Defeat for Scientology

Appeal in association statute decision

Stuttgart, Germany
September 20, 2000
Sindelfinger Zeitung, Germany

The Stuttgart executive presidium has obtained a partial victory in the dispute with Dianetics Stuttgart, Inc.: The Baden-Wuerttemberg Superior Administrative Court has permitted appeal against a decision positive to a Scientology branch.

Executive President Udo Andriof welcomed the decision of the Mannheim judges: "We now have the opportunity to prove that revocation of legal capacity was done correctly because Dianetics Stuttgart pursues commercial goals." The executive presidium ["Regierungspraesidium" (RP)] revoked association status from the Scientology branch back in 1994. The group lodged an objection which was ruled legitimate at the end of 1999 by Stuttgart Administrative Court. Appeal of this decision has now been allowed in Mannheim "because of specific factual and legal problems." The RP will make use their chance. The primary purpose of Dianetics activities is commercial," said RP spokesman Ralph Koenig. And it, according to Koenig, does not merit association privilege. He said they viewed the continued dispute with Scientology "calmly."

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Stuttgart, Germany
September 14, 2000
Stuttgarter Nachrichten

The SPD in the municipal council have demanded that Mayor Wolfgang Schuster be more persistent in taking action against the Scientology Organization. In a press release, Schuster had praised a ban by the city on advertising by Scientology. SPD city councilman Andreas Reissig expressed his surprise that Schuster had demonstrated toughness on the one hand, but but had refused the stricter procedures against Scientology proposed by the SPD as "disproportionate." The Social Democrats had wanted, for instance, a special use permit to keep the Scientology association from carrying out recruitment operations on Kronprinz and Buechsen Streets. This contradiction is said to have made Schusters promise "untrustworthy." ks


Press release from the Press and Information Office of the State Capitol of Stuttgart of August 25, 2000

Executive Mayor Dr. Wolfgang Schuster: Continued strict ban on advertising by Scientology on the streets and squares of Stuttgart

The Codes Office of the State Capitol will see to it in the future that the Scientology Organization observes the strict ban on recruitment in the streets and squares of Stuttgart. This was stated by Executive Mayor Dr. Wolfgang Schuster in Stuttgart. In particular, members and staff of the "Dianetik Stuttgart Scientology Kirche e.V." would be prohibited from accosting passersby on public thoroughfares in Stuttgart in order to invite them to an informational meeting. The Scientology association was also prohibited from distributing printed material with or without verbally addressing pedestrians. The Codes Office was instructed to follow up on each charge of illicit conduct.

Even if things have calmed down considerably around the organization recently, there is still cause for watchfulness. The Scientology Organization has been under observation by Constitutional Security in Baden-Wuerttemberg for good reason. The surveillance takes place, according to the determination of constitutional agents, as a result of "factual reference points of the existence of counter-constitutional endeavors." The organization is said to be striving for a society stamped by Scientology, which is not compatible with many principles of the liberal democratic system.

The city's ban on advertising has been validated by the Stuttgart Administrative court and by the Baden-Wuerttemberg Superior Administrative court in the scope of facilitated proceedings. It has been possible in Stuttgart, by using this advertising ban, to make the Scientologists' work noticeably more difficult.

In the State Capitol, Scientology is not a church, but an organization which "acts with the intention of gaining a profit in commercial life," as the Federal Administrative Court has determined. Therefore, the organization will also have to report all its branches' earnings in the future and pay taxes on the profits made from books sales and psycho-courses. The Scientologists are also dangerous to the public in that the extravagant prices they charge run many uninformed people who are seeking help into irreversible debt. In various exercises and studies which become gradually more expensive, the Scientologists let on that people can delete negative impressions from past lives and manage to gain perfection step by step. The higher the "student" wants to climb on this stepladder, the more expensive it gets for him and the greater the promises which are made to him before attaining the next grade he is on: for instance, immunity from psychosomatic illnesses or even from atomic radiation (!). The latter can probably only be explained in that Ron L. Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, spent many years as an author of science fiction novels.


Young people's book against sects

Stuttgart, Germany
July 31, 2000
Stuttgarter Zeitung

"Better to prevent going in than not being able to get out," with this new leading line and a book for young people, the pugnacious Scientology opponent, Renate Hartwig, continues her battle against sects.

by Annegert Bock

Renate Hartwig, who is descried by her opponents as a demagogue, says she sold a million copies, combined, of her four technical books. Her best-seller "Ich klage an," she reported from Ulm, will next appear in Russia. Now the founder of an association to protect sect victims, "Robin Direkt e.V.," valued, and at the same time feared, for her eloquence as a speaker, will continue her career as an author of a book for young people. Renate Hartwig's youth novel "Gefahrliche Neugier" ["Dangerous Curiosity"] is meant to both inform about sects and prevent their influence upon others.

The name "Scientology," though, does not appear in the 167-page volume. But the young detectives Anna and Robert learn more in their dangerous search for the secrets of the dubious "Organization for Applied Philosophy" about the content and structure of Scientology and applied psycho-sects than they would in school informational material, the author believes.

Husband and wife Paul and Renate Hartwig have carefully seen to the marketing of the book. It can not only be bought in book stores, but will be given for free to nine-graders, at least in Ulm, Suedbaden, Heilbronn and Osnabrueck after summer vacation. That is being seen to by "Aktion Eule," in which a yet unknown number of companies are participating.

Die "Ulmer Volksbank", believes press spokesman Detlef Roser, will probably join, because "prevention is important," and also because the bank is a "target area" of sects. Thomas Kuhnert, business manager of Gondrom book store in Ulm, also supports Renate Hartwig because he, himself, was the victim of a slander campaign. It was said that he and his book store were among the Scientologists. "That cause us lasting damage." Five thousand copies are being delivered to all Ulm schools with the assistance of "Aktion Eule." By Christmas, the author believes, 100,000 copies of "Gefaehrliche Neugier" will be distributed.

Renate Hartwig: "Gefährliche Neugier'', Direct Verlag Paul Hartwig, 167 Seiten, DM 19,80, ISBN 3-935246-00-5


When People disappear in "Happy Valley"

From: "Stuttgarten Nachrichten"
February 25, 1999

Scientology re-educates "sceptics and failures" behind barbed wire in accordance with its own methods

Stuttgart - Scientology maintains a prison camp. Up to now there has hardly been any information about it available. And still no pictures. Peter Reichelt, the Mannheim Scientology critic, succeeded in tracking down the sect business' corrective institution.

from our reporter

Anton Notz

"Happy Valley" is a two hour drive from Los Angeles which lies in a desert-like landscape. David Miscavige, Scientology boss, has built an empire in its vicinity which is as luxurious as it is mysterious. Happy Valley, however, is no Club Med. About 100 people of the Sea Org elite guard must serve time there. "The people are genuine prisoners. They are absolutely not there of their own free will," relates Gerry Armstrong, ex-coordinator of the OSA Scientology secret service, who says he spent two and a half years in the prison camp.

Jesse Prince, former second man in the Scientology leadership, behind Miscavige, told Reichelt before the camera what goes on behind the barbed wire and walls which are watched by video cameras. Those interned at the camp must work as slaves day and night. Prince also had experience in there, of which he spoke. He went through Happy Valley for disobeying an order. "It was absolutely terrible. I slept on the floor of a chicken coop, along with the rattlesnakes and scorpions." Hard labor, mandatory hypnoses, brainwashing - those are they methods which former members say Scientology uses to try to bring "sceptics and failures" back into line. Not all, but those who are of importance to the organization because they know too much or are too big of a cog in the worldwide money-making machine.

Scientology itself does not at all dispute that its own people are re-educated in the USA as well as in Europe. It calls this procedure of suppression the "Rehabilitation Project." Marline Getanes, spokesperson of Scientology Europe stated, "It has to do with a program for reparation when one has made serious mistakes. Anyplace else one would simply be thrown out."

How one must rehabilitate oneself in a prison camp in Copenhagen was described by a former high-ranking Scientologist woman: no newspaper, no radio, speak with nobody, eat others' leftovers, always work. Everybody keeps everybody else under surveillance; "knowledge reports" are used to record the wrongdoings of others. The California prison camp inside of Miscavige's paradise on earth contains another peculiarity which Peter Reichelt discovered in a flight over the area: the "track." Jesse Prince commented that some "failures" ran around a pole here for twelve hours in order to become respectable Scientologists once more.

Prince freed himself from the clutches of the sect business. After numerous murder threats, he lives apart from his family in order to protect them. Meanwhile, Peter Reichelt and his colleague, Ina Brockman, who were forcefully held captive on an open road by Scientology members while filming, have produced a show which will be broadcast tonight at 10:45 p.m. on Suedwest 3.

51 year old Wiebke Hansen is still living in Happy Valley. She was once a Scientology manager in Hamburg, one of the most successful worldwide. In 1995 she disappeared without a trace; her brother, Jochen Koerner, has now had contact with her again. He was recently able to visit with her in Hollywood for one day. Wiebke produces advertising spots for Scientology. In the evening she returned to Happy Valley more or less voluntarily. "Re-education camps, we used to have those," said Jochen Koerner in puzzlement.

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