A little Jewish girl who had been called a pig for several days in succession refused to go to school any more. Boys and girls who used to play with her, turned their backs on her. The teachers showed her frozen faces—they would lose their posts if they did not.
The two children of a Scientologist were banished by the rest of the school and a sign placed in front of the children’s playground stating that Scientologists are not wanted.
n the 1930s, the Nazis manufactured a climate of hatred against the Jewish community by propaganda intended to sanctify their persecution. To strip the Jewish people of the protections traditionally given to religious communities, Nazi leaders insisted that Judaism’s claim to be a religion was a fraud to disguise criminal and economic motives.
Today, to try to justify radical and unconstitutional measures against the Church of Scientology, some German government officials have claimed that Scientology is not a religion but rather a ruse. They simply disregard dozens of court rulings, scholarly expertises and governmental acceptances, which have independently affirmed Scientology’s religious nature, and ignore official findings which have discarded baseless accusations of subterfuge and ulterior motives.
Claudia Nolte, Germany’s Federal Minister of Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, is one such official. Relying on nothing other than hateful rhetoric, she and a handful of other politicians have called for repressive and unfounded measures to put Churches of Scientology in Germany under surveillance by the federal government.
When such threats are tested against actual facts, however, the picture is different.
On October 24, 1996, Germany’s Conference of Ministers of Interior issued a report in which they admitted, as noted by a leading German newspaper, that “no concrete facts exist” to justify such measures.
The unfounded accusations of officials such as Minister Nolte contrast sharply with the results of such factual tests. For instance, Minister Nolte issued an inflammatory propaganda brochure on Scientology which relied in part on accusations of a convicted felon who had gone to jail for attempting to frame the Church for his own crimes.
In a climate of hate campaigns created by irresponsible politicians, facts are forgotten and constitutional rights are ignored.
Why are some German officials discriminating against Scientologists? There is no legitimate reason, just as there was none for the persecution of the Jews. And, let us not forget, Germany has no tradition of religious freedom.
German officials have refused 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
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