Edelweiss (sect)

Edelweiss was a destructive sect that existed in Spain from 1970 to 1984. Its creator and founder Eduardo González Arenas, nicknamed Eddie and former Spanish legionnaire, was repeatedly convicted of crimes against sexual freedom. of minors. Having as support an association, made up of up to 400 children between 11 and 14 years old, González Arenas used it to commit abuse and corruption of minors.

In November 1984, after receiving multiple complaints that forced him to transfer his activities, the police arrested him in Lisbon along with ten monitors. After the trial, held in 1991 and considered the largest trial for corruption of minors, its founder was sentenced to 168 years in prison, of which he spent 6 in application of the old penal code. He was murdered by one of his followers in Ibiza in 1998. Edelweiss is considered to have been one of the most dangerous sects in the history of Spain, mixing concepts such as Nazi ideology, aliens and sexual abuse.

Ideology

The sect advocated homosexual relations between minors based on a way of life that, according to its founder, existed on a distant planet called Delhaiss, where the members of the sect would be transferred, once they had a degree of learning suitable for travel to it and save yourself from a hypothetical and near end of the world.

There was an oath with the following formula: "I swear on my honor to fight and belong to the Iron Guard of Delhais until my death, defending three fundamental and universal concepts: love, justice and freedom, applying them to myself, walking the path of truth, until I reach perfection on the planet Delhais, in the service of my prince, the Great Alain".

History

Edelweiss began to organize at the end of 1970 in Madrid with the name of Edelweiss Mountain Youth Association, becoming known as Edelweiss Green Berets in 1971. From their original location, provided by the parish of Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Corazón in the district of Chamartín, they began to operate in four schools and three parishes in Madrid, later spreading to Cáceres, Alicante, Vigo, the Canary Islands and Badajoz. The way in which minors were recruited was through various mountain groups that were successively created in different Spanish cities. The name of the sect comes from the Snow flower, or Leontopodium alpinum, which grows in small groups in the high meadows and rocky areas of the European mountain ranges.

In the fall of 1975, around 400 teenagers had passed through the sect's centers, of which approximately 50 (less than 8 of them were girls) became part of the structure. Around this time Eduardo González Arenas was reported to the police by some members of the group, accused of appropriating the association's money, which led him to abandon the first structure and immediately develop another similar one with three areas, the so-called rangers. who were the public face, the sectarian nucleus Edelweiss transferred from the previous association, and a phil-Nazi subgroup called Camisas Pardas. He married, in 1968, Julia Báez Trujillo, granddaughter of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo Molina, with whom he had a son. Once separated, he lived on Berruguete Street.

At the beginning of 1976 he was reported to the police again, accused of corruption of minors, for which he spent two months in jail. Upon his departure he reorganized the group again, creating the so-called Iron Guard of Delhaiss . The outings to the countryside in a chalet on the outskirts of Madrid included touching, masturbation and, in very rare cases, anal penetration of the boys. In the group there was an adult with whom some chosen ones were forced to copulate. These intercourse hurt them a lot because the girl moved very hard and Eddie told them that it was better to do it with a man, because according to his words "it hurts less from behind." Finally many submitted to the leader.

They met in Madrid in the areas of Parque del Retiro and Barrio de Salamanca. On field trips Eddie tried to catechize the boys with delusional ideas mixed with other theogonies such as those of Mission Rama, Children of God, the Nazis, the Legion or the novel Juan Salvador Gaviota by Richard Bach. Eddie was Prince Alain and Nazar of the planet Delhais. The boys would go to Delhais to a Paradise only for men, for which here they were already marked with the sign of Ummo on the inside of the forearm. They formed homosexual couples. They called his friend his A.P. They wore clothing culled from the Army: berets, mountain shoes with knee-high socks, or shirts from the Melilla Regulars with stripes with the signs of the Alpha and Omega.

Eddie had two wives, with one of whom he had a daughter. His journey with homosexuality, according to his testimony, began when he was masturbated by an older man in a urinal in Madrid, which left him very nervous and with strong feelings of guilt. He later told his mother, who told her husband and they sent him to a psychiatrist. This experience, as well as the shame generated, led him into a spiral of hiding his sexual inclinations, which was surely the cause that finally led him to trust his most intimate sexuality only with pure beings, boys.

In November 1984, the criminal acts committed were massively reported. In 1991, those who were already adults in 1984 were sentenced to various penalties. However, only the leader of the sect fulfilled his duty, while the rest of the convicts were given the condition of victim-executioner and were mostly pardoned. Among those considered victims-executioners are Ignacio de Miguel García-Mas, son of the sociologist Amando de Miguel, and Javier Bueno Huertas, the only defendants who acknowledged having achieved the rank of iron guard and having a marked mark in their left armpit.. The iron guards constituted "a sect within the sect", according to their former subordinates. "They were the ones who chose the minors with whom they would sleep when the group rented a house." An exceptional witness in his capacity as a former iron guard assured that there were disputes between the triumvirate (made up of Eddie, Carlos de los Ríos and Ignacio de Miguel) "to sleep with the same boys."

The leader, known as Eddie, was sentenced to 168 years in prison, of which he served only 6, as he benefited from different graces that the old Spanish penal code had. On September 3, 1998, a year after leaving prison, and when he had allegedly already reorganized the sect in Ibiza, an unproven eastern end, he was beheaded by a 17-year-old boy who belonged to the environment in which Eddie moved.

In popular culture

Edelweiss is a documentary series created and directed in 2021 by Eulogio Romero in which, in addition to reviewing its history chronologically, some of its members, researchers or journalists testify about their experiences. The series is hosted on RTVE Play, the video-on-demand platform of the public radio station RTVE.