Listening to the word Edelweiss some will think of smiles and tears;Others in a flower, but those who have more memory will remember what was probably the most dangerous sect in the history of Spain, a criminal organization that mixed Nazi ideology, aliens and sexual abuse.Edelweiss was one of the paramilitary groups founded in the seventies by Eduardo González Arenas, aka Eddie, former legage and member of a accommodated family Madrid;the flutist of Hamelin, as the lawyer of the accusation Fernando Oliete in the trial that took place in 1991 was called;God, in the words of his lieutenant Carlos de los Ríos.A psychopath, according to the psychologist and criminologist Vicente Garrido.For almost three decades, hundreds of children between seven and 14 years suffered abuses in the different organizations that he launched almost with total impunity thanks to their family contacts, until in 1998 he was slaughtered by a teenager on the terrace of an Ibizan ice cream shop.
The Edelweiss case is the protagonist of the first original RTVE Play production.This documentary series, titled Simply Edelweiss and directed by Eulogio Romero, has testimonies of some protagonists of the story such as Carlos de los Ríos, right hand of the Eddie, and José Antonio Ávila, inspector of the case in the eighties.Also with the opinion of experts in sects such as Eduardo Bravo, who anchors the roots of the organization in the rise of ufology triggered by the alleged UFO sightings that obsessed part of Spain in the late sixties and specifically in the Ummo case, name of the false planet whose symbol were recorded under the armpits the members of the Iron Guard of Edelweiss with a hot iron.
That Spain of the late sixties who looked at the sky so as not to see what was happening on Earth was a propitious land for destructive sects such as the children of God whose leader, David Berg, persecuted by the US authorities, established his base in Tenerife in theseventy.The Canary Islands was also one of the points where Edelweiss developed his minors prostitution network, but his nucleus was in Madrid, specifically in the well -off areas where González Arenas moved comfortably.
Eddie wove her spider weat.It was worth the involuntary complicity of renowned parishes and schools to attract children, to which it offered to be part of a mountain group that developed various activities in the Sierra de Guadarrama.I was special care to be children from wealthy environments but with affective deficiencies or family conflicts.He offered them a space in which to feel safe and special."We believed more than others," says David P in the documentary., one of the victims.Also had the cooperation of parents who couldn't even imagine what really happened.“One day comes the child, who is 13 years old, and says he leaves with other friends;And you can't deny, of course, ”a family member told El País later.“I was surprised that some 20 -year -old men were an excursion with such little boys...But there were children from acquaintances and the elderly came home and said there was no care ”.
The activities that were developed during those outings to the Sierra were similar to those of any military academy, one of Eddie's great obsessions."Since the early seventies until November 1984 when the Police dismantled Edelweiss and arrested its leaders, all mountain groups organized by Eduardo González Arenas supported themselves on three of their obsessions: men, planets and uniforms"Pablo Ordaz said in a report published in El País in 1996.In this "Philonazi Organization", as Eduardo Bravo is called "for her approaches, her ideology and their appearance", the children were dressed in the style of the Hitler youth: green shirt, slaughter pants or drums, red socks, beret and scarf.
That military training to which they underwent was oriented to survival in extreme situations.But, survive what?To the great nuclear cataclys that was going to destroy our planet in 1992.The known world was going to disappear and Eddie was the only without drugs".
But to access that salvation they had to commit to the group and one of the main fidelity tests consisted of accepting sexual relations with the men who indicated them.Because that was the real function of Edelweiss: to provide children to the pedophile Eddie and - previous payment - to other adults.At the time, the Gay Agama Association (Madrid Gay Assembly, of which the current COGAM would later be born) protested by the constant demonization of the homosexual term in the media when you really was talking about pedophiles.It did not serve much.
A dark song
“I swear for my honor to fight and belong to the Iron Guard of Delhais to my death, defending three fundamental and universal concepts: love, justice and freedom, applying them to myself, walking along the path of truth, until it reaches perfectionOn the planet Delhais, at the service of my prince, the great Alain ”.
These were the words that Edelweiss members had to pronounce to become iron guards, the maximum aspiration of any child within the organization.A ladder that worked like the Nazis Sonderkommands: they were children who had gone from victims to executioners, generally when they stopped being so young as to attract the leader, which happened around 12 years.In a strongly hierarchical pyramidal structure, they were the lieutenants of Eddie.The main one, Carlos de los Ríos, offers chilling testimonies - and little regret - in the documentary.Who does not appear is his other seuaz, Ignacio de Miguel, son of the sociologist Amando de Miguel who did spoke in 1991 in the popular court program presented by Francisco Pérez Abellán.
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De Miguel, who entered Edelweiss at age 11, was for his family ties one of the main claims of the sect.The parents of the other children trusted their ease of word and in their last name.In Abellán's program he confessed that he came to steal money from his family to give it to Eddie and that he recruited his younger brother.
The excesses of Edelweiss maintained a low profile until 1984, when, seen the accumulated complaints, the media echoed what was happening in that alleged mountain association.Some 30 families in the Retiro area denounced Eddie after a boy told his mother what really happened in the camping.To this was added the attempt by the sect of selling one of the children outside of Spain: Edelweiss was preparing the ocean operation, which would mean its international expansion.At that time I already had bases in the Canary Islands, Vigo, Cáceres and Alicante.Some of the captured later said that military training was intended to sell them as soldier children to the South American guerrillas.
Police interrogated the children of the complainants.The children had been threatened to be castrated if they counted something, but in the end, although the older ones remained silent, the little ones crumbled and spoke.When the arrests began, both Eddie and his lieutenants fled the country.
Those were not his first complaints.Prince Alain was an old acquaintance of the authorities who had a history by organization of pronazi ideology groups and corruption of minors.In 1976 he had been arrested after a complaint for abuse, but after six months in jail he had been released.When he left prison he had settled at his parents' house in Las Rozas and after forming a new mountain group in the area he was expelled from the urbanization without more explanations.On that occasion there was no complaint.No one wanted the scandal to come to light.He had also gone through prison in 1982 and during his brief stay in jail were from Los Ríos and Miguel who recruited the children with whom they would end up sharing a room in the court.
Edelweiss had also been the continuation of another paramilitary organization called Edelweiss Green Boina.
The accusations against Eddie had already been news in the media, but it was not until then when they had true impact.Interviú magazine, whose pages the perfect journalist dedicated three reports exclusive to the sect, revealed that Eddie was divorced from a granddaughter of the Dominican dictator Leónidas Trujillo, with whom he had had a son.It was also learned that he had a daughter with one of the women of the sect (there was hardly half a dozen), because, according to Eddie, "the woman is an imperfection, a symbol of evil" and her access to the planet Delhais was vetoed.According to police investigations, the girl had been sold to a Sevillian marriage for two million pesetas.
"Everything of now could be avoided following our complaint at the police station in the Barrio del Pilar," complained the first complainant of the Edelweiss group in 1976."But most of the affected parents, among whom there were police officers, were afraid of scandal.".
In 1991, the case against the sect became the news of the year.He aroused so much media attention that by avoiding suffering to his children or his own shame almost 50 families withdrew the complaints.During the trial, one of the witnesses declared about sexual abuse: "It was something common".And he added: "We considered one more step to achieve perfection that, as chosen, would have to take us to the planet".It was also revealed that they were usually taken to hotels or pensions where unknown men abused them.That was the main route of financing of the sect.
"Edelweiss has disappeared, but not the spirit that encouraged her, and we will raise her again," said Eddie after the trial.He was sentenced to 168 years in prison, but served only six due to his good conduct, to his exhaustive knowledge of the Criminal Code that allowed him to take all possible benefits and that at that time the penalties against rape were ridiculous."It is always said that justice is the same for everyone, but I have always thought that it is not so and there is the circumstance that Eduardo González was in a good family," Judge Marta Díaz says in the documentary.
After leaving prison, Eddie settled in Ibiza, in Santa Eulalia, where her parents had a house.He set up a drink bar and changed the children of good family for uprooted by whom he thought no one would worry.But the complaints soon arrived.He was accused of three children between 11 and 14 years old, but again he was released.On September 1, 1998, a year after leaving prison, he was slaughtered with a ham knife by Juan Martín García, Juanito, an 18 -year -old buttons that had previously denounced him."I've done what I had to do.He will no longer bother more children, ”he said during the trial in which he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.23 years later, before the camera of Eulogio Romero, he asks: "Why do I have to be regretful?".
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