In the former West Berlin, the authorities have regularly placed homeless children in the care of pedophile men, and a recent study shows that this practice has persisted for decades, even after German reunification.
Beginning in the 1970s, Helmut Kentler, a professor of psychology, conducted an “experiment,” deliberately handing over homeless children to pedophile men because, in Kentler’s opinion, they were especially loving foster parents.
A study by the University of Hildesheim found that the Berlin authorities had been practicing the practice for almost 30 years and that foster pedophiles had even received childcare benefits on a regular basis.
Kentler, who died in 2008, once held an influential position at the Berlin Education Research Center and was convinced that sexual contact between adults and children was safe.
Berlin’s childcare facilities and the Senate have pretended not to see it or even directly supported it.
It came to light when two of the victims decided to share their experiences a few years ago, and since then the University of Hildesheim has also reviewed the cases of other potential victims and interviewed them.
The study found a whole “network” of educational and public childcare facilities, as well as the Berlin regional government, which “accepted, supported and protected” pedophilia.
Kentler himself met regularly with the children and their foster parents, but he never went to court because the victims were already statute-barred by the time the victims began to speak. It also prevented victims from claiming compensation.
Researchers have found that some foster fathers have held high positions in academia. Among them were high-ranking officials at the Max Planck Institute, the Free University of Berlin and the infamous and now closed Odenwald School, which came to the center of a large-scale pedophilia scandal several years ago.-
Sandra Scheres, Minister for Children and Young People of the Berlin Regional Government, acknowledged that these were “shocking and horrific” discoveries.
The first report on the Kentler Experiment was published in 2016 by the University of Göttingen. At the time, researchers acknowledged that the Berlin Senate did not seem interested in finding out the truth.
The German capital’s authorities now promise to fully investigate the matter.
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