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.”

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.

n the 1930s, to demonize the Jewish community and make its persecution seem necessary to protect the German people, the Nazis claimed that “the Jews” were intent on dominating the world. Although the Jewish people represented less than one percent of the German population, the Third Reich propaganda ministry portrayed them as the sole cause of Germany’s economic and social problems, taking over the country and stealing jobs from “good Germans.”

     Today, in an effort to legitimize government discrimination against members of the Church of Scientology, a recognized religion all over the world, certain German government leaders have claimed that Scientology is trying to “take over” Germany and undermine the economy—an accusation just as absurd as that made 60 years ago.

     The Church of Scientology has long since recognized that the problem in Germany is not with the whole government, much less the German people. The instruments of propaganda, however, are very loud and often drown out the facts.

     For instance, in 1994, the state prosecutor in Munich, Bavaria’s capital, ended a politically inspired investigation begun 10 years earlier, because he had uncovered no violation of any law. In fact, in the 26 years that the Church of Scientology has existed in Germany, not once has a Church official been charged with, much less convicted of, any crime.

      Yet last week, the Bavarian government implemented a wholly undemocratic measure instigated by state Minister of Interior Guenther Beckstein to prevent the employment of Scientologists in the civil service—marking the first time since the Third Reich that people have been excluded from government jobs solely because of their religious affiliation.

      Protest has been raised from diverse corners of Germany. Among them, the chairman of the Central Committee of Jews in Germany, Ignatz Bubis, last week publicly criticized Bavaria’s decision not to employ Scientologists in the civil service. The head of Germany’s parliamentary interior affairs committee, Wolfgang Penner, said too that Bavaria was wrong.

      Despite a growing voice of opposition to the totalitarian measures against Scientologists, officials like Bavaria’s Guenther Beckstein stubbornly hold onto their undemocratic views—in the face of repeated findings by their own authorities that the Scientologists are doing nothing wrong.

      Why are German officials discriminating against Scientologists? There is no legitimate reason, just as there was none for the persecution of the Jewish people. And, let us not forget, Germany has no tradition of religious freedom as in the United States.

     Germany’s post-WW II Constitution guarantees the right to practice one’s religion. Because the Constitution makes discrimination against the Church of Scientology illegal, German officials have simply asserted that Scientology is not a religion. They ignore the dozens of court rulings, government findings and scholarly expertises that independently concluded that Scientology is beyond doubt a religion.

     German leaders have dismissed every request to engage in dialogue to resolve the discrimination occurring in their country.

     “Never again” must not be an idle slogan, it must be a promise we keep. True, no one has been killed or hauled off to death camps. But history has taught us that we would be at fault if we stood by and did not point out the alarming similarities between the 1930s and today. German officials protesting these comparisons should stop recreating the past and they will remind no one of it.

Germany Then and Now