German Court Gives Leader of Nazi Sex Cult in Chile 5 Years

Hartmut Hopp, a one-time aide to Paul Schaefer, leader of a Nazi child sex ring that operated out of Chile for over three decades, has been jailed in Germany.

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Previously convicted of crimes that included sexual abuse of 16 minors by a Chilean court in 2011, Hopp fled the Latin American country before the final ruling.

The doctor, now, in his 70s and back in his native Germany, was condemned by a judge in Krefeld, near Dusseldorf, who upheld the Chilean court's original prison sentence of five years and one day, according to the Daily Mail.

Despite the ruling, Hopp's lawyer has vowed to appeal the decision.

Hopp was the right-hand man of Schaefer, another convicted pedophile who, at a young age, joined the ranks of the Hitler Youth. He went on to serve as a medic in the Wehrmacht — Nazi Germany's Armed Forces.

In 1961, Schaefer, having relocated to Chile, established a settlement called Dignity Colony. Hopp was considered to be the second in command of the settlement.

Located roughly 215 miles outside the capital of Santiago, Dignity Colony was a commune where residents were subjected to indoctrination, torture, rape and kept as child sex slaves for more than 30 years.

After the military coup against Salvador Allende — the first democratically-elected socialist president in Chile's history — Schaefer collaborated with dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Soon after, Dignity Colony was the scene of torture and disappearances of those who resisted the military dictatorship.

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Schaefer died in a Chilean jail in 2010 while serving a 20-year sentence at the age of 88.

Former members of the sect asked for forgiveness and issued a public apology for their acts in 2006, according to the Daily Mail. They said that they were moved to do the things that they did because many of them believed that Schaefer was god.

Last year, in an attempt to acknowledge human rights abuses committed at Dignity Colony, Germany said that it was declassifying documents maintained on the sect. Former Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier confessed that over the years his country's diplomatic corps failed to put an end to the known abuses.