Germany

Learn about Scientology history and controversies in Germany.

Germany in the News

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April 10, 1997 Scientologists Lose Case Against Germany The European Commission of Human Rights today threw out a discrimination case brought by the Church of Scientology against Germany on grounds that the sect had not exhausted domestic legal channels. Scientologists complained that the Government considers their church a commercial enterprise, rather than a religion. The church has also asserted that several German states have banned Scientology members from some jobs. Germany, lawsuits, Press, Scientology and Society
December 19, 1996 Germany Wanting Scientologists Out Germany created a government office Wednesday to coordinate its fight against the Church of Scientology and to keep people who are affiliated with the group out of key public jobs. Federal and state governments will work together to try to keep companies and people with links to Scientology away from jobs involving teaching and counseling, Kohl said in a statement. The German government claims Scientology is largely a money-making organization - with some traits of organized crime - that seeks world domination. Germany, Press
October 30, 1996 Bavaria Asks Disclosure of Scientology Ties The southern state of Bavaria said today that it would require all state employees to fill out a questionnaire detailing any tie to the Church of Scientology. The state chancellery said all applicants for state jobs, including teachers and police officers, would not be hired if they refused. Those already employed would face disciniplary measures if they declined. The move is part of a long-running effort by German authorities to stifle the influence here of the Scientologists. German authorites have charged that the group is a profit-making scheme and have denied it the tax breaks normally given churches and charities. Germany, Press, Scientology and Society
October 18, 1996 Scientology Ad 'Insults Jews' Germany's Jewish community accused the Church of Scientology of insulting this country and victims of the Nazis in an advertisement in The New York Times. Germany, Press, Scientology and Society
January 11, 1996 German Official Calls for Security Surveillance of Scientologists In the long-running duel between the German authorities and the Church of Scientology, a senior Government official urged today that it be placed under surveillance by the same internal security agency that tracks terrorists and political extremists. The official described the church as "one of the most aggressive groups in our society" and said she would "oppose the Scientology organization with all the means at my disposal." Germany, Press, Scientology and Society
September 25, 1995 Code Name: Snow White The Scientology sect is fighting for its position in Germany. With the most lavish PR campaign to date, the psycho-concern blasts its opponents with its hardest attack yet. A defector reveals why: Sect founder L. Ron Hubbard himself had early declared Germany to be enemy number one, he feared that German psychiatrists wanted to murder him. Germany, Press, Scientology and Society
September 25, 1995 The Empire of Evil Robert Vaughn Young: I spent almost 21 years in the sect, primarily as a staff member and later as a member of the inner circle. I know the secret language of the sect, its internal structure, its greed, its strengths and weaknesses. I know of the punishment camps, the beatings, of dubious sources of money and mysterious deaths. The organization is a totalitarian system that knows only one goal: Control over the planet. Only Hubbard's ideas are true, all others are forbidden. Every criticism is stamped as "criminal," critics are declared as "fair game." Germany, Press, Scientology and Society
December 26, 1994 Why Germany Warns About Scientology Many sociological studies have been done on the Scientologists that show that although this sect is not on the lunatic fringe, it still causes family breakups and emotional hardship to its victims. The German Government today is acting responsibly by trying to heighten awareness of a public menace. Germany, Press, Scientology and Society
November 7, 1994 Scientology and Its German Foes: A Bitter Conflict It would take something like an invasion of space aliens - maybe something out of an L. Ron Hubbard science fiction novel - to match the climate of fear and mutual suspicion that prevails between the Church of Scientology that Mr. Hubbard created and its frightened opponents in Germany. "Fear is part of their system - it's a totalitarian organization that seeks to control everybody else, a dictatorship," said Ursula Caberta y Diaz, who heads the four-member working group that was set up four years ago by the Hamburg government to combat the Scientology movement and that has tried to get the courts to declare it a criminal conspiracy. Germany, Press, Scientology and Society, Ursula Caberta