Paul Schafer Schneider
Paul Schafer Schneider was the founder of Colonia Dignidad, a German Pentecostal-Message splinter commune in Chile that outwardly resembled a conservative religious settlement but became a system of authoritarian control, child sexual abuse, torture, weapons production, sarin gas possession, right-wing intelligence activity, and international crime; recruited into William Branham's Message orbit during Branham's 1955 German meetings and later influenced by Branham's end-time prophecy, misogyny, Manifested Sons of God authority, and claims of exclusive truth, Schafer used Branham-like doctrines of spiritual elitism, female inferiority, obedience, and divine authority to dominate followers, while later Ewald Frank's Branhamite influence helped pull many former Colonia Dignidad members into another Message-based sectarian framework.
Paul Schäfer Schneider (1921-2010) was the founder and former leader of a religious sect and commune called Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony). Schäfer committed sexual abuse of children in torture chambers beneath the compound and was involved in several international crimes ranging from weapons manufacturing and sale to staging a military coup. In May 2006, Schäfer was sentenced to 33 years in jail for sexually abusing 25 children. He was ordered to pay 770 million pesos (approximately US$1.5 million) to 11 minors. He was found guilty of 20 counts of abuse and five counts of child rape.
Schäfer was the leader of a splinter group of 'The Message,' the cult following of William Marrion Branham, aka William Marvin Branham,[1] from Jeffersonville, Indiana. In the early 1950s, German Baron Frary von Blomberg became one of William Branham's campaign managers and organized a tour through Germany. Von Blomberg was a strong supporter of Branham's anti-communist revivals due to the horrific things that Russian soldiers did to his family.[2] Branham went to Germany, and Baron Von Blomberg helped William Branham establish a series of fifteen offices in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Africa, Norway, Belgium, France, and two in Canada.[3] Paul Schafer, the infamous leader of Colonia Dignidad, was assigned to be William Branham's security detail.[4] Schäfer was recruited into the "Message" cult and became programmed to believe Branham's End-of-Days prophecies, as well as his misogynistic and abusive doctrines.[5]
Schäfer was recruited into the "Message" during the years that Rev. Jim Jones — who created a similar compound in South America[6] — was rising to become a leader in Branham's "Message" sect.[7] This is critically important for understanding Schäfer's authoritative control over his sect, as this was during the early years of Branham's "Manifested Sons of God" theology. Branham had recruited Jones into a militant version of Pentecostal extremism referred to as 'Joel's Army',[8] a group of extremists on domestic terrorism watchlists such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.[9] Prior to 1963, this theology empowered numerous ministers with authoritarian control by manipulating congregants to believe that the deity was speaking directly to them as "The Spoken Word", or "The Voice of God". Both Jones and Schäfer used this to their advantage, and because of this, many of their congregants were either murdered or sacrificed their lives.
Testimony from Gerd Seewald
In the year 1955, Paul Schafer and some of his supporters participated in Karisruhe in the meetings of the American William Branham, evangelist and samador, and were very impressed by the large number of healings. Paul Schafer never referred to Branham, but he put several of his doctrines into practice. He constantly maintained that we were the only true faithful and, furthermore, he maintained that the woman was an inferior creature, he did not express it so publicly, but whenever a young man disturbed a girl, she was the one punished, because, according to Branham, women they had received their beauty from the devil, to seduce men. Those connections became clear to me only after a prolonged study of Branham's doctrines, together with my brother.
In April 2004, a couple of a certain age, mentally not very flexible, traveled to Germany and were received as "the friends of Chile" in Krefeld, in the community of Ewald Frank, Branham's successor, who found the task of all his life in distributing the sermons of that one. Upon their return, the two brought tapes of Branham's sermons and related literature. They found the support of those who had heard Branham's preaching in Karlsruhe fifty years ago, and then the sermons of Branham and Frank were the only ones that were presented to the inhabitants of Villa Baviera. Some felt these disgusting messages, others gladly accepted them, in part, because they did not understand them.
Then Ewald Frank was invited. He preached his false doctrines, which are based on falsifications of the Scriptures, sometimes with porn fantasy, and managed to baptize 126 people who had not been baptized before or were convinced by him that his baptism had not been correct. Many moved without hesitation from Schafer's sect, which they had no longer analyzed or recognized as such, to Frank's sect. Warnings went unheeded, and conversations on the subject are denied in principle by believers in Frank's doctrines.
Yes, the inhabitants of Villa Baviera have separated into two groups, the followers of Frank whose leaders do not have or want new initiatives - they only preach blind trust in God - and those who oppose sectarian influence and try to find new paths. towards the future. Others from this group also do not want to know anything more about the pa ale of the added statement, the data, much less analyze it. This is the current situation that I see and live in Villa Baviera. September 17, 2005.[10]
- Gerd Seewald, Official Statement