Article 15 / 30 — 2025
Chronology of a Scandal
A good month ago, Falter published the first investigations into SOS Children's Villages. Educators are alleged to have subjected children and young people in the Moosburg Children's Village to inappropriate treatment; the organization and the State of Carinthia are said to have known about it.
Since then, events have been coming thick and fast. More cases emerged — also in Vienna. An investigation commission was set up. In mid-October, the organization announced that Children's Village founder Hermann Gmeiner is also alleged to have subjected eight boys to inappropriate treatment. Jürgen Klatzer and Matthias Winterer discovered that the organization's leaders probably supplied children to a major donor. Quite a lot.
We have tried to chronologically order the reports of recent weeks for you. There were quite a few — so please excuse if this gets a bit longer.
Moosburg, Imst, Seekirchen, Altmünster, Vienna, Nepal
Falter uncovered a system of inappropriate treatment in an SOS Children's Villages in mid-September. In the following weeks, more and more cases came to light.
September 16, 2025: Falter publishes the first investigation into the SOS Children's Villages in Moosburg. Until just a few years ago, educators are alleged to have systematically subjected children to inappropriate treatment, locked them in inappropriately, photographed them in an exposed state. A study documenting the inappropriate treatment was kept secret.
September 18, 2025: The public prosecutor's office announces it will re-examine the Moosburg Children's Village case. "After the reports about the allegations in the Moosburg Children's Village, we will look at the proceedings from that time again," the spokesman for the Graz Senior Public Prosecutor's Office tells Falter.
September 19, 2025: The first cases in Tyrol become known. The child and youth welfare office confirms to APA that there are five cases of "suspected endangerment of child welfare" at the Imst location. The public prosecutor's office is examining initial suspicion.
September 22, 2025: Former Supreme Court President Irmgard Griss takes over the chairmanship of a commission to investigate allegations of inappropriate conduct in SOS Children's Villages.
September 23, 2025: Falter reports on another study from 2022 that investigated cases of inappropriate conduct at the first SOS Children's Villages in Imst. "Everything points to the fact that the organization's leadership and the authorities had long known about the cruelties — well before the two studies," write colleagues Matthias Winterer and Jürgen Klatzer.
September 24, 2025: The Salzburger Nachrichten report on investigations against a former employee of the SOS Children's Villages in Seekirchen. A 50-year-old man is alleged to have subjected two girls (10 and 13) to inappropriate treatment in 2020.
September 25, 2025: The Carinthian public prosecutor's office investigates employees of the State of Carinthia on suspicion of abuse of office. There is "initial suspicion based on the reporting that not all suspicious circumstances were brought to the public prosecutor's office," says spokesman Markus Kitz.
September 29, 2025: The Innsbruck public prosecutor's office initiates investigations against unknown perpetrators regarding the incidents in Imst.
October 4, 2025: The supervisory board of SOS Children's Villages suspends managing director Christian Moser with immediate effect.
October 10, 2025: SOS Children's Villages sets up a contact point where people who "have experienced injustice" can come forward. Within the first two and a half weeks, there were 26 reports.
October 23, 2025: SOS Children's Villages announces that serious allegations of inappropriate conduct exist against the organization's founder, Hermann Gmeiner. He is alleged to have subjected eight minor boys to inappropriate treatment. Further affected persons could not be ruled out, says managing director Annemarie Schlack. The transgressions are said to have taken place between the 1950s and 1980s at four locations in Austria. SOS Children's Villages had compensated the affected persons with up to 25,000 euros and coverage of therapy hours. Between 2013 and 2023, SOS Children's Villages's affected person protection commission received around 200 reports of inappropriate treatment.
October 24, 2025: Numerous places named after Gmeiner are to be renamed (including Hermann-Gmeiner-Park in Vienna). In Imst, two monuments have already been dismantled. On the same day, the umbrella organization suspends SOS Children's Villages Austria.
October 28, 2025: Falter reports on new, serious allegations. Internal documents indicate that SOS Children's Villages leaders — above all Gmeiner's friend and successor Helmut Kutin — delivered boys from Nepal to a wealthy major donor for years. The suspended managing director Christian Moser is also said to have known.
October 29, 2025: ORF reports on a man who is alleged to have been subjected to inappropriate treatment and physical transgressions in the 80s and 90s at the Altmünster Children's Village in Upper Austria.
October 30, 2025: According to the Kronen Zeitung, a social pedagogue was sentenced to two and a half years in prison (not yet legally binding) this summer for inappropriate conduct involving minors in Vienna. The 50-year-old worked as a caregiver in a Viennese Children's Village.
October 31, 2025: According to a Kurier article, investigations are also underway in Lower Austria. There are allegations against a social pedagogue who is said to have bullied children.
November 3, 2025: Carolin Porcham is appointed as the third managing director alongside Annemarie Schlack and Nora Deinhammer.