More than 500 boy members of the choir Regensburger Domspatzen Cathedral of St. Peter in Regensburg (Bavaria) were victims of physical and sexual violence, according to a German lawyer Ulrich Weber (Ulrich Weber). About this reports Deutsche Welle.
In crimes against children suspect a total of 49 people, nine of them are involved in sexual assault. Most cases of abuse occurred, according to the report, in the years 1960-1970, however, the individual cases of beatings were reported before 1992.
The singers describe their stay in the Regensburger Domspatzen as “the worst time of their life, bearing the imprint of fear, violence and helplessness”, and the famous chorus was referred to as “prison, hell, and the concentration camp.” Very often the violence occurred in the preparatory school choir.
The first data on violence in the children’s choir was leaked to the media in 2010. Regensburger Domspatzen is one of the oldest Church choirs boys in the world. His school was founded in 975. Thirty years, from 1964 to 1994, the Kapellmeister of the Cathedral worked by the brother of Pope Benedict XVI Georg Ratzinger (Georg Ratzinger). In 2010, he stated that he had no idea what was happening to his charges.