Born in the Shadow of Fear

He managed to get away: A young man's fateful report on how he spent his childhood in the totalitarian system of the sect and how he could eventually escape psychological blackmailing

The German sect Colonia Dignidad in Chile has made it to the headlines for decades. As late as in 2005 could its founder Paul Schaefer be arrested; charged among other things with sexual abuse, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006. Born into the sect in 1972, the author managed to escape in 2005. Knowing no taboos, he writes about his childhood without parents, about forced labor, arbitrary punishment and children raised with iron discipline; about psychological blackmailing and torture. His merciless blunt report is a testimony of his courage and an impressive linguistic attempt to come to terms with the horrors of a childhood spent in tyranny.


Klaus Schnellenkamp was born into Colonia Dignidad in 1972. His father Kurt was the sect's "secretary of state and commerce" and a close friend of Paul Schaefer. The identity of his parents and six brothers and sisters was revealed to the author only during police investigations after the overthrow of the Pinochet regime with which the sect was closely connected. Today, the industrial clerk lives in Munich.