Overview
- An independent team from Hochschule RheinMain released a final report that documents sexual and spiritual abuse by Hans Georg Wiedemann, a pastor and sexual counselor in Düsseldorf.
- Researchers say he abused his authority and promoted a message of “liberated sexuality” to make sexual boundary violations seem normal.
- The report details five adult cases that include forced kissing, attempts to have intercourse, and masturbation in the victims’ presence.
- The five cases span the early 1980s to the late 1990s, when Wiedemann was a prominent pastor with a progressive public profile that church leaders received with little scrutiny.
- After the report’s findings, the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland acknowledged a serious institutional failure and said it must learn from the case.