Paul Schäfer Schneider (4 December 1921 – 24 April 2010)[1] was a German-Chilean Christian minister, convicted sex offender, and the founder and leader of a sect and agricultural commune of 300 German immigrants called Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) (later renamed Villa Baviera) located in Parral in southern Chile, about 340 km (210 miles) south of Santiago from 1961 to 2005.

Aside from human rights abuses against members of Colonia Dignidad, including rape[2] and sexual and physical abuse (including torture) of young children, Schäfer maintained a relationship with Pinochet's military dictatorship (1973–1990) and was involved in weapons smuggling and the torture and extrajudicial killings of political dissidents.

After the end of Pinochet's government, increased public awareness of the activities of Colonia Dignidad following testimony by former victims led to the issuing of a warrant for Schäfer's arrest.

During the 1950s, Schäfer became a follower and promoter of the teachings of American preacher, William M. Branham, one of the founders of the post-World War II healing revival who was also an influence on Jim Jones.

[9] Branham advocated "a strict adherence to the Bible, a woman's duty to obey her husband and apocalyptic visions, such as Los Angeles sinking beneath the ocean.

Schäfer claimed to experience a healing in the meeting, and thereafter began to preach very strongly that all sin and illness was the result of demonic possession.

Schäfer's early followers were predominantly made up of war widows and their children who were refugees from Soviet occupied East Prussia.

[4] In January 1961 Schäfer surfaced in Chile, where the government at the time, led by conservative President Jorge Alessandri, had granted him permission to create the "Dignidad Beneficent Society" on a farm outside of Parral.

Schäfer may have been influenced to move to South America by prophecies of William Branham who repeatedly predicted an imminent nuclear war that would devastate the western nations.

[16]: 1:22  He invited political dissidents including Roberto Thieme, the leader of the neo-Fascist group Patria y Libertad, to the Colonia and offered it to them as a base to plan a coup against Allende.

[18] In 1990, after Pinochet had stepped down, Patricio Aylwin cut off state funding for Schäfer's hospital, revoking its nonprofit and charitable status, then audited the colony's businesses.

Schäfer started molesting Chilean boys; when they resisted, he used sedatives prescribed by the colony's physician Hartmut Hopp to rape them.

[18] Only after 26 "colono" children who had attended the commune's free clinic and school reported their abuse, a judge in Santiago issued a warrant for Schäfer’s arrest, 6 years into Chile's democratic transition.

[18] He disappeared on 20 May 1997, escaping child sex abuse charges, filed by Chilean authorities under President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle.

[22] In March 2005, Schäfer was found [21] nearly eight years after his disappearance, hiding in a townhouse in an expensive gated community[4] known as Las Acacias, 40 km (25 miles) from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

[23] In July 2005, police unearthed Schäfer’s buried military weaponry, much of it World War II vintage, including grenades and machine guns that were produced by the colony.

[24] On 24 April 2010, Schäfer died aged 88 years[25] at the Santiago de Chile's Ex-Penitentiary's Hospital due to heart failure.