From: Renate Hartwig
March 21, 1999
This chapter out of my book, "The Conspiracy and the Companeros" (Metropolitan Publishing House), shows by virtue of fact that I was on the trail of an OSA spy in 1995. With further research, we managed to get more facts, proof of and witnesses to OSA activities, including spying, down to the intimate details. Within the next several days I will publish names and pictures of OSA spies and their connections, which extend to governmental and political positions. As an "entry point" in preview, here is the relevant chapter from the book:
Friendship with Judas
There have been many situations in my life which you could not only describe as having nicked my soul, but also as having deeply wounded it, leaving behind calloused scars. However, what I have experienced in the past several years in the dispute with Scientology and the resulting attacks have also transformed me.
I had to learn, all of a sudden, that openness and trust could be risky for me, yet today I still refuse to be fundamentally suspicious of each and every person. Because of experiences our family has had to go through, which have included certain preventive measures for the protection of our children, it is not as easy as it once was to extend hospitality and help from the innermost core of our family or from the office operations of Robin Direkt.
Upsetting Experiences with former members
At first the experiences I had in dealing with former Scientology members upset me no end. However, when I was able to sit back for a few minutes, or for a few hours if I was lucky, and think over the things that had been said or the situations which had come up, I realized that an ex-member could probably not act any other way, since he had been subject to pressure from Scientology for years.
Having performed "ethics drills," ex-Scientologists are inherently distrustful of each other. For that reason I soon became accustomed to hearing in my dealings with former members, "Be careful, look out for that guy. Think about what he said there. For sure he's a spy who's watching you."
At first I didn't know what to think about this. The joy of getting somebody out was not there because of the ever-present distrust that it could be "an OSA number." (OSA is the Scientology secret service.) My husband Paul and I often talked for hours about the abuses and behavior modifications produced by totalitarian systems, and about people who live in such systems being drilled to have a drastically altered awareness of society.
Designed with projection of the enemy picture in mind, the course programs are laid out so that the graduate, figuratively speaking, turns into a rubberneck from having to always look around him to see where his enemy is, to see who wants to do something evil to him, and most of all, to see who is keeping him from continuing up the path to "clear," a superhuman who possesses power over space, matter and time. Of course, an outsider who does not share this view of the course program, and who quickly scans over it to simply comment "what trash!", will hardly understand why the so-called graduates themselves, who include business people, attorneys, and dentists, most of whom believe that nothing could happen to them, stick precisely to the letter of the policies and laws of this organization, any more than will any other person you might meet on the street.
Distrust is part of the System
I have spent many hours of my life in discussion with former Scientologists to analyze this attitude of distrust - namely, this distrust is intended by the organization and is purposely inculcated into its members in order to exercise control over each one of them. At this point, you may recall former East Germany, where the Stasi secret police used informants for forty years and where nobody completely trusted anybody else, so that the heads of this system could live out their delusions unimpeded and they could have power over the entire country and its entire populace.
The same went for the Third Reich, in which Hitler and his true-blue followers utilized the Goebbels propaganda machine and the feared Gestapo to cause the voice of the opposition to go unheard. He who has recognized the danger of the structures and operational methods of such an ideology, and who knows the outcome to which they lead, cannot later say he did not know what would happen if mechanisms with a totalitarian objective were tolerated due to incorrectly understood liberalism, and if it were possible for an organization such as Scientology to march in this direction, unhindered, for 25 years in Germany alone.
Use of Agents completely normal
My personal adventures and experiences with former members have been altogether good, the couple of exceptions certainly being marked by personality and humanness. My husband and I have known over 500 ex-Scientologists from all over the world, with whom we have spoken, with whom we have celebrated, with whom we have laughed - and, in the bad times which circumstances of departure bring with them, for whom we were simply there.
From the documents which were available to me, it was clear, of course, that Scientology also attempted to place undercover types as ex-members into the critics' circles. Any person who has been involved with Scientology and who has come into personal contact with the Ethics Department or the Finance Police, or even the Scientology secret service, knows that the employment of such agents is not anything out of the ordinary, but is just part of the daily routine of cutting off the voice of the critics. As already mentioned, I simply bristled at the idea of reacting with distrust when confronted by someone who had left Scientology. I have personally maintained this openness in order to be there for those who wish to leave the Scientology organization, and then actually do it.
A man who called himself Martin
When I got a telephone call in the summer of 1992 from a man who called himself Martin, I considered it completely normal. I forgot it and had to think about who was when the same Martin called again. This time he told me that he had had contact with many forums critical of Scientology, but that I had earned his support based on my style of confronting Scientology. This was how, to all external appearances, a completely normal departure from Scientology led to a meeting in Cologne.
Member of Robin Direkt
Taking the daily events fully into account, the Scientologists' battle against me was not carried out wearing kid gloves.
At that time we were getting support from professionals whose daily bread it was to uncover criminal acts and part of whose job included preventive measures against organized crime and criminals. Perhaps this is a suitable place to say thank you to all these unnamed assistants. These are people who sacrificed their freedom to support us in our work and who also saw to the security needed to establish contacts clear across the country which made our aggressive information campaign possible.
Martin's wish to at last join us took place on the occasion of a Robin Direkt member meeting, after which he, as did many of the other former members who had traveled a long distance, stayed the night.
A striking curiosity and faultless Scientologese
As were all the others, Martin was introduced as one of those who succeeded in leaving the Scientology organization, and he told of his experiences. What stuck all of us was his improbable curiosity. He always had some kind of slip of paper in his pocket and was writing down names, telephone numbers and addresses of the people he met from my field of activity.
Today I am really glad that the extremely critical meetings about our methods of operation and the ensuing decisions about the safety of our association and its members included only the inner circle of the board of Robin Direkt and its selected supporters. A disagreement occurred between an ex-Scientologist woman and Martin. Since he had spoken faultless Scientologese to her during a telephone coversation and she had compared his appearance to that of an Ethics Officer, my husband and I tried to make it clear to him that his departure from Scientology also had to take place inside of his mind. After that there was a also a discussion among former members about how people could mutually help each other by using this terminology, especially in situations in which one wanted to achieve something. We, ourselves, had decided not to accept someone else's talking to us in pure Scientologese.
Or would you, dear reader, understand me now if I were to tell you something about "Mood TRs," "triple flows," "MEST bodies," "big tiger," "hat checks," "high tone arm," "false tone arm," "basic rudiments," "tractor beams," "prep check buttons," "routine 2-12A," "routine 3N2," "routine 3-SC," "routine 6," "routine 4-H," "routine 3D criss cross," or about "step 6 SOP 8-C"? Would you understand what is meant when you read, "that it is an iron-bound rule that we do not leave PCs in trouble just to end a session..."?
Or would you understand plans which read as those of the Stuttgart OT committee "to bring clears and OTs together in ARC and KRC, accelerate and promote the advancement of Scientologists over the Bridge, work out third and fourth dynamic projects for Clears and OTs in the field to become the strongest OTC in the world, and to attain regional PR control"? Those who have been trained in this terminology for years have a hard time shaking it. At the time we thought that perhaps it would help one or the other ex-member if he not only lived, ate, and drank with us together with our family, but also if he were to share the daily struggle in the family tragedies and catastrophes Scientolgoy caused others. That is how Martin came to spend an occasional long weekend with us, or even take a couple of days vacation in order to help us. He would not have known that something about the way he talked did not make sense to us and that we really did not understand why he was not ready to give us different proof about that which he continued to speak.
According to what he told us, he had successfully obtained a court order against Scientology in order to get back his money which he had paid in advance. I would have wanted to give other former members who had completely indebted themselves through the Scientology course system, and who lacked the confidence when they had left, the courage to demand their money back. I found Martin's manner to be unsocial and egotistical, and for this reason I became more sensitive.
Index cards, postal codes, phone calls ...
When Martin then offered his help in the office and wanted to enter the new postal codes on the index cards, my husband, Paul, gave him only a specially selected portion of the file, so that he knew exactly which cards Martin had worked on - only the index cards of those members whom we personally knew and who openly dealt with Scientology, namely, nobody whom we would put at risk.
I think it remains to be said that, to this day, none of those who were with us in the office noticed that safety measures were built in there, too, that made it only conditionally possible to come across certain information.
I am really glad that my husband has a good feel for such things, and that he made decisions which, in retrospect, proved to be unpredictably important.
Many oddities led to me to overcome the initial awkwardness with which I approached Martin. One of these situations was an extraordinary habit of his: upon receiving a phone call from either me or somebody else from Robin Direkt, he would always immediately end the conversation with some excuse, and then call back from his end a short time later. Because of his really not being able to afford these long-distance calls due to his financial situation, our wariness increased.
Can it be that someone in your ranks is spying for Scientology?
I got my first written contact in a letter from a man who had family members in Scientology and who were trying to bring Scientology back into the family.
I always get these kind of inquiries and I always ask back: how far along the training route has the person gotten in Scientology? Can you do anything - that means does somebody want the person out? I personally do not agree with getting somebody out with a "deprogramming operation." I only take the people who want to help themselves.
After years of social work I know that you can basically only help those who want to help themselves. The above-mentioned letter arrived in spring, 1994. Martin had just stopped by; I discussed the situation with him and asked him for his opinion. Martin was the only one who knew about this letter and the situation. Months later I received a call. The man identified himself and asked me if it could be that an informant was within our ranks? His sister had made him aware that she knew that he had had contact with us.
I immediately called up Martin and asked him up front how it could be that this Scientologist woman knew that her brother had sought my help, "Martin, you will concede that there are only two possibilities here - either the Scientologist woman lied or Scientology has an informant through whom it could have learned about this."
I not only wanted to signal my distrust to him with this conversation, but also to say that it was not possible to do any prying into Robin Direkt or into the Hartwig family without our being able to find out who the Judas was.
Because of the evidence we had of how Scientology had already attempted to permeate and investigate critics' groups in America in the 1970's, my husband, Paul, set up %100 verifiable safety mechanisms based on special training he had for just such cases.
"Come quickly, the telephone rang..."
As coincidence would have it, we had dream witnesses at hand when a very suspicious phone conversation occurred. We were having a discussion with commercial security people when the woman who had telephone duty at the time interrupted the meeting and said, "Renate, come quickly. The telephone rang and I picked it up - suddenly there were two people speaking with each other about you and some other people from the critic scene."
I took the receiver and it was really Martin in the middle of a game of twenty questions with a Scientologist woman.
Quite spontaneously, I said into the receiver, "Hello Martin, hello." The security officer who was right there with us shook his head and signalled me to relax. I handed the receiver back to the others, and they listened in as the Scientologist woman wanted to get some kind of information from Martin for the Scientology "Freiheitsspiegel" magazine, then he said in the dialogue with her that she should tune in her "secret service." They said good-bye and the Scientologist hung up - and then Martin called out, "Hello Renate! Did you hear everything? That was the head hammer, now they're trying to get something out of me!" I asked, "How did this phone call really come about?" The whole time I was thinking how it was possible for Scientology to have Martin's number. It was impossible to get the number from information because the connection was not his.
I then said, "There is still one item on which I am technically unclear. If you have two telephones and receive one call on the one telephone, then you must, when you found out who called up, have taken up the receiver of the the other telephone with the other hand and have dialed the number from Robin Direckt."
"Yes, that's right."
I ended the discussion with Martin, in which I said, "Martin, for now I'll tell you quite openly what irritates me: that this discussion took place just a couple of days after I told you that I am suspicious. Martin, I hope that I never have to call you 'Judas'."
After that conversation, the security people shook their heads and the elder of the two, who was in the investigative section of the police force for years, told me quite clearly, "Look out, girl. This stinks."
Photographs of the birthday celebration
Then came my birthday. Since my daughter and I have birthdays on the same day, it is a marvelous celebration every year. In 1994 we reserved a local Greek place for the celebration. Only a few, close friends knew of this celebration. My daughter and I enjoyed ourselves immensely as we welcomed the friends we had invited wtih a merry "hello." Shortly after six, the bell rang. Martin said he wanted to help me celebrate my birthday, and that this would mean a lot to him. As he stood so unexpectedly before me, I thought that perhaps it would be best to use the occasion to do away with any past misunderstandings.
An outstanding meal in the local Greek place, trouble-free hours full of merriment. Martin was the only one photographing the event, but that was nothing unusual since everyone know that his hobby was photography. As impartial as I was to being photographed in June 1994, that is how allergic I am today when someone around me starts snapping away.
For a week I asked Martin about the pictures. At some point my patience ran out. "Where are the photos of my birthday? I bought the film for you, naturally I'll also pay for the development, but I want the pictures with the negatives within the next 48 hours."
Three or four days later the photos of my birthday were in the mail. The negatives were with them. I showed the photos which Martin had made to a couple of people who were with me on my birthday and who worked in security, and asked them what they thought of them. All persons had been individually photographed. Each one a close-up. Very few pictures of tables with several people sitting together. Hardly one shot of the social scene which had taken place on that evening.
Months later I found out from a journalist acquaintance who was at the birthday celebration that one of them had wanted to do an interview with a Scientologist, who told him, "I'm not speaking with you. You're a friend of Hartwig's." He was quite puzzled, since nobody knew of his friendship with my family. He had asked her, "where do you know that from?" The Scientologist said, "You were even at her birthday party." The journalist said, "Aha, and you, who live a couple of hundred kilometers away, know who was with Hartwig on her birthday!"
The Scientologist answered with a presumptuous grin, "There are pictures."
Errors in Addresses
Some time later we called together a special members meeting of the Robin Direkt Association where we were to discuss internal matters. Interestingly, members of Robin Direkt had been sent leaflets from Scientology - that is, each member whose name was on the index cards I mentioned in the beginning.
Scientology knew about this special members meeting and they probably also had the invitation out of which could be read that we were to discuss the leaflets and, mainly, how Scientology had come upon the addresses of specific members.
As a regular member, Martin, of course, had also been invited. He did not come, so we could not jokingly ask him, "Martin, do you have an explanation for how the Scientologists would have come upon these addresses - which have the same errors as those on the index cards?
That year the Robin Direkt membership changed some rules which put the board and the supporters in the position to build in more protective measures to prevent the possibility, once and for all, of information leaks.
I did not see Martin any more from that point on. He wrote me two brazen letters, and it would not surprise me if one of these letters were to appear sometime as a Scientology flyer or show up amongst the Scientology companeros. In the meantime Martin has gotten involved in another initiative which, according to a letter we have from him of August 20, 1995, works nationwide on the solution of problems such as the ones encounterd by several special religious and philosophical communities.
He wrote this letter on the letterhead of the initiative to the Munich state court in order to receive a copy of a judgment which had been recorded. The same Martin who swore to me for years - before witnesses, on the telephone and even in writing, that he was my friend, who was also with me in times of difficulty with Scientology, now wrote to the court that he needed the records, because "they would support the assertion distributed by the Scientology organization that Mrs. Renate Hartwig was a fraudulent liar..."
I am not the judge of whom had been ultimately served by this method of Martin's for over two years. I do not want to be a judge. I have only learned one thing: not only does one need good nerves, but also a very sound environment, to survive a friendship to a Judas unharmed.
[The above is an English translation of the original German on Renate Hartwig's page.]
http://www.renatehartwig.de/ren-har/index.html