Colonia Dignidad: Eine deutsche Sekte in Chile

German Preacher Paul Schäfer escapes a warrant for his arrest in Germany for Chile, where he sets up a private sect, with one very clear notice.

This is a very powerful documentary series, I was ignorant of most of what happened year prior to watching this, I felt this series was informative and revealing.

I haven't long watched The Jimmy Savile story, and this has similar vibes, someone in a position of power and authority, taking full advantage for their own perverse means.

Schäfer was clearly charismatic, but used his power and authority for evil means.

It's well made and put together, it's perhaps an episode or two too long, bit it is fascinating.

It seems to deviate somewhat, exploring the politics of Chile, its changes to society, new regimes etc, but all is relevant.

The interviews are explicit, and quite upsetting, certainly evoke many different feelings.

Well worth a watch, 8/10.

Interesting well made documentary, however it is too long and slow. Some of the interviews to particular characters drag on way too long, to the point of becoming boring and sometimes ridiculous (also due to the bad american dubbing). However the last episode picks up pace and reveals more about each of the individual stories. The weird intermediate clips of the brainwashed followers sometimes seem a bit unnecessary and taken out of context.

The link to the rise to power of dictator Pinochet is particularly informative. Over all a good engaging documentary.

Apparently, the documentary filmmakers could not decide. There are suc parts, the interesting ones are the first and the sixth as they actually tell the story of of the colony. The middle four are about complicated history of Chile. It is mildly interesting how a colony became a charity organization and survived virtually outside of Chilean jurisdiction, but that could have been covered in 30 minutes. Worse, the filmmakers leave us with an impression that few hundred German farmers and artisans were influencing the fate of 17 millions strong nation and were involved in all sorts of sinister political activities. For example, we are told that using their charity status they were illegally importing guns. Soon after we learn that it was just one rusted submachine gun which they reverse engineered and built 50 copies for self defense. Indeed, that shook Chilean military to the core. At the same time, important details are not covered. Colonists ran a charity hospital, but who were the doctors? Colonists were forbidden to marry, but we see plenty of blind children all the time. How many colonists were there? The initial number given is 300, surely they could not dominate Chilean society. It is really a shame that documentary went off the rails so quickly as the subject is indeed fascinating.

Recently viewed this in depth look at Paul Schafer, the founder of Colonial Dignidad.

I implore you to page down and move language to original spanish with english subtitles as it has been dubbed over in spanish because of the german spoken, giving it a very mockumentary feel as another reviewer noted.

Changing language to the original made an immense difference in my viewing of this series and found it to be excellent.

First of all, this documentary is very challenging: we go down waaaaaay down the rabbit hole of the dark side of humans and what they are able to do with others, what a human can endure, and going to the very extremes of physical and psychological abuse.

I believe that its great that this documentary takes its time to tell the whole story of Paul Schäfer, from the very beginning to the end in six episodes. This time is needed. Im still in shock and maybe this is probably one of the worst things is have ever seen.

The horrors are unimaginable what you are about to see and hard to grasp, understand or even comprehend.

This show needs more attention.