Contrary to what the Church of Scientology
affirms, current-day Germany is not a Nazi-like State. It is hard to
escape the fact, however, that some of the statements made by German
officials, and some of the measures taken, are strikingly similar
to what happened during the 1930's, at least in spirit if not in deed
The following statements is a selection
taken from a CoS'
report. I let the reader judge the appropriateness or
inappropriateness of the comparison.
Accusations
World Domination
Jews:
"The striving of the Jewish
people for world domination."
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Scientologists:
"Scientology is striving for
world domination."
Claudia Nolte, Minister for Youth
and Family
Affairs, April 1996
Jews:
"The Jews are our destruction
... What they mean to achieve by it is to destroy the German
state and nation. This plan must be frustrated."
Joseph Goebbels - Reichminister of
propaganda,
November 1941
Scientologists:
[Scientology pursues] secret
campaigns of conquest unknown to the public... we must use all
available means to uncover Scientologists. We must resist
them.... We must form a chain of defense.
Norbert Bluem, Federal Minister of
Labor, May
1995
Economic Infiltration
Jews:
In economics he [the Jew] undermines
the state.
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Scientologists:
Scientology... is secretly
undermining the economy.
Norbert Bluem, Federal
Minister of Labor, May
1995
Jews:
The Jewish influence on economic
affairs grows with terrifying speed.
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Scientologists:
Scientology wants to infiltrate the
trade and the industry in order to get a grip on the economy.
Claudia Nolte, Minister for Family
Affairs, January
1996
A State within the State
Jews:
"Consequently, this people [the
Jews] has always formed a state within a state. It is one of the
most ingenious tricks that was ever devised, to make this state
sail under the flag of "religion.""
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Scientologists:
"It is a state within a state
and has to be combated. Each of its members is a citizen of the
Scientology state. The aim is to take over the planet."
Ursula Caberta, Hamburg
Ministry of the Interior
August 10, 1996
"The most important Chamber of
Commerce in Germany has thus become "Jew-free.""
Voelkischer Beobachter
(People's Observer) April
3, 1933
Scientologists:
"The Young Union [of the
Christian Democratic Union] demands, inter alia, that the
administration of Lower Saxony becomes a "Scientology-free
zone.""
Nord West Zeitung, April 23,
1996
Jews:
"Anyone who still maintains social
relations with him [the Jew] is one of them."
Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister
of Propaganda,
November 1941
Scientologists:
"We need an all-out social
ostracism of the Scientology sect." Susan Eisenmann, CDU
Member of Parliament,
Baden Wuerttemberg, July 1992
Discrimination
Civil Service
Jews:
"One of the major reasons why
the old Prussian state was such a clean one was that the Jews
were granted only a very limited access to the civil
service."
Adolf Hitler, Letter to
Hindenburg, 1933
Scientologists:
"The Bavarian State government
is planning to no longer accept Scientologists in the public
service.... Applicants for public service... shall declare, in
writing, that they are not connected to Scientology, starting in
November."
Der Spiegel magazine, August
12, 1996
Jews:
"[T]he Bavarian Ministry of
Justice ordered that Jewish judges be replaced in criminal and
disciplinary cases and that Jews be prohibited from serving as
prosecutors."
from The War Against the Jews,
1933-1945 by Lucy
S. Dawidowicz
Scientologists:
"Membership in the Scientology
Organization is not compatible with service in the public
sector."
Johannes Gerster CDU Party
spokesman, June
1996
Jews:
"Jews are denied the right to
hold public office or civil service positions."
Reichminister of Interior Frick,
1933
Reichsgesetzblatt, page 277
Scientologists:
"Under the new Bavarian
regulations, people who have had links with Scientology in the
past ... have to demonstrate renunciation of them in order to
qualify for employment falling under state authority...."
Agence France Press, November 1,
1996
General
Jews:
"The inhabitants of this village
want nothing to do with Jews."
Billboard slogan issued by Nazi
District Propaganda
Offices in the 1930s
Scientologists:
"The renting of buildings owned
by the government to Scientologists or their companies must be
prevented. This would constitute some first measures to stop the
further spreading of the Scientologists in this city."
Antje Bumenthal, Christian
Democratic Union April
1991
Schools
Jews:
Professor Wolfgang Windelband, a Jewish lecturer, was
ordered by his university to leave his position and take an
inferior one in another city. He confided to a friend that he
would rather resign than make the journey, "If I went,
there would be Hitler Youth demonstrations against me, no
students would register for my work, and in a few months I would
be dismissed."
Scientologists:
A 55-year-old teacher took up a new position in a primary
school near Hanover. When it was learned that she is a
Scientologist, her classes were boycotted. She was dismissed
from teaching and forced to take up an administrative post.
Jews:
Students used firecrackers, stink bombs and tear gas to
protest lectures by Jewish professors. University administrators
expelled not the troublemakers but the professors.
Scientologists:
Using government propaganda against Scientology, a local
priest incited the community against a teacher because of her
religion, Scientology. Despite an excellent record, the school
authorities dismissed her from teaching and she will never hold
another class.
Jews:
Nazi "enlightenment" aimed at schoolchildren in
the 1930s included "Get the Jews Out!"-a game in which
Jews were to be driven out of Germany. More than a million
copies were sold in 1938.
Scientologists:
The current "enlightenment" campaign of the
German government has created new games of prejudice for
schoolchildren, such as the art exhibition that incited these
intolerant posters.
Jews:
"All public offices, whether
national, state or municipal, salaried or honorary, are closed
to Jews. ...The occupation of lawyer and teacher is closed to
them..."
From legislative proposal by
Heinrich Class, 1933
Scientologists:
"...the CDU wants ... to ensure
that 'members of Scientology are excluded from activities in the
public sector, especially... teachers, educators and
similar.'"
Christian Democratic Union
Regional Chief
Johannes Gerster, August 8,
1996
Jews:
"Jewish teachers may not give
private instruction to German children."
Order of Nuremburg legislation of
the Nazi Party
October 15, 1936
Scientologists:
"Members of the Church of
Scientology are considered not sufficiently reliable by the
Federal Employment Agency [to serve as teachers]."
President, State Employment
Office, Saarland,
March 17, 1995
Jews:
"In the coming summer term it
will be the duty of every German student to refuse to put his
name down for a course of lectures by a Jewish lecturer or to
attend one."
Director of Deutsche
Studentenschaft, Berlin 1933
Scientologists:
"Membership or support of the
Scientology organization by a teacher is highly
unsuitable."
Dr. Hirsch, president, Karlsruhe
Education Office,
1995
Art and
Sport
Jews:
"Due to demonstrations at the
premiere of Catherine the Great in Berlin, the president of
the Reich Film Chambers has banned this film which stars
Jewish actor Elisabeth Bergner."
Fraenkische Tageszeitung
(Fraenken Daily Paper)
March 10, 1934
Scientologists:
"We could put the film
[Phenomenon, starring Scientologist John Travolta] on the
index and prohibit it. I demand that the distributor
reconsider putting the film on the market!"
German Federal MP Renate
Rennebach, August 25,
1996
Jews:
"With the agreement of the
City Administration, the student union has launched
demonstrations and has succeeded in stopping any further
showing of the movie Path to a Good Marriage as the movie
contains 'badly disguised propaganda for the ideas of Van de
Velde'." (Hendrik van de Velde was a doctor whose books
were banned by the Nazis in May 1933).
Deutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung (German General
Newspaper) July 5, 1933
Scientologists:
"We are trying to prevent
people from associating the success of Cruise with
Scientology.... I got the idea after I saw the enthusiastic
reception John Travolta received at the Berlin film festival,
even though he openly admitted he is a Scientologist."
[Remmers called for a boycott of the Tom Cruise movie,
Mission: Impossible.]
Burkhard Remmers, CDU
Young Union
"The attitude of the Minister
of Propaganda Goebbels toward the film industry is known
throughout the world. He has decreed that no film may be shown
in Germany in the production of which a single Jew has been
involved as director, stage-manager, actor, singer, dancer,
scenario writer, composer, cutter, or sound director."
The Economic Destruction
of German Jewry by the
Nazi Regime 1933-1937
(published November 1937
by the American Jewish
Congress)
Scientologists:
"The State is providing funds
for the cultural program. In the course of preparing for the
cultural program, we had discussions with Mr. [Chick] Corea
that were broken off when it was discovered that he is a
Scientologist."
Letter from
Baden-Wuerttemberg state government
spokesman July 2, 1993
Jews:
In Canstatt in Württemberg, the
Jew Fritz Rosenfelder recently was kicked out of the local
Gymnastics Association. This is such a matter of course that
one actually doesn't need to talk about it. Jews are Jews and
therefore they simply don't belong to the German Gymnastics
Association.
Der Stürmer (The
Stormtrooper), July 1933
Scientologists:
Herbert Rech, member of the State
Parliament of the CDU from Bad Schoernborn, now warns about an
infiltration of the sports clubs by Scientologists.... The
sports clubs in the district of Karlsruhe should include an
incompatibility clause into their statutes, which excludes
membership in Scientology....
Badische Neueste
Nachrichten, May 5, 1996
Justification
Jews:
It is an open secret that the
American president, Roosevelt, has surrounded himself with a
large number of Jewish advisors. It is not difficult to guess
what sort of advice they will whisper into his ears.
Joseph Goebbels,
Reichminister of Propaganda,
November 1941
Scientologists:
As the reaction in the USA is so
vehement, one has to assume that [in] America... strategically
important positions are occupied by people who are working
according to L. Ron Hubbard's understanding of man.
Cologne City News-August 16,
1996 (Concerning
discrimination against
Scientologists in Germany)
Jews:
It is symptomatic that any measure
we take against the Jews is reported the very next day in the
British and American press. The Jews, then, even now have
their secret lines of communication to the enemy nations.
Joseph Goebbels, Minister
of Propaganda
November 1941
Scientologists:
At present Scientology is misusing
international concern ... to cause serious damage to the
reputation of the country [Germany] abroad, with an
advertising campaign in influential American newspapers.
Renate Rennebach,
Socialist Party spokesperson
December 1994
Jews:
"[Goering] assured us there
was no truth in what you fellows write about persecution of
religion here."
An American businessman
relating his discussion
with Nazi leader Hermann
Goering to journalist
William Shirer, August 16,
1936, Berlin Diary
Scientologists:
"[The] accusations are totally
absurd." German Foreign Ministry
spokesman Martin
Erdmann (referring to
reports by Scientologists of
discrimination by German
officials)
Whatever the worth of this comparison, it
does have an interesting aspect. It gives some distances to events that
are too close for us to judge adequately.
While, unlike the Jews, the CoS has its
share of responsibility to the vigorous reaction it encounters, it
remains that the current attitude of German officials are frankly out of
place, some of the statements made are outrageous, and some of the
measures taken are outright violations of basic civil and human rights.
For more information on that subject, check
the Country Report on Human Rights Practices
which the U.S. Department of State releases every year through its
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
It really is so sad that a country who has
such a heavy history in the realm of discrimination and ostracism should
engage in patterns that seem so strikingly similar. I sincerely hope
that at least some Germans will raise up and speak against this
mentality.
There is no need to engage in
discrimination in order to criticize Scientology. Quite on the contrary,
such actions only give a legitimate ground for the CoS to
complain against its opponents, and is counter-productive to the real criticism that can be levied against Scientology in the first place.
This web site is
NOT created by a Scientologist. It is created by a Scientology EX-MEMBER
who is critical of Scientology. However, this ex-member is ALSO critical
of the anti-Scientology movement. This does not make him a
Scientologist, nor a defender of Scientology.
