SOS Children's Villages Founder Hermann Gmeiner — Darkness Falls on the Shining Figure

Now the scandal around SOS Children's Villages also reaches the legendary founder and father figure of the organization. After Falter investigations it becomes known: The child protector himself subjected children to inappropriate treatment

He was a shining figure in Austrian post-war history — often mentioned in the same breath as Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi. Hermann Gmeiner, founder of the SOS Children's Villages, received dozens of awards and was nominated 103 times for the Nobel Peace Prize. When he died in 1986, even the New York Times dedicated an obituary to him. In Austria, schools, kindergartens, squares, and streets were named after him.

Gmeiner is no longer suited for homage since it became known that the child protector was allegedly a person who subjects minors to inappropriate treatment. Gmeiner is suspected of having committed "inappropriate conduct and inappropriate treatment" against at least eight boys in SOS Children's Villages. That was announced by SOS Children's Villages on Friday. The affected persons were each compensated with 25,000 euros. That is the highest individual sum that SOS Children's Villages generally pays out. The child protection organization had known since 2013 but remained silent for twelve years.

The Gmeiner case was ultimately set in motion by Falter investigations into a secret study that documents serious inappropriate treatment in a Children's Village in the Carinthian community of Moosburg in the recent past. Educators subjected the children to physical transgressions, locked them in, sanctioned them with food deprivation. The village director knew about it and was himself transgressive.

A week later, Falter uncovered similar conditions at the Imst Children's Village in Tyrol. They too had been documented in a study. But instead of revealing the abuses, the management of SOS Children's Villages shelved the documents.

Now the organization pledges improvement. Managing director Christian Moser, who was complicit in the inappropriate conduct, was suspended from duty. A reform commission under the leadership of Irmgard Griss, former President of the Supreme Court and former Neos politician, is to examine the entire SOS Children's Villages apparatus. The Hermann Gmeiner case can be considered the first working result of the commission.

For the organization, the case represents the deepest rupture since its founding 76 years ago. It was Gmeiner who built SOS Children's Villages, who expanded worldwide and thereby gave many children a home. But many feel deceived. Was he not the man he claimed to be after all?

Born in 1919 in the Vorarlberg community of Alberschwende, Gmeiner grows up on a farm at 1,300 meters above sea level. He is the fifth of nine children. The mother dies early; the children become half-orphans. The older sister takes over the maternal duties.

For Helmut Kutin, one of the first Children's Village children and later head of the organization after Gmeiner, this family constellation was the key experience for the later Children's Village idea: orphans and social orphans were to grow up in a family-like "living space ordained by God," with a mother and a father. The substitute mother sacrificed all her strength for the children. She needed no pedagogical training for this: "Instinctive mother love," as Gmeiner called it, was more important than pedagogy. The village director was the substitute father; he ensured order and obedience, when necessary also with force.

Many anecdotes surround Gmeiner. According to companions, he was not overly strict with the truth. He allegedly always embellished situations and events well. A Soviet boy in the Second World War is said to have saved his life. The many stories that Gmeiner spread about himself contributed to the legend-building.

Was it the influence of his sister as substitute mother, the Russian boy, or his inappropriate preference for children? What is certain: Gmeiner made his idea into a huge international organization. Today there are 572 Children's Villages worldwide. In Austria, SOS Children's Villages cares for around 1,800 children in residential groups, foster families, assisted living, and Children's Village families. In 2024, the organization took in 188 million euros; three quarters came from the public sector, the rest — around 45 million euros — was donated by Austrians.

But now substantial financial losses are looming. The damage to the organization's image from the revelations of recent weeks is enormous. The public prosecutor's office is investigating. The international umbrella organization suspended the Austrian sub-organization. All of this will likely have a negative effect on willingness to donate.

The new reform commission is to save what there is still to save. SOS Children's Villages promises transparency at all levels: "Now a clean sweep is being made," says managing director Annemarie Schlack.

With Hermann Gmeiner too. Throughout Austria, streets, squares, and schools are to be renamed: Hermann-Gmeiner-Park in Vienna's city center as well as the outpatient clinic at the Carinthian SOS Children's Villages. The State of Tyrol wants to revoke all his awards posthumously. And in Imst, where he opened the first Children's Village in 1950, the community is already dismantling the Hermann Gmeiner monument — a bronze figure under whose coat children seek protection.

The pedestal on which the father figure was placed is empty. What remains of the shining figure is darkness.