Gerhard Mücke, criminal under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and one of the leaders of Colônia Dignidade, a German enclave located in southern Chile, died this weekend at the age of 87 due to serious health complications at Cauquenes Hospital, as confirmed by different sources.
“Gerhard Mücke died , an accomplice of Paul Schaefer’s sexual aberrations in Colônia Dignidade and convicted of crimes against humanity against detainees of the dictatorship. authorities who referred to the fact.
Sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for various crimes classified as crimes against humanity, Mücke, who was serving time in Cauquenes prison, was known as one of the founders of the settlement in 1961 and one of the closest men to the leader of the Dignity Colony and former Nazi soldier , Paul Schaefer, now deceased.
“There is no crime committed in the former Dignity Colony in which Mücke has not participated,” said attorney Winfried Hempel, who investigates human rights cases linked to the events that took place. in the settlement, and who received news of his death on Saturday morning.
Despite being a German citizen, Mücke was registered as an agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the secret police of the military regime. of Augusto Pinochet who worked with squads to persecute and murder opponents, reaching the heart of leftist organizations that began to resist after the fall of Salvador Allende’s democratic government (1970-1973).
“He participated in Army operations in the area, arrested people, personally tortured the prisoners, and then participated in the executions,” Hempel said.
For decades, according to judicial and local journalistic records, the leaders of the former Dignity Colony subjected German settlers to slavery. rage and torture, they abused children and were accomplices and active cover-ups of the crimes of the civic-military dictatorship.
Contacted by the report, the health team at Hospital de Cauquenes said that it could not pass on information to third parties. , but that the family was notified.
Colônia Dignidade worked as a clandestine detention center between 1973 and 1974, a place for where prisoners from different parts of the country were taken after the military coup, including Santiago.
The said Colony was a German enclave located about 380 kilometers south of Santiago, founded in 1961 by a group of Germans recruited by Nazi petty officer Paul Schaefer.
For decades, the colony’s leaders circumvented the Chilean laws, and the first president after the return of democracy to Chile, Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), withdrew his legal personality, which he described as “a State within a State “.
