| “I know of trials where all participants were agreed that the only insane person was the mad doctor present in the court room as an expert witness.” | |
| – Extract from a speech to the German Parliament by its member Julius Lenzmann, January 16, 1897. |
lthough Scientology has grown rapidly in Germany since the first German church was founded in 1970, the scale and ferocity of the attacks directed against it during the last two and a half decades is out of all proportion to the total number of 30,000 German Scientologists.
One might ask why there are any attacks against a religion which offers real hope of spiritual salvation to man, a religion which works hard to help the disadvantaged in the community and which engages in worthwhile social reform activities. Why the officially sponsored—and unconstitutional—discrimination against a belief system which holds that man is an immortal spiritual being; that there is a supreme being and that man’s nature is basically good; and that all men of whatever race, color or creed were created with equal rights?
To gain some insight into the present, it is necessary to look to the past. In the last five years, much has been written about the appearance of neo-Nazism in Germany, but little has been said about the fact that elements of old Nazism never died. True, many German government officials are well-intentioned individuals who believe in the Rechtsstaat (nation based on justice). On the other hand, a significant handful “turn a blind eye” and endeavor to portray these fascist elements as a fringe on the outskirts of German life. The most recent scandals, however, have underscored the scope of the problem and embarrassed Germany far beyond its borders.
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| Carrying forward into post-war Germany the death legacy of psychiatrist Ernst Rüdin (left), the father of racial hygiene, and killing expert Werner Villinger, was Hans Hippius (above), a student of Villinger. |
In the spring of 1995, the federal president had to strip a former SS soldier of the National Service Cross, First Class, when his infamous past was made known. And even more damaging, because of the extensive international media coverage they caused, are the revelations of racism, sexism and anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi actions at the New York office of the National Tourist Board.
Alarming as it is, the discovery of such “hornets’ nests” helps to explain the discriminatory actions of government officials against the Scientology religion and other minority religions in Germany. It illuminates the real reasons—as opposed to the purported ones—for the incessant attacks on the Church of Scientology.
The Men Behind the Nazi Extermination Program
However, to understand the reasons for the attacks on the Scientology religion, one must understand something about the history of Germany.
Observers at the Nuremberg trials observed that without psychiatry, the Holocaust probably never would have happened.
Why did it happen in Germany?
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, psychiatrists in Germany developed the hoax of eugenics, which, in turn, led to Hitler’s political ideology that the race must be improved by cleansing it of “inferior stock.” These psychiatrists helped push Hitler into power, clothed Nazi atrocities in pseudo-scientific terms and through their euthanasia program provided “authoritative” justifications for the killings.
