Calls for Full Investigation: Number of Church Abuse Cases Continues to Rise in Germany

• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

Rolf-Michael Decker describes what he claims happened to him there as a 14-year-old. "We were sometimes locked into rooms in the attic, for example after attempts to run away," he recalls. "One night K., one of the teachers, stood in front of my bed and told me to come with him. He took me to his room, locked the door and told me to take off my nightshirt. He began fondling me and undressed himself in the process. It was all very strange to me, and I felt uncomfortable, but he threatened me, saying that if I didn't keep quiet I would be locked up for much longer."

According to Decker, other boys were also subjected to rape and anal sex over a period of years. He also accuses a priest who worked at the facility of sexual abuse. "During confession, he would ask us about obscene things while masturbating." Decker, 55, has already found four other witnesses.

An investigation into the dark past of the Franz Sales House could have been launched once before, in 2002. At the time, the director, who had been accused of sexual abuse, albeit not at the Franz Sales House itself, resigned immediately "so as not to harm the good reputation of the Franz Sales House over a transgression that happened long ago." The Church was apparently not interested in pursuing the issue further.

Today, however, the current director of the institution, Günter Oelscher, does want to see the abuse allegations cleared up, "regardless of (the effect on) the institution's image."

Pornographic Images

Apparently the order of the Salesians of Don Bosco has been particularly hard-hit. As a spokeswoman admitted in response to a SPIEGEL inquiry last Friday, abuse allegations have been leveled against four individuals currently or previously associated with the order, both members of the order and employees. They relate to the former Don Bosco Children's Home in Berlin, where two priests and an employee allegedly molested underage youths until the 1970s.

Another accusation is directed against a former member of the Salesian order, who worked in the Don Bosco Students' Home in the Bavarian city of Augsburg until the mid-1970s. According to spokeswoman Gabriele Merk-Horstmann, the order intends to look into "all allegations without regard to the identity of the individuals involved," and to "offer victims the support available to us."

Sexual abuse is also believed to have occurred in a children's home run by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in the town of Oggelsbeuren in southern Germany. A victim says that, as a child, he was required to bring the pastor his meals in his room. The pastor apparently showed the boy pornographic images while fondling him. The man was later transferred abroad. The case was submitted to the abuse commission of the Rottenburg-Stuttgart diocese late last week.

At a Catholic Marist boarding school in the Bavarian town of Mindelheim, boys aged 13 to 15 were allegedly summoned to the room of a lay teacher which was adjacent to the students' dormitory during the night. According to a former student, the teacher would then give the children brandy until they were drunk, and would then molest and, in some cases, rape them.

The witness estimates the number of affected boys at "10 to 15," just in his dormitory alone. Father Winfried Schreieck, the former director of the school, says today that he never heard of the abuse allegations. He adds that he is also certain "that those in charge of the order attempt to clear up any accusations that abuse victims report to the order."

Dozens of former victims of abuse have contacted SPIEGEL in the last two weeks with similar reports. Some say that now, decades later, they still feel disgust at the thought of the fondling, flirtation and kisses coming from the priests and laypeople, while others remain traumatized today after having been raped as children.

'Nothing Was Right in My World Anymore'

The names of the institutions, parishes and orders involved read like a who's who of the Catholic establishment. The Franciscans, for example, are dealing with charges of sexual abuse at a boarding school, long since closed, in Grosskrotzenburg near Frankfurt. A former student claims that several priests at the school engaged in abusive acts between the late 1960s and early 1970s. "We have contacted the former student, so that we can discuss the charges and, if possible, clear them up," says Hadrian Koch, the Franciscan provincial vicar in charge of the case.

Many Catholic entities and organizations, including the Salvatorians, the Pallottines, parishes, Church-run children's homes and scouting organizations, must now deal with allegations from former students.

Given their experiences, however, many victims have little confidence in an investigation conducted by precisely the institution that concealed the abuse, sometimes for years or even decades.

"What I experienced changed something fundamental in me," says a man who, as a child, was placed in a kind of relocation camp in Unna-Massen near Dortmund for ethnic Germans who were immigrating to Germany from former Communist countries. There, he was abused in a car by a priest from the Paderborn diocese.

"All of a sudden, nothing was right in my world anymore," the man recalls. "An offender like that has no idea what he's destroying in someone."

FRANK HORNIG, SVEN RÖBEL, MARCEL ROSENBACH, PETER WENSIERSKI

• Back
• 1
• | 2

• Part 1: Number of Church Abuse Cases Continues to Rise in Germany
• Part 2: 'We Were Locked in the Attic'