Big Brother is helping
The U.S. State Department intervenes in dispute between the sect and the Hamburg planning office
Hamburg, Germany
December 27, 1999
Focus 52/1999Every building owner knows that structural alterations of a building require a permit. Apparently the new occupant of an office building on 9 Domstrasse, not far from the city hall in Hamburg, does not know anything about that. The Scientology sect moved into the domicile in November, after they had to give up their old haunt because of a notice to vacate issued as a result of the millions owed in back rent.
That kind of hardship no longer troubles them. According to findings by Hamburg security officials, the well-to-do Scientology boss, David Miscavige, was personally involved in the purchase of the building by the Waterfront Real Estate Management Association.
One real, small problem remains for the psycho-sect - the permit for building alteration. Because no application had been submitted to the planning review office in the mid-Hamburg district which has jurisdiction over the building, a staff member from that office visited the Scientology center to get a quick look at the construction work in process, and to notify the Scientology association of a deadline to submit the necessary documents. The sect reacted promptly. Only 48 hours after the visit, Michael Budig paid a visit to Ursula Caberta, the Scientology Commissioner of the Hamburg Senate, to gather information on the conflict. Budig does not have anything to do with the sect; he works as a speaker for politics and commerce at the American general consulate in Hamburg. The diplomatic representatives had been instructed by the State Department in Washington to look into the case.
A surprising precedent. Because a German association, the "Scientology Kirche Hamburg, e.V.", had trouble with a local planning office, it called in the American State Department. The consulate evasively stated that they had the duty to inquire as to problems of U.S. citizens. As Budig told Caberta, however, the only one who had approached him besides the State Department was Gisela Hackenjos, the President of Scientology Hamburg. And, as far as Budig knew, she did not carry an American passport.
In the meantime, the Senate chancellory has pointed out the German legal situation to the Consul General. This was not the first time the United States has taken sides for Scientology. In the mid-1990s, for instance, the USA applied to the OSCE for condemnation of Germany for alleged human rights violations. And in a report by the Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress, Germany was chastised for alleged persecution of Scientologists. To be sure, the events described were traced back to the propaganda of the sect.
Axel Kintzinger
Invasion from Vega?
The Octopus: the trail leads to America
Hamburg, Germany
October 29, 1999
Hamburger MorgenpostThe money- and psycho-sect of Scientology celebrated the acquisition of its new center on Dom Street by city hall on Monday with many Scientologists who were flown in for the occasion. The MoPo [this newspaper] has now found out: the trail of the Scientology Octopus leads across the Atlantic towards the USA, to Washington.
"We're all going to Hamburg! The International Association of Scientologists is handing over the new Org!" David Miscavige, President of the "Religious Technology Center" and sovereign ruler of Scientology, betrayed with these words at a sect celebration in Great Britain last Sunday that the new Hamburg branch was openly operating on instructions from headquarters in Los Angeles - apparently the crumbling German organization was no longer entrusted with the new building.
The MoPo did some research: the new, not quite 20 million mark building on 9 Dom Street is currently in possession of the "Waterfront Grundstuecksverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH". Robert Roseman, Potsdam, is registered as the point of contact. Lot capital: 5.75 million marks. But one may not meet the corpulent Roseman (nickname: "Bud") all too often in Potsdam: the attorney has his office in the offices of "Williams, Mullen, Christian & Dobbins in "The Farragut Building" on 17th Street in Washington, DC. Scientology spokesman Georg Stoffels on the new lessor: "We have a good relationship."
It has to be more than good: "Waterfront" also is recently listed under the address of "9 Dom Street."
Domestic security agents defeated: even Hamburg's Constitutional Security agents were taken by surprise that the psycho-sect has "moved up a step," admitted Manfred Murck, Vice Chief of the State Office of Constitutional Security. Even though this will have the effect of being "more motivating," he had not reckoned with a drastic change in operation. His office had counted only about 1,000 Scientologists in northern Germany.
"That would be the first time that the highest Scientology level of management had bought something like that. That has never happened before. Naturally, Hamburg Constitutional Security cannot have have anticipated that something like this would have happened," said Ursula Caberta, Scientology Commissioner of the Interior Agency. The Scientologists have made the hard-pressed Hamburg "Org" into a "status symbol," "otherwise I would have won."
Scientology sees all that quite differently: they say that Caberta is a "blind fanatic who is not afraid of telling provable lies." They said that it was not because of unpaid rent, but because of defective heating and water damage that they had moved from the old center on Steindamm in the direction of city hall. They said there would be no more rental arrears after a legal settlement was made.
Guenter Beling
Temporary Restraining Order
Hamburg, Germany
August 28, 1999
Berliner ZeitungZDF
Hamburg Scientology Commissioner Ursula Caberta has gotten a temporary restraining order against ZDF in the Hamburg State Court. Based on her claim, the court prohibited further distribution of a film broadcast by ZDF last week, "Das Netz - Scientology and the Real Estate Market," because it contains statements which discredit her, stated the Interior Agency on Friday. ZDF announced that it would fight the order with all legal means available. (dpa)
ZDF may not
Hamburg Scientology Commissioner Ursula Caberta has obtained a temporary restraining order in the Hamburg State Court against "Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen." The court prohibits further showing of the ZDF program "Das Netz - Scientology and the Real Estate Market." The program was alleged to have given the impression that there were connections between Scientology and Caberta. "Hard to outdo this in terms of infamy," said Interior agency spokesman, Christoph Holstein.
taz Hamburg Nr. 5924 vom 28.8.1999 Seite 22 Hamburg Aktuell
Berliner Morgenpost, 28.08.99:
Scientology stops ZDF Film
Hamburg Scientology Commissioner Ursula Caberta has obtained a temporary order against the ZDF in Hamburg State Court. Based on her application, the court forbade further distribution of a film shown by ZDF last Wednesday, "Das Netz - Scientology and the Real Estate Market," insofar as it contains discrediting statements about her, stated the Interior agency yesterday. ZDF reported that it would proceed against this action with all legal means. dpa
Hamburg, Germany
May 5, 1999
Renate HartwigUncovered and covered up again
By one who moved out to infiltrate the critics as an agent for the Scientology Injustice System. How, by the incompetence and arrogance of several official "experts," he managed to build up his informant activities all the way to "sect advisor"! Warnings from 1995 went unheeded. In spite of a witness who also gave his story to the authorities, the informant's cover has remained intact until today! He was even put on the 1999 list for counseling centers by Renate Rennebach and was sent referrals.
[The rest of the article has been snipped. It says that Martin Beyer is an OSA agent.
For more on this topic, here is an excerpt from Renate Hartwig's book "Scientology - The Conspiracy and the Companeros" about the OSA agent, Martin Beyer ...
News from Germany and the World
October 18, 1995Contact of the "Heath Murderer" with Scientology
Hamburg (ddpADN) According to a report from "Stern" magazine, Thomas Holst, the "Heath Murderer", who escaped from the psychiatric ward of the Ochsenzoll General Hospital in Hamburg four weeks ago, had closer contact to the Scientology Church psycho-sect than had previously been suspected. As reported by a former fellow patient, for months, Holst and he collected internal information about the establishment, patients and therapies for the Scientology "Commission for Violation of Human Rights by Psychiatry e.V." (KVPM). The material they assembled was picked regularly up by a representative of the KVPM during visitor's hours, and also given to him over the telephone. The former psychiatric aide had both the former fellow patient, age 27, and Holst sign over various powers of attorney to him. According to the patient, the KVPM staff member had told them both that everything would be done to get them out of the psychiatric ward. In this case a "safe" refuge in Switzerland or Austria was offered.
From:
http://www.svz.de/archiv/newsdw/1995/Oktober/18./Nachrichten/sekte.html
(c) Schweriner Volkszeitung online, 1998
Was Scientology an Accessory?
Sect is said to have support "heath murderer" Holst in his escape
Hamburg, Germany
October 17, 19995by Uwe Bahnsen
Hamburg - The case of highly dangerous, triple sex murderer Thomas Holst, who broke out of the locked psychiatric ward of the Ochsenzoll Hamburg hospital on September 27, who has since disappeared as though swallowed up by an earthquake, and for whom one of the most intensive search operations has been held in the past year, is developing, as the days go by, into an explosive political issue. In the center of it all are the Labor and Social Senator, Helgrit Fischer-Menzel, weighing in for the left wing of the SPD, and her State Advisor, Peter Lippert. Their department is the one responsible for the hospitals of this Hanseatic city [of Hamburg].
The Hanseatic City Senate, which is carried by the SPD and the Statt parties, must answer two parliamentary inquiries by the opposition on this issue. CDU legal expert Ralf-Dieter Fischer demands information as to the yet unexplained circumstances of how Holst managed escape from specially secured building 18 of this hospital, in particular as to the role of psychologist Tamara S., who, according to findings by the clinic management, had not kept the required distance from inmate Holst from a therapeutic standpoint.
Fischer's faction colleague, Antje Blumenthal, illuminates the disastrous political dimensions with the second inquiry: the CDU representative wants to know from the Senate how it was possible that, in the first half of 1995, Holst could have received regular visits from representatives of "Commission for Offenses of Psychiatry against Human Rights." This registered association amounts to an organization of the Scientology sect, against whose activity the Senate wants to strengthen proceedings. The visitors were interested in Holst's own very detailed statement of his "history of illness", and they came to the conclusion that this offender was a "classical example of someone who has been destroyed by psychiatry." In light of this, police investigators are looking into whether members of the sect or this "commission" may have helped the murderer escape and are possibly concealing him. As the days go by, the Hamburg police become more sure that Holst, who escaped three weeks ago with 20 marks in his pocket, had an accessory.
The clinic management, according to their own admission, first had suspicions in May 1995 that the visitors were actually members of Scientology, and "immediately instituted a review of the findings of fact." As a result, a "general refusal of admittances was issued on the occasion of their next visit." Up until then there had been no reason, according to Hamburg municipal code, and no legal alternatives available to deny visits to Holst where were carried out under visual supervision by a nursing staff member..