Guru of Sadism, Safely in Jail, Leaves Cult to Fend for Itself

The disembodied voice of a woman speaking Spanish with a heavy German accent echoes from behind the one-way mirror at the guardhouse. "You can go in now," she says, and the white metal gates to Colonia Dignidad, the secretive paramilitary religious sect that took refuge here in the foothills of the Andes more than 40 years ago, slowly swing open.

A winding dirt road leads to the compound where Chilean authorities say that Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi Luftwaffe medic turned lay preacher, sexually molested scores of young boys. A few yards away is a hospital where, according to former cult members, those who drew Mr. Schaefer's ire were drugged and tortured. And somewhere beneath the ground, human rights groups say, are the clandestine dungeons where Colonia Dignidad held the political prisoners who were entrusted to it in the 1970's by Gen. Augusto Pinochet's secret police.