just released a report detailing thousands of sexual abuse cases here in germany at the opening of the meeting of the country's bishops conference now the study found that priests had abused more than three and a half thousand children in teens in germany over seventy years the victims were mostly male and were mostly children well over one and a half thousand priests and other officials are accused of committing those crimes critics the study as well as its authors say the true scale of the abuse was probably far greater. threat. well for more on this let's bring in martin keyes d.w. is religious affairs analyst and has been dealing with this topic now for several years martin tell us how could crimes of this nature be committed for so long in this country in germany without anyone really catching wind of it i think mainly because we have seen many other cases in other countries we have something that