Paul Schäfer

== Early life and education==
Schäfer was born the town of [[Troisdorf]], near [[Bonn]], [[Weimar Republic|Germany]], to Anna (née Schneider) and Jakob Schäfer.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1991 |title=Schäfer Schneider, Paul |url=https://archivospublicos.uahurtado.cl/uploads/r/archivo-institucional-universidad-alberto-hurtado-130/f/7/2/f726407c85b60fb1a5bc3a46937c2c50a84a37d0692a2e9c234f8f48248a89ac/83-5-15.pdf |access-date=5 June 2022 |website=[[Universidad Alberto Hurtado]]}}</ref> He was described as a poor and clumsy student. Schäfer's family was Lutheran.<ref name="falc">{{Cite news |first=Bruce |last=Falconer |url=https://theamericanscholar.org/the-torture-colony/ |title=The Torture Colony |date=2008-09-01 |work=American Scholar |access-date=2020-04-02 |language=en-US}}</ref> In an accident with a fork, he lost his right eye.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kaes |first=Wolfgang |authorlink=:de:Wolfgang Kaes |journal=[[:de:Ledifaden|Leidfaden]] |date=2018 |volume=7 |number=4 |issn=2192-1202 |title=Empathie fuer einen Moerder? |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |location=Göttingen |quote=The boy poked out his eye when he tried to untie a knot in his shoelace with a fork. His classmates, who had already been teasing him incessantly, from then on only called him 'glass-eye'.}} "''Der Knabe stößt sich eine Auge aus, als er einen Knoten im Schnürsenkel mit einer Gabel lösen will. Die Mitschüler, die ihn ohnehin unablässig hänseln, nennen ihn fortan nur noch »Glassauge«.''"</ref> He joined a German [[YMCA]]-„Eichenkreuz“-Group.<ref>Friedrich Paul Heller: ''Lederhosen, Dutt und Giftgas. Die Hintergründe der Colonia Dignidad'', Schmetterling Verlag Stuttgart 2006, S. 13.</ref>{{When|date=July 2022}}
During [[World War II]] he served by carrying stretchers of the wounded in a German field hospital in occupied France, later in life claiming that his glass eye was the result of a war wound.<ref name="falc"/>