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Abuse in Feldafing children's home in the 60s: Victims describe cruelty in the basement and sacristy

2021-06-22T12:32:46.013Z


The dimension of the ritualized sexual violence in the Feldafing children's home "Haus Maffei" in the 1960s is frightening. According to the victims, almost the entire educational staff was involved - and the esteemed village pastor Otto Oehler, who is said to have abused children in the sacristy.


The dimension of the ritualized sexual violence in the Feldafing children's home "Haus Maffei" in the 1960s is frightening.

According to the victims, almost the entire educational staff was involved - and the esteemed village pastor Otto Oehler, who is said to have abused children in the sacristy.

Feldafing - How cruel the conditions in the Feldafing children's home "Haus Maffei" were in the 1960s is only becoming known to the public today. And when the victims tell about it - as on Wednesday evening in a report on the BR program "Controvers" - then it is incredibly difficult for them. Older men cry in front of the camera because everything comes up again - even or especially after so many years.

A former home child from Oberammergau gave the Starnberg Merkur detailed and frightening insights. The man, who does not want to be named, visited the Hansel and Gretel home there as a child. He himself was not abused, he says. But a clergyman tried. Today he supports the victims of abuse. He belongs to the private research group that made the serious allegations against social organizations, the church, the Munich youth welfare office and other participants in a “criminal network” public a few months ago. Before that, the group had had long conversations with three people affected (two men, one woman) who had lived in the Maffei House at the time, and had written them down. The result is almost 500 pages.

The crime scenes are also called Oberammergau, Ettal Abbey and Salesianum Munich. But what happened in Feldafing is unique, says the man. It is said to have been the most brutal there. “The continuity, intensity and density of crimes” are unimaginable. Almost all of the staff are said to have been involved. The educators of the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, the sponsor at the time, are said to have beaten and tortured the children "indiscriminately and without reason" - using perverse methods that should not be explicitly mentioned here. We are talking about ritualized sexual violence. The children - around 80 lived in the home - were held, tortured and raped in the basement. They were forced to remain silent - with threats like "otherwise you will go to hell".According to the research group, some later committed suicide. Others still suffer from the psychological consequences today.

The victims returned to one of the crime scenes to watch television

For television, the victims returned to a place where they were tormented.

They relived the worst situations in their heads - in the sacristy of the old Feldafing Church of St. Peter and Paul.

In the TV report, one of them says: “The two home managers were the worst.

They locked us in the basement so that we would also be available to other people who sexually messed us up.

The village pastor was one of them. "

Otto Oehler is his name, he died 30 years ago. He must have been a popular man back then. “It may have been 500 to 600 Feldafingers who came to the last service to say goodbye to their pastor, Otto Oehler. All Feldafing club flags, the altar boys and the clergy moved in with a festive organ playing ", wrote the Starnberg Merkur in May 1968. 40 singers and 15 instrumentalists played in Oehler's honor, three school children read a poem, the clerk thanked him for his" quiet and yet very energetic work ”.

The pastor preached on Lake Starnberg for more than 20 years before moving to the Allgäu.

The new Holy Cross Church was built under his direction.

On the day of the inauguration festival, it was not only he who abused the children in the home who helped to organize the service.

After the mass, they were distributed to pastors around Lake Starnberg.

The man from the TV report had to go to Leoni.

The historian's preliminary study will be ready in July

The former child from Oberammergau says about Oehler, who is said to have been violent for years: "He was not an organizer, he benefited from the offer of the home." The Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband allowed all of this, probably also the exchange of children with other institutions and among priests.

Prostitution is a suspicion of the group, and after so many years, they are unable to provide evidence of the abuse cases. The crimes are statute-barred anyway, most of the alleged perpetrators have long been dead. Pastor Otto Oehler died in 1991. The association initiated a process, the preliminary study by the historian Prof. Annette Eberle should be ready in July. She wants to create a broad foundation of sources that the main study should then evaluate. Some Feldafingers have already contacted her, she also has contact with former employees, she tells Starnberger Merkur. She heard more and more from Pastor Oehler that he had a love affair with the pastor's cook.

The diocese of Augsburg has now recognized that he abused children.

Four former home residents have each received 20,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering, including the three for which the research group is campaigning.

“A scandalously low sum,” says the member.

The wife of a victim does not find the compensation appropriate either.

In an e-mail published online, she writes: “On the one hand, therapy costs are promised, but these costs can be canceled very quickly - because it turns out that therapy does not only take half a year, but years.” Who the Has seen the victim on television, he realizes that the process of coming to terms with it is far from over.

For some, it has only just begun.

Citizen's medal for pastors: reappraisal draws circles as far as the Allgäu

The Feldafing town hall is sensitive to the abuse cases from back then. Managing director Peter Englaender obtained several Merkur articles from the community archive - including one from February 11, 1987. “I wanted to know the pastor's name. I was worried that he might become an honorary citizen with us, ”he says. However, the article reports on the golden citizen medal that Otto Oehler was awarded in 1987 in Betzigau near Kempten in the Allgäu - “for his great services to the community”. The pastor retired in the Hochgreut district before he died in 1991 at the age of 90.


Englaender Betzigau's manager informed about the award of the pastor, who is now seriously accused - “as part of the collegial behavior. That was my intention, ”he says. He received an answer from Mayor Roland Helfrich, but only at the beginning of June and thus almost four months later. “I was annoyed, I would have expected at least a 'thank you for the info'”, says Englaender. Instead, Helfrich wrote that the “current tasks are fully occupied” and “have no interest in wanting to judge events of the past in a self-righteous manner with today's eyes”. Helfrich described Englaender's advice in the mail traffic as "instructive". Compared to the Starnberg Merkur, Betzigau's mayor now says: “I didn't want to trigger a general reaction to shouting.But we will work out the background and will talk about it in the parish council. ”He has been in office since 1996 and did not know the pastor before. But he now wants to speak to the elderly in the village - also to find out why Oehler received the citizen's medal at the time.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-06-22

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