ex-Nazi members and the generation that followed had been severely brainwashed by war and propaganda. De-Nazification was not effective enough to stamp out the idea and those responsible for it
I used to go to one of the compounds when I was a child. One day we just stopped going and years later I saw Paul Schafer on TV looking old and fragile. I didn't understand what happened for many many years because I was like 4 or 5. To this day I'm scared of old white men just because his face and actions were like a core memory and one of the first encounters I had with the harsh reality of the world. Thank you Simon for sharing part of Chilean history!! You should do more, this country has gone through a lot
I’m in Colonia Dignidad writing this. Right now I’m leaving this comment from the Hotel on the colony. I’ll get a more extended tour tomorrow already spoke German to about 6 locals here and they were really nice. Tomorrow I’ll have a more extended tour and I hope it doesn’t take too long to edit the video.
I hope Simon and his writers and Editors all realize how much we appreciate their die hard dedication to teaching obscure/lesser known and interesting history and technology.
The same people who hold their weddings at plantations in the southern US. People who are either indifferent to or completely clueless about the suffering of other humans.
Pretty sure the advertising wouldn't say "Atrocity Ranch Weddings" or similar. Back in the 90s, search engines still in infancy, so might be understandable how someone could book an event without knowing about the history of the site.
@@rebeccapekarske5788 I live in the Southern U.S. It still floors me everytime. Especially when an afluent couple chooses to have their reception where , forgive me here, the slave quarters are located. Dancing and drinking literally where people where held in chains and beaten. It boggles the mind.
@@drewt1717 That's a good point. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a wedding there without having any idea about the ranch's backstory, and then come across this information after the fact?
I used to live in Cologne Germany, My neighbour was a Survivor of Colonia Dignidad, She was a very nice lady, she told me a lot of things what she went through there and in her life. i could listen to her for hours. R.I.P
Late to the party but I want to add this. Colonia Dignidad opened the doors to its hospitals, schools, and stores for the rural community where it was located. The people living there and in the city nearby, considered Colonia did better for the community than the local government, which didn't help to believe all the gruesome stories. Some years ago I visited Villa Baviera for the first time with my mum and uncle. They had fond memories of the villa from their childhood. I told them about the horrors it hid behind the Villa. the response was "yeah, but they did so much for the poor living in this area. There wasn't any good hospital here until they opened one" completely ignoring the "they abused and tortured people here" part. Also, after Colonia disbanded, some German people living there were absolutely lost. They didn't know Spanish (let alone CHILEAN Spanish, god bless their souls), they weren't allowed access to the news or new technologies during their time "imprisoned" there, so living on their own was a gruesome situation. That's also part of the continuation of Villa Baviera
Such a devestating story told with such deep respect. My heart skipped a deep when you spoke of the little boy getting a not out to his mother. That was unspeakably brave considering where he was and how disobedience was handled there.
I'm still disturbed seeing footage of the goat undergoing the saron gas experiment. The strong tie between that kind of testing on animals with the psychotic treatment of people. Sickening abuse. It's unreal how evil people just get away with their horrendous crimes.
Love these videos Simon! It baffles me so many situations in history people spoke up to have their words reach deaf ears. It's one thing to speak of adult abuse and torture in relativity of a nation or political party dependant on the situation, but children?? How any person could allow such abhorred behavior happen, or continue after reporting is beyond damningly evil.
Great video Simon. You give these horrible stories the utmost respect and dignity they deserve. "Those that do not learn from the mistakes of the past, are doomed to repeat it."
Colonia Dignidad also had ties to the Cee.Eye.A, which supplied it with weapons, used it to outsource torture and as a torture and interrogation training ground for US supported right wing groups and secret police from Latin America and the Caribbean (basically as a faculty outpost of the "School Of The Americas). It was seen as a bastion in the US fight against socialism/communism/Marxism in the US sphere of influence.
@@lamortexotique anti-communism is fascism, which the US loves. remember the nazis got their ideas from the US and the US supplied them w guns and fought against justice all over the world. Latin America will lead the charge in taking the empire down
I'm amazed, both at this story and the fact that I'd not hear it yet. You do a fantastic job of informing while remaining respectful to the memories of the dead. In every video. 👌🏼👏🏼
Thank you for always being respectful when covering stories like these. Also, it's nice to see one of these stories that has the bastard end up in jail.
What i can add is that they also produced weapons and magazines for Pinochet in the Colonia. Also that the german ambassador visited Colonia Dignidad while Germany knew about the atrocities there and the government of Germany at that time didn't do anything at all. The 10k Euro settlement is a slap in the face for the victims as well as the fact that people live in my state in Germany that did those cardinal sins.
Thank you Simon and team; great job as always. As with so many of your darker videos, I can't exactly say I *enjoyed* it but I definitely found it educational and interesting. I'd heard of this compound in passing around the early nineties but I seem to remember it being described as something along the lines of "just another sex cult" (as if there's ever such a thing as "just" a sex cult)... after watching this I'm currently battling the urge to go hug my kid. I can't imagine what they went through.
great vid, a subject i only discovered 5 yrs ago through author Peter Levenda. He travelled there in the 70s/80's in a rather naive mission to find out if what he was hearing was true. he was apprehended , the local and national police and customs were in league with the colony and he barely made it back to the US . I think if he had not been an american citizen, he would have been killed. Also, everyone in the compound was expected to speak German and not Spanish, the children who grew up there could only understand German. The Colony was very sympathetic to Nazis and yes, many ex SS did stay and work as "consultants". However, Pinochet was a proto-Nazi (however, he did assist the UK in certain ways when the Falklands war erupted which is one reason Thatcher had so much time for him) the Argentinian Junta and Peru were all havens for Nazis in hiding. There are a couple of films on the subject but nothing special.
Me too i grow up in a branham's cult in africa,i'm glad i left in 2012,i was always stressed because of trying to follow his teaching and always i was feeling that my salvation was not secure.
my great aunt (oma's sister) was part of this cult. She wasn't allowed to leave and my oma wasn't allowed in so they could only communicate through letters. I never met her and didn't know many details. This showed me that it was so much worse than I imagined.
The Netflix docuseries is fascinating. Very long but it needs to be long in order to cover everything. I had 0 idea this colony/cult existed and I have a fascination In cults so it's surprising I didn't know about it.
Do you remember what the series was called? I grew up in a cult in the US that had ties to this one but I had no idea it was such a big part of Chilean history
Paul Schäfer was a former colonel in Hitler's army who survived the post-war years under the cover of being a Lutheran pastor and running an orphanage near what was then the West German capital ...
It always starts with one man... I am so boggled over how one man can do so much horrific damage just one man that's all it takes to rune thousands and thousands of lives...just one man!
This is the first time I've heard of this place. Absolutely horrific. People think shows like Squid Game are over the top and unrealistic... not at all, unfortunately. So much evil in the world.
Out of all the "dark content" channels that i follow this is the first to address Colonia Dignidad. Born and raised in Chile i know that this has been a thorn in the country's spine for decades. Thank you Simon for your work and overall content.
A monster came to Chile. It was nazi sympathizer having survived Germany's defeat in the second great war a decade earlier and now fleeing charges for monstrosities committed in the intertwining years. Now it had come to Chile and it had found a safehaven here, a paradise of it's own to corrupt in however way it saw fit with no outside intervention as in the so-called cultured old world. It gleefully threw caution to the winds and gorged itself on the sanctity of this innocent land. Edit. That's how the story ends, by and large. The guy eventually died. Of old age, presumably. When will the world we create cease producing monsters?
He wasn't a Nazi sympathizer, he was a high ranking Nazi. Dr Mengele died free in South America and did experiments on people at Colonia Dignidad. Hitler's personal bodyguard and 7 other war criminals were found and arrested there also.
It's so wild hearing about this stuff in South America, and then you turn around and remember you live in Canada. Parts of the residential school system was like that only at scale.
this channel is one of the best. Perhaps you could research a bit more about south american military regimes/dictatorships during cold war. Some of the torture described here was also developed in Argentina and Brazil
16:37 I’m conflicted; because obviously no monetary amount can truly compensate for, or realize healing from, the horrible abuse the victims endured. While I feel the main goal should be to see justice, how do you put a number on that? Certainly someone should be held responsible for any medical (mental and physical) help they need as a result; but:… hard to do that given how many are involved.
Part of me wonders "why didn't my school cover this?" But then it's so fucked up that just, DAMN. I'm not sure kid me would've mentally been strapped in for it! I'm glad to have learned about it now, even if only to learn the misfortune that such tragedy happened but wow. Something this wild not showing on my radar until now? Unheard of.
I actually found out about the Colonia Dignidad when I stumbled across the movie “The Colony” or “Colonia” with Emma Watson and Daniel Brühl when it was on Netflix. The movie touches on a lot of what’s in this video…but of course Simon comes through with the dark details in depth
Colonia (released in the United Kingdom as The Colony) is a 2015 historical thriller film directed by Florian Gallenberger, produced by Benjamin Herrmann, written by Torsten Wenzel and Gallenberger, and starring Emma Watson, Daniel Brühl, and Michael Nyqvist. The film is set against the backdrop of the 1973 Chilean military coup and the real "Colonia Dignidad", a notorious cult in the South of Chile, led by German lay preacher Paul Schäfer. Schäfer was a follower and teacher of "The Message" of William Branham.
Recently heard about this place from Behind the Bastards, so nice to hear some extras here! The misjustice is horrendous, especially as I've never heard of this before. The more who know about this, the better.
The torture tactics used were right out of the Gestapo playbook. They were usually performed in the basement of Gestapo headquarters on the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, most notably on the Catholic Priest who outed the Nazis to the public about the T4 program.
This new channel of yours it dark, but, very informative. Suggestion: J. Edgar Hoover tried to discredit Martin Luther King, and also how he kept dossiers on people who he considered a threat to America, as in people who believed in civil rights and equal rights. Perhaps also the dark side of Hoover's psyche.
Just watched The Wolf House and was looking for more information on this place. It's insane to me that it's now a tourist location and people actually pay to stay there.
As I was raised in the Branham cult, I can only imagine what these prisoners went through. Religion is terrible, and the ones that proclaim to be the "best" are some of the worst!
i have infinite respect for that mother that manged to not only break her son out of the colony, but also go all the way to the capital to get the authorities involved. what an amazing woman
There is a movie and it's good. Colonia I think it's called. Her role was featured
The attention this mini-group gets is unbelievable. Any rumor or hearsay is picked upon and crafted into a dystopic narrative. The volume of attention is however telling? Not really about the colony, but more about those that are obviously obsessed with it.
@@metapolitikgedanken612 me when I'm definitely _not_ part of a secret neo nazi colony in the jungle
@@bogwife7942 Hehehe, yeah. They probably had all kind of cliched features attached to it. A 50 foot Hitler statue. And a gas chamber in the basement. And stories will keep on growing like they used to be about witchcraft allegation in the early modern era. Since witnesses aren't scrutinized and will not be threatened with penalties for perjury... Expect the stories to grow taller and taller.
As a chilean, i gotta say Simon did a great job summarizing this huge topic down to his usual format, of course it deserves much more detail but Fact Boy still has to work for his other channels.
Hi from Dublin Ireland
Could I politely ask you a question. How did you or your elders feel when the awful English prime minister Margaret Thatcher invited the mass murderer Pinochet to England ( We Irish think Thatcher was a mass murderer too!) just so they could have dinner together. If you don’t could you ask your elders for me,please.
It caused outrage in Ireland 🇮🇪
Peace and happiness from Dublin
Thank you :)
@@CashelOConnolly that is a highly polarized piece of history here.
One half of the country believes that Pinochet has been the worst to ever happen to the country and the seed of most modern issues.
The other half believes Pinochet saved Chile from communism and the country owes it’s present wealth to the policies created during Pinochet’s goverment (some even wish we still had someone like him in power).
If you were asking for my personal opinion, i don’t really have one, i do my best to keep a neutral perspective to learn as much as possible from both sides avoiding biases to best comprehend history. (That said i obviously recognize that thousands died and that’s horrible, but the issue extends far away Chile and the political spectrum, so taking a stand seems to me that only would make anyone miss the ugly of the other side)
Thanks for asking!
@@IntotheShadows You do great work, never change Fact Boy!
@@IntotheShadows love you fact boy!
Fact boy has like 15 channels by now but does each one so well. The amount of effort and time put into these is definitely noticed! Great job as always!
He's not by himself. He's got a huge team, he just reads the script.
Just imagine how much he pulls in
@@curiodyssey3867 While I do have a team of writers, I do more than just "read the script".
Thank you. Credit to the writers and editors though :).
@@IntotheShadows ...Simon don't listen to these "People". With great beard comes great responsibility, they know not what they do.
"He was fired after being accused of sexually assaulting the boys that he was working with."
Considering what he ultimately led to, I'm more than willing to believe that's less an accusation and more a direct statement of fact.
I'm curious about whether or not the church informed the police of those allegations. It would be one thing if the police, in that day and age, simply didn't have the ability to investigate thoroughly enough, or even if they dismissed the report entirely because of how outlandish the accusations may have seemed (again, it was a different time).
On the other hand, if the church just dropped him out into the world and didn't tell anyone that their former employee was a nonce... Well, that's depressingly par for the course.
As an American without an conviction in court I’m led to believe he’s innocent
This is not covered enough, thank you for sharing this story, even though it’s dark it’s important to keep alive the pain of the past so we don’t make the same mistakes again. I know these videos must be hard but it’s needed thank you Simon.
It would be weird if it was covered more regularly. Pinochet was heavily supported by the US and nobody likes to talk about that. The CIA released a bunch of documents in 2000 dealing with CIA activities in Pinochet’s Chile. They knew what was going on in the colony because they transported Pinochet opponents there and brought them the drugs and medical supplies used to torture the prisoners. Bad stuff.
yeah, then dont forget the uncountable warcrimes in Vietnam, The long march victims in china, the tianmen massacre, the forcing of palestine peoole into arid wastes, the uigur genocide, armenian genocide, the allied warcrimes in WW2 (like rather bombing civilian residential areas than the factories nearby so there is more to loot), the Highway of Death, guantanamo...
dont get me wrong, those are all atrocities that should not be forgotten and never repeated, but people tend to be very selectivewhat to remember...
But we do make the same mistakes again. We are making them now.
History repeat itself 😢
“The enemies of the colony were the Devil and Communism”
“The colonists were expected to give their labor for free, for the greater good of the colony”
🤔
There’s always socialist in national socialist
Sounda like commie BS to me ...
@@actung4044right up until the night of the long knifes after they get in power
You must think The Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea is democratic too.
Getting a populace to work for free is actually a capitalist goal. Sure they can get "paid" but if its so low it all goes right back to only debt and basic essentials like food and housing, its basically slavery with extra steps.
What separates a facist state from a communist state is distribution of wealth and bigotry (and pedophilia)
Thank you, thank you thank you for covering this topic! I was born in Chile in the 70s, but raised in the United States. It means so much to have people in the English-speaking world cover this topic I have one very small correction to make, and that is where he creates a difference between communism and democracy and Chile. The communist party was democratically elected in Chile. I know this is very small, but given the ramifications it had for the next 20 years, it’s an important one! Thank you again, Simon. This was beautiful and so needed.
I love that you stand up and walk away at the end of Into The Shadows videos, it's so fitting
I’d never heard of this. Thank you for more dark education. What humans will do to other humans never ceases to sicken me.
If you like this and want a way more in-depth look, there's actually a Netflix series about it. And the Behind the Bastards podcast did a two-part episode on it. It's a fascinating story!
There is a film called "colonia" with Emma Watson
@Shelly Strickland Dude chill dang
It's kinda like a train wreck or a huge explosion captivating yet horrifying in its ability to be captivating. Humans are simultaneously capable of great good, and great evil. Ah the dichotomy of life...
I found out about this from the History Channel show “Hunting Hitler” .
Well done, Colonia Dignidad doesn't have the same degree of infamy of Jonestown but the long lasting insidiousness and mundanity of Paul Schäfer and company is worse.
Before Jim Jones got into drugs he was one of the leading figures in civil rights. He personally desegregated more businesses and civil institutions than any of the other big name civil rights activists and was lauded for popularizing mixed race adoptions. He also had a number of old folks homes where poor congregates were allowed to finish their lives with dignity and real healthcare.
It’s a shame he screwed all that up. But he at least did some good before he went all bad. Paul Schäfer Schneider can’t be shown to have ever done anything good. He was always a wretched creature.
@@StoneInMySandal All his good means zero compared to what he did. No redemption for that monster 👿
@@CashelOConnolly No doubt. He’s right up there with the worst of the most positively atrocious people of the 20th Century. The betrayal he made of his people’s trust was simply deplorable.
My point was just that he did do some good while Schäfer never did any.
I grew up in a cult that was tied to both Schafer and Jones (William Branham's "Message of the Hour"), as well as several more incidents in the US. He had so many evil cults branch off of his
@@StoneInMySandal At no point in time was Jim Jones ever "one of the leading figures in civil rights". I don't know where you got that from, but it's totally false. He was a piece of sh*t at the beginning and even more of a piece of sh*t at the end.
It's a shame that it took Carola Fuentes, an amazing journalist to find and cover this story. I remember seen her as well covering the news in London when Pinochet was held there. She also helped to uncover a case here un Chile of "girls slavery" (don't know how you call that in english), young women that were kidnapped or promise a job in another country, but were send there to be prostitutes. In many cases it takes great journalist to uncover this horrible situations, because the local police just don't do what they're supposed to do.
Human trafficking, trata de personas
@@IRosamelia that's the word, thank you! I couldn't remember it
@@Chiclevic de nada :) parece inentendible cómo una sola periodista logre hacer una labor investigativa mucho mejor que las propias autoridades. prueba de la mediocridad de la burocracia...
Like Rosa said that human trafficking but it's also called a bait and switch
Because they are in on it. Human trafficking is the blood of the royals. It always has been it always will be.
This is one of the most horrible and heartbreaking atrocities I have ever heard. I had to pause this 3 times to cry. I did complete watching because horrors like this deserve to be heard for those who suffered through and for the sake of history so it isn't repeated. How can people be so horrible? I realize similar things happen every second of every day.
You have to also ask yourself if those outlandish accusations are even true
So sad.😢😢
Ive been doing primary source research surrounding Pinochet's reign and you did a great job of covering this.
So sad, but im glad you have decided to simply walk off screen after this and other such regrettable topics are covered. *Excellent decision, My Man. Very tactful, respectful, and respectable.*
Thank you for not securing sponsors for this series. I don't know if you can keep that up, but it is appropriate to the subject material.
At some point one of these videos isn't going to have a comment about him walking off and it fading to black stuck at the top of the comments. Someday, one day...a person can hope...
I agree. It was very noticeable.
One thing you left out was the role of the german embassy in Chile and the german government. They flat out ignored the stories of abuse and torture, even after getting reports from freshly escaped inmates in the Colonia, just to "protect the standing of a german community abroad".
because these people " chose" to be there and these atrocities in those days were incomprehensible to the public..
Also the German government that existed after the war had many Ex-Nazi members and the generation that followed had been severely brainwashed by war and propaganda. De-Nazification was not effective enough to stamp out the idea and those responsible for it
He did mention that did you watch the video 🤷♂️
The German embassy was protecting the Nazis and they knew very well these were the Nazis they were protecting.
@@tiggercampbell6198I doubt that rather seriously. Pedophilia goes back at least to ancient Greece. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.
I am happy you are starting to get into less well known material. Looking forward to future topics.
0:55 - Chapter 1 - Schaefer
3:00 - Chapter 2 - Life in the colony
6:25 - Chapter 3 - Pinochet
9:25 - Chapter 4 - Nazi links
10:10 - Chapter 5 - Weapons
10:45 - Chapter 6 - The end of colonia dignidad
14:00 - Chapter 7 - Villa bavaria
- Chapter 8 -
- Chapter 9 -
- Chapter 10 -
What's the point of this
👍👍👍
@@cleverusername9369 we like them
I used to go to one of the compounds when I was a child. One day we just stopped going and years later I saw Paul Schafer on TV looking old and fragile. I didn't understand what happened for many many years because I was like 4 or 5. To this day I'm scared of old white men just because his face and actions were like a core memory and one of the first encounters I had with the harsh reality of the world.
Thank you Simon for sharing part of Chilean history!! You should do more, this country has gone through a lot
old white men tend to be terrible people
I’m in Colonia Dignidad writing this. Right now I’m leaving this comment from the Hotel on the colony. I’ll get a more extended tour tomorrow already spoke German to about 6 locals here and they were really nice. Tomorrow I’ll have a more extended tour and I hope it doesn’t take too long to edit the video.
I hope Simon and his writers and Editors all realize how much we appreciate their die hard dedication to teaching obscure/lesser known and interesting history and technology.
What kind of sick, disturbed person would want to have their wedding at the site where so much torture, death & misery took place?!
The same people who hold their weddings at plantations in the southern US. People who are either indifferent to or completely clueless about the suffering of other humans.
Pretty sure the advertising wouldn't say "Atrocity Ranch Weddings" or similar. Back in the 90s, search engines still in infancy, so might be understandable how someone could book an event without knowing about the history of the site.
@@rebeccapekarske5788 I live in the Southern U.S. It still floors me everytime. Especially when an afluent couple chooses to have their reception where , forgive me here, the slave quarters are located. Dancing and drinking literally where people where held in chains and beaten. It boggles the mind.
@@drewt1717 That's a good point. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a wedding there without having any idea about the ranch's backstory, and then come across this information after the fact?
@Corey Broyles their beauty came at horrific cost.
I used to live in Cologne Germany, My neighbour was a Survivor of Colonia Dignidad,
She was a very nice lady, she told me a lot of things what she went through there and in her life.
i could listen to her for hours. R.I.P
Wow, it's nice to see you cover this. Only other show I saw about this was an old one about cults on the history Channel
Props to the editor I love your style! Spent the last 20 minutes going over some of the titles frame by frame to appreciate the craft.
Late to the party but I want to add this. Colonia Dignidad opened the doors to its hospitals, schools, and stores for the rural community where it was located. The people living there and in the city nearby, considered Colonia did better for the community than the local government, which didn't help to believe all the gruesome stories.
Some years ago I visited Villa Baviera for the first time with my mum and uncle. They had fond memories of the villa from their childhood. I told them about the horrors it hid behind the Villa. the response was "yeah, but they did so much for the poor living in this area. There wasn't any good hospital here until they opened one" completely ignoring the "they abused and tortured people here" part.
Also, after Colonia disbanded, some German people living there were absolutely lost. They didn't know Spanish (let alone CHILEAN Spanish, god bless their souls), they weren't allowed access to the news or new technologies during their time "imprisoned" there, so living on their own was a gruesome situation. That's also part of the continuation of Villa Baviera
Such a devestating story told with such deep respect. My heart skipped a deep when you spoke of the little boy getting a not out to his mother. That was unspeakably brave considering where he was and how disobedience was handled there.
I'm still disturbed seeing footage of the goat undergoing the saron gas experiment. The strong tie between that kind of testing on animals with the psychotic treatment of people. Sickening abuse. It's unreal how evil people just get away with their horrendous crimes.
Sarin*
I wish there had been a warning about that clip…..
The "Behind the Bastards" podcast did about 2 hours of reporting about Colonia Dignidad and it's even worse than described here.
It’s such an interesting podcast
Thanks for the recommendation!
Love these videos Simon! It baffles me so many situations in history people spoke up to have their words reach deaf ears. It's one thing to speak of adult abuse and torture in relativity of a nation or political party dependant on the situation, but children?? How any person could allow such abhorred behavior happen, or continue after reporting is beyond damningly evil.
There’s no so blind as those who will not see
Great video Simon. You give these horrible stories the utmost respect and dignity they deserve. "Those that do not learn from the mistakes of the past, are doomed to repeat it."
Colonia Dignidad also had ties to the Cee.Eye.A, which supplied it with weapons, used it to outsource torture and as a torture and interrogation training ground for US supported right wing groups and secret police from Latin America and the Caribbean (basically as a faculty outpost of the "School Of The Americas). It was seen as a bastion in the US fight against socialism/communism/Marxism in the US sphere of influence.
Isn't it weird how no one mentions this? Makes you think...
@@lamortexotique anti-communism is fascism, which the US loves. remember the nazis got their ideas from the US and the US supplied them w guns and fought against justice all over the world. Latin America will lead the charge in taking the empire down
The CIA was involved in a questionable cult? No way...
I'm amazed, both at this story and the fact that I'd not hear it yet.
You do a fantastic job of informing while remaining respectful to the memories of the dead. In every video. 👌🏼👏🏼
The fictionalized movie is called The Colony. As bad as the things the movie shows, the truth is worse.
A movie has to get past censors, real life unfortunately does not.
Thank you for always being respectful when covering stories like these.
Also, it's nice to see one of these stories that has the bastard end up in jail.
4 years is a travesty, though. He got away with it for so long.
As a Chilean i appreciate the light u shine on the havoc that has been wreaked by the right in Chile during and after the Pinochet dictatorship
What i can add is that they also produced weapons and magazines for Pinochet in the Colonia. Also that the german ambassador visited Colonia Dignidad while Germany knew about the atrocities there and the government of Germany at that time didn't do anything at all. The 10k Euro settlement is a slap in the face for the victims as well as the fact that people live in my state in Germany that did those cardinal sins.
I appreciate the somber tone of this channel and your writers research and script writing.
Honestly, when I first got the gist of this channel, I've been waiting for you to cover this one.
Hi Simon, couple of UK based subjects I would love to see you cover. 1 being the Mid Staffs NHS cover up and the other the Rotherham grooming gangs
What the mid staff NHS cover up? Heard about Rotherham
@@chip9649 Google it, absolutely disgusting loss of life that the government at the time and the NHS tried to hide
Isn’t Rotherham Danny’s territory?
don’t you mean west merciers police continued misshandling of vulernable girls and young women
Simon, the GOAT UA-cam host. Love all you do.
Thank you Simon and team; great job as always. As with so many of your darker videos, I can't exactly say I *enjoyed* it but I definitely found it educational and interesting. I'd heard of this compound in passing around the early nineties but I seem to remember it being described as something along the lines of "just another sex cult" (as if there's ever such a thing as "just" a sex cult)... after watching this I'm currently battling the urge to go hug my kid. I can't imagine what they went through.
😨😢
I am thankful you all had the grace to share such a vile and sadly little known piece of history.
great vid, a subject i only discovered 5 yrs ago through author Peter Levenda. He travelled there in the 70s/80's in a rather naive mission to find out if what he was hearing was true. he was apprehended , the local and national police and customs were in league with the colony and he barely made it back to the US . I think if he had not been an american citizen, he would have been killed. Also, everyone in the compound was expected to speak German and not Spanish, the children who grew up there could only understand German. The Colony was very sympathetic to Nazis and yes, many ex SS did stay and work as "consultants". However, Pinochet was a proto-Nazi (however, he did assist the UK in certain ways when the Falklands war erupted which is one reason Thatcher had so much time for him) the Argentinian Junta and Peru were all havens for Nazis in hiding. There are a couple of films on the subject but nothing special.
I grew up in Branham's cult "the message of the hour". I will never recover from the trauma, but I still can't imagine what these people went through
Me too i grow up in a branham's cult in africa,i'm glad i left in 2012,i was always stressed because of trying to follow his teaching and always i was feeling that my salvation was not secure.
Vivi 47 anos .graças a Deus livre a um ano
my great aunt (oma's sister) was part of this cult. She wasn't allowed to leave and my oma wasn't allowed in so they could only communicate through letters. I never met her and didn't know many details. This showed me that it was so much worse than I imagined.
I think this deserves an even longer and more detail version on the Megaproject channel. But great work Simon and the team!
The Netflix docuseries is fascinating. Very long but it needs to be long in order to cover everything. I had 0 idea this colony/cult existed and I have a fascination In cults so it's surprising I didn't know about it.
Do you remember what the series was called? I grew up in a cult in the US that had ties to this one but I had no idea it was such a big part of Chilean history
A top notch episode. Thoriughky enjoyed it, thanks Simon.
Any channel Simon is hosting is pure gold
Thank you for doing these stories. I know they probably get demonetized but they need to be heard.
I just found Simon about a month ago and I love all his channels! Excellent job!
You always do a great job across all your channels dude, yourself and your team(s) that is. Much respect
Paul Schäfer was a former colonel in Hitler's army who survived the post-war years under the cover of being a Lutheran pastor and running an orphanage near what was then the West German capital ...
You have an unmatched work ethic dude.
It always starts with one man... I am so boggled over how one man can do so much horrific damage just one man that's all it takes to rune thousands and thousands of lives...just one man!
What a hard subject to cover, you did a really good job with it
The fact that they had “communism” as an enemy, despite arguably having a fair few communist practices
Opposing communism is justified from any moral basis standpoint
@@henocksherlock3340 why?
I used to date a girl whose grandfather was a Chilean soldier tortured by Colonia Dignidad. I’m half German. We ended up breaking up
I had never heard of this until listening to this video. Thank you. Such horror should always be exposed.
Fast becoming my favourite Simon channel ❤❤
This is the first time I've heard of this place. Absolutely horrific. People think shows like Squid Game are over the top and unrealistic... not at all, unfortunately. So much evil in the world.
I would be more surprised if there weren't something similar to Squid Game happening today.
Out of all the "dark content" channels that i follow this is the first to address Colonia Dignidad. Born and raised in Chile i know that this has been a thorn in the country's spine for decades. Thank you Simon for your work and overall content.
Variations of this go on to this day. The depths of human evil never seems to end. Sad.
Panopticon
For all the bits of history I THINK I know, there sure are a lot of things I've never even heard of.. Thanks again Simon.
The choice of light in the background compliments the subject matter on this channel very well.
I can't " like" this piece. It was however important and delivered with the dignity it deserved. Thank you Simon.
Great Scot! Schaefer makes Jim Jones look like a choir boy.
That was just excellent work.
A monster came to Chile. It was nazi sympathizer having survived Germany's defeat in the second great war a decade earlier and now fleeing charges for monstrosities committed in the intertwining years. Now it had come to Chile and it had found a safehaven here, a paradise of it's own to corrupt in however way it saw fit with no outside intervention as in the so-called cultured old world. It gleefully threw caution to the winds and gorged itself on the sanctity of this innocent land.
Edit. That's how the story ends, by and large. The guy eventually died. Of old age, presumably. When will the world we create cease producing monsters?
He wasn't a Nazi sympathizer, he was a high ranking Nazi. Dr Mengele died free in South America and did experiments on people at Colonia Dignidad. Hitler's personal bodyguard and 7 other war criminals were found and arrested there also.
When will the world cease to produce outlandish stories?
It's so wild hearing about this stuff in South America, and then you turn around and remember you live in Canada. Parts of the residential school system was like that only at scale.
How many channels do you have now!?!? You are a wonderful creator, and I thoroughly enjoy all of your content. Happy Thanksgiving from the US of A!
this channel is one of the best. Perhaps you could research a bit more about south american military regimes/dictatorships during cold war. Some of the torture described here was also developed in Argentina and Brazil
Amazing! I found the video very informative and very educational. Thank you for sharing.
16:37 I’m conflicted; because obviously no monetary amount can truly compensate for, or realize healing from, the horrible abuse the victims endured. While I feel the main goal should be to see justice, how do you put a number on that? Certainly someone should be held responsible for any medical (mental and physical) help they need as a result; but:… hard to do that given how many are involved.
I seen this in the show Hunting Hitler…had to get it out
Part of me wonders "why didn't my school cover this?"
But then it's so fucked up that just, DAMN. I'm not sure kid me would've mentally been strapped in for it! I'm glad to have learned about it now, even if only to learn the misfortune that such tragedy happened but wow. Something this wild not showing on my radar until now? Unheard of.
Great channel Simon. I'm watching all of them and putting them on a dedicated list.
Thank you for another fantastic video upload, Simon. 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
You did an amazing job with such a hard topic.
Even though it's pretty damn dark, this is probably my favorite channel that Simon does.
Simon teaches me more than all my high school’s teachers combined.
I actually found out about the Colonia Dignidad when I stumbled across the movie “The Colony” or “Colonia” with Emma Watson and Daniel Brühl when it was on Netflix. The movie touches on a lot of what’s in this video…but of course Simon comes through with the dark details in depth
I just listened to a Behind The Bastards podcast about this and the whole time I was thinking 'this would make for some awesome Whistler content´.
Love me some early morning Simon 😎
This channel is really interesting! That being said, I'd subscribe to "Simon Whistler: After Dark" in a heartbeat! Just a friendly suggestion! :)
Their was a movie about this place starring Emma Watson a few years ago I believe?
Colonia (released in the United Kingdom as The Colony) is a 2015 historical thriller film directed by Florian Gallenberger, produced by Benjamin Herrmann, written by Torsten Wenzel and Gallenberger, and starring Emma Watson, Daniel Brühl, and Michael Nyqvist. The film is set against the backdrop of the 1973 Chilean military coup and the real "Colonia Dignidad", a notorious cult in the South of Chile, led by German lay preacher Paul Schäfer. Schäfer was a follower and teacher of "The Message" of William Branham.
Recently heard about this place from Behind the Bastards, so nice to hear some extras here!
The misjustice is horrendous, especially as I've never heard of this before.
The more who know about this, the better.
""The more who know about this, the better.""
Nope, because it will change nothing.
It’s so important this is covered. Thank you for doing this. Horrible people will do anything they want until stopped.
That silent stand and exit scene left at the end hit different Simon....
The torture tactics used were right out of the Gestapo playbook. They were usually performed in the basement of Gestapo headquarters on the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, most notably on the Catholic Priest who outed the Nazis to the public about the T4 program.
how did you see the gestapo "playbook"? where is a source for that?
I am from chile and have visited the restaurant they owned. Excellent food. You can still go btw, if you ever are near Chillan is a Must.
Hmm. The Emma Watson movie "Colonia" seems to be reasonably accurate based on this account. The past was the worst.
This new channel of yours it dark, but, very informative.
Suggestion: J. Edgar Hoover tried to discredit Martin Luther King, and also how he kept dossiers on people who he considered a threat to America, as in people who believed in civil rights and equal rights. Perhaps also the dark side of Hoover's psyche.
Why is this not more known.
"Work is divine service" is very reminiscent of the sign on entering Auschwitz of "Work shall set you free"
I knew that eventually you make a video on this topic and I am for sure that this video will not be a disappointment
This cult, came from Siegburg, next to my hometown of Cologne. Paul Schäfer was born in Troisdorf, which is just next to Cologne too.
Excellent presentation and look forward to future lessons regardingthe Truth.
Just watched The Wolf House and was looking for more information on this place. It's insane to me that it's now a tourist location and people actually pay to stay there.
As I was raised in the Branham cult, I can only imagine what these prisoners went through. Religion is terrible, and the ones that proclaim to be the "best" are some of the worst!