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Villa Baviera, (Bavaria Village) formerly named Colonia Dignidad ("Dignity Colony"), is a settlement located in an isolated area in the Province of Linares, Maule Region of central Chile, near the village of Parral. It was founded by a group of German immigrants led by Paul Schäfer in 1961. The full name of the colony was La Sociedad Benefactora y Educacional Dignidad, like its precursor which the immigrants started in the mid-1950s.
The colony grew to some 300 residents, both Germans and Chileans, and covered 137 square kilometers (53 square miles). The main activity at the colony was agriculture, but it also featured a school, a free hospital, two airstrips, a restaurant and even a power station. The colony was quite secretive, surrounded by barbed wire fences, searchlights and a watchtower, and contained secret caches of war weaponry (including a tank). Some have described it as a cult, though others considered it simply a group of harmless eccentrics. In recent years, though, some facts have emerged about the disturbing history of the colony. With Villa Grimaldi, it is considered as one of the most important detention and torture centers of Augusto Pinochet's era, and links with DINA have been alleged.
The colony grew to some 300 residents, both Germans and Chileans, and covered 137 square kilometers (53 square miles). The main activity at the colony was agriculture, but it also featured a school, a free hospital, two airstrips, a restaurant and even a power station. The colony was quite secretive, surrounded by barbed wire fences, searchlights and a watchtower, and contained secret caches of war weaponry (including a tank). Some have described it as a cult, though others considered it simply a group of harmless eccentrics. In recent years, though, some facts have emerged about the disturbing history of the colony. With Villa Grimaldi, it is considered as one of the most important detention and torture centers of Augusto Pinochet's era, and links with DINA have been alleged.
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