They say Dr Josef Mengele came by here on his way to Brazil where he later died. And they also say he wasn’t the only Nazi survivor of World War Two to come through this German hideout in Central Chile. Others reportedly showed up to train Chilean secret police how to torture and interrogate political prisoners held here during General Pinochet’s dictatorship. There is no certainty about this because of the nature of who they were and what they allegedly did but the founding of Colonia Dignidad was founded in evil that much is certain.
And yet here we are, two retired American civil servants wandering around South America with our dog camping happily amidst the greenery of Villa Baviera, formerly known as Colonia Dignidad where religion, child molestation and a cult leader,a former member of the Nazi party, built a state within a state after World War Two. The whole thing is extraordinary, made even more so by the lovely surroundings, delightful people and warm welcome you get today. Chile is full of surprises.
The location of the colony is in a deep valley at the end of the road with a clear view of the Andes on the eastern horizon. It’s founder, a former Nazi himself, came here to escape child molestation charges in West Germany in 1961 and he brought 70 followers with him. The rumor is they included some former Nazis and the colonists used secret contacts to get special privileges in their new country of residence. That help came from the Chilean generals they later helped openly after the 1973 coup. It was a sordid start.
It’s a story you can get lost in online if you feel like it, a jumble of criminal activity, hocus pocus religious nonsense to control people and all the trimmings of those weird cults that come up from time to time. So you can imagine my surprise when my Jewish wife said she wanted to visit this former Nazi’s colony on our way south. But as usual Layne had a point.
This boundary marker is five miles from the village itself.
Under Paul Schäfer the colony had watchtowers and armed guards to protect the occupants. Or to keep them trapped inside.
This is a lovely spot no doubt.
The entrance gate where we were charged $2:25 each to get in.
And where the road for the last mile and a half turns to potholed washboard dirt.
It is out in the middle of nowhere.
There is the hotel which acts as the reception area for visitors and also where you get permission to camp.
Next door is a bakery shop with locally made cakes and breads and delicious they looked too, but Layne was keeping the leash pretty short.
Apparently they designed the restaurant after a famous eatery in Hamburg which means nothing to me so I was wishing Florian and Cora were along to interpret but they are trying to enjoy Argentina on their mad rush to get home by Christmas.
The place was actually pretty busy when we sat down to order a German lunch.
Pernil which it turns out is smoked pig’s trotter was actually pretty good except for the fat it came encased by and which Rusty later greatly enjoyed.
Layne likes her sauerkraut more vinegary so she preferred the cheese mushroom and spinach stuffed chicken breast with weird potato balls. This was a cultural experience for us, even though we’ve been to Germany we stuck our gastronomic necks out a bit more here.
Google translate is an excellent menu aide in Spanish and German.
Our parking spot was lovely but with only cold showers, and an electrical plug in we didn’t need. As you may have gathered by now these are the facilities overlanders look for when they pay to camp. The bird calls and the cool breeze were thrown in for free.
Rusty loved the thick cool grass; I loved the toilet seat and toilet paper. Priorities…
We took a walk to the museum which was closed but from what I’ve read they don’t shy away from the colony’s past. Things changed in 1991 after Pinochet left office and police investigations began and Schäfer the pedophile fled to Argentina. He spent the last four years of his life in jail and died in 2010 at age 88. It doesn’t seem quite like punishment enough to me.
But out of all the misery and filth has come something good I hope. There are still German members of the colony and we met a few. Most of the staff appeared to be Chileans though there are a lot of German cars around here.
There were protests a dozen years ago when the plan became to turn the place into a tourist attraction but this is a working farm, the members are free to come and go and the arms smuggling and torture and law breaking are in the past.
A reminder here was that we had a great beach camp at Pisagua which I learned while we were there, was a prison camp for much of the twentieth century for one reason or another. One of the nitrate mine ghost towns in the northern desert was also used a prison camp by General Pinochet. These places are known about and acknowledged all over the country. It was a bloody time in Chile between 1973 and 1990.
I’m glad they’ve made something good out of such a place and I’d gladly go back to enjoy the countryside but also to think about and pay my respects to those who suffered. This whole journey for me has been less about driving dirt roads and more about discovering the good and the bad of the history along the PanAmerican Highway. This it turns out is a prime example.
