A Six Year Boondoggle

All warfare is based on deception
... Sun Tzu

L. Ron Hubbard redefined genocide early on for the purpose of convincing Scientologists that "genocide has been practiced against Scientology" by its critics. [1] Hubbard meant this in every sense of the word except "killing members of the group" and sterilization. Once the U.S. government recognized Scientology for tax-exemption purposes in 1993, the U.S., no doubt unknowingly, validated this redefinition and other highly manipulative Hubbardian concepts, such as the Suppressive Person doctrine, in the name of human rights. Because of the lack of coherent and effective information to the contrary, Scientologists today continue to capitalize on these and other misunderstandings.

Some of the Scientologists' accounts of persecution by Germany in the 1990s have been interpreted as more of an expression of puerile loyalty to Scientology than of genocide in the root meaning of the word. Nonetheless Scientology's notorious PR machine churned through the '90s to blend complaints of German Scientologists with the cries of Jews dying by the millions in Nazi gas chambers, the groans of modern day drug addicts, the hopeless sobs of the insane and much more to help create an enemy image the international cult lobby could ostensibly resist. With regard to the anti-German prong of this effort, six years of U.S. criticism unexpectedly lost steam in late 1998.

Several politicians who cherished and banked upon the idea of German discrimination against "religious" groups like Scientology were taken unaware by this change of heart. Here is an excerpt from a July 16, 1999 letter from Senator Michael Enzi, who was disturbed that his congressional proposal to express a "sense of the Senate with respect to government discrimination in Germany based on religion or belief" had suddenly become irrelevant:

"The Honorable Marc Grossman
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
State Department
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Mr. Grossman:

Over the past six years there has been a steady increase in the number of religious freedom violations in Germany. These violations have been noted in the State Department Human Rights Country Reports on Germany and the 1998 report of the State Department Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom. They have also been a matter of concern to various human rights groups. All of these reports have described both government and private sector discrimination against individuals and groups, including American citizens, because of their religious beliefs.

Last November, several of my colleagues in the Senate and I wrote to Chancellor Schroeder to express our concerns about this discrimination and the need for dialogue between the German Government and representatives of various religious groups. When we finally received a reply to our inquiry from the German Foreign Office in March, it was accompanied with a copy of the "Religious Freedom" section of the 1998 State Department Human Rights Report on Germany with a note stating that the 1998 Report revised "certain views found in former reports." We were quite disappointed that the Foreign Office reply largely ignored our concerns. While I do not share the German view that the 1998 Human Rights Report signaled that the State Department is no longer concerned with religious discrimination in Germany, I find the German Government's perception of the Report troubling. ..."

Senator Enzi was understandably dismayed that the Germans had responded to his complaint with a copy of the U.S. State Department's own report showing that the honorable Senator's complaints about discrimination in Germany were contradicted by the Senator's own government. How could the State Department permit the Germans to do such a thing? Personnel at the State Department were equally distraught and sympathetized with Senator Enzi, as shown in the State Department's response, signed by Barbara Larkin, Assistant Secretary of Legislative Affairs: "We, too, were puzzled with characterizations of the 1998 Human Rights Report as ending criticism of Germany." [2]

What happened to Germany's six years of alleged discrimination against Scientology? How did these alleged human rights violations dissipate so suddenly? More to the point, why did U.S. criticism of Germany decline so rapidly, even though Germany had just put Scientology under surveillance by its domestic spy agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in 1997? Looking at the next hot spot on which Scientology and the U.S. State Department but their efforts, one answer is clear:

"In October [1998] the French government issued a new decree creating an 'Interministerial Mission to Battle Against Sects' ('mission interministerielle de lutte contre les sectes'). The new decree disbanded the Observatory on Sects. Although the decree instructs the commission to 'analyze the phenomenon of sects,' the decree itself does not define what is meant by sect or how sects differ from 'religions.' The commission also is charged with serving as a coordinator of periodic interministerial meetings at which government officials are to exchange information and coordinate their actions against sects. Some observers are concerned about the creation of a commission that targets groups not on the basis of their presumed illegal activities but on the basis of their religious or other beliefs." [3]

Events indicate that adverse reaction against Scientology was not decreasing in Germany. On the contrary, it was increasing all over Europe. Given no alternative in the matter, the Germans had put Scientology under surveillance, the French had passed a law that would enable the government to disestablish Scientology corporations, and other countries had taken corresponding measures to avoid unwanted confrontations with Uncle Sam's new religious movements.

Perhaps as a consequence of this heightened resistence, Scientology's overblown anti-Germany Holocaust campaign promptly went up in smoke six years after it was launched. The field had broadend and the rules changed. One hitherto unbelievable observation emerged as a result of the shift in tactic: Scientology and Germany had been aligned all along on several counts. One way this manifested itself was in their (Scientology's and Germany's) shared perception of dissident critics and Revisionists as Nazis.

Which is the greater Threat to Democracy --
totalitarian Scientology or dissident Revisionism?

The following early evaluations of Hubbard's technology reflect the most disturbing part of Hubbard's movement -- its totalitarian, Nazi-like intent:

"The real and, to me, inexcusable danger in dianetics lies to its conception of the amoral, detached, 100 per cent efficient mechanical man -- superbly free-floating unemotional and unrelated to anything. His is the authoritarian dream a population of zombies, free to be manipulated by the great brains of the founder, the leader of the inner manipulative clique. Fortunately for us this is an unattainable dream, on the rocks of which every great authoritarian leader has sooner or later met his fate." -- Milton. R. Sapirstein, The Nation

"Perhaps the most unfortunate element Dianetics Is the way it is written. The mixture of some oversimplified truths, half truths and plain absurdities, the propagandistic technique of impressing the reader with the greatness, infallibility and newness of the author's system, the promise of unheard of results attained by the simple means of following Dianetics is a technique which has had most unfortunate results in the fields of patent medicines, and politics..." -- Erich Fromm, N.Y. Herald Tribune

When Germany put Scientology under surveillance in 1997, however, this was not done in accordance with observations like those of Sapirstein and Fromm, but more along the lines of the Scientology-approved U.S. position of 1993-1998. The German government created a special surveillance group to keep Scientology separate from the other rightwing extremists, while leaving Revisionism, a dissident movement inherently incompatible with authoritarianism, in the same category as Nazism.

That turned the picture upside down to political advantage. The benefactors were the German government (short term advantage) and the Scientologists (long term). Those at the disadvatage are dissidents, including Revisionists, who are officially categorized as extremist for literary, intellectual, artistic, but not religious, reasons.

While the German government was able to appease its voting public by pronouncing Scientology under surveillance and presumably under control, the German government is still, as of 2005, suppressing allegedly rightwing dissidents to the point where the effect belies the stated intent -- a situation that has also made overzealous Nazis and Scientologists objects of popular ridicule.

One representative case of this sort of overzealousness is that of a dog named Adolph, whose German owner trained him to raise his paw to the command of "Sieg Heil!" [4] More widely known, and also more indicative of the censorious tendency of the German authorities in this regard, are the police raids on the homes of "Music Nazis." [5] One comparative example of an official German government combined perspective on Scientology, Nazism and Revisionism is illustrated in the 2002 report of the Nordrhein-Westphalia (NRW) Office for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC). [6] In taking no stance on Scientology in this booklet, the government made its position known -- that in 2002 musicians, scholars and politicians who do no more than deny the authoritative version of Holocaust will be categorized and prosecuted as right-wing Nazi extremists, while Scientology will enjoy relative tranquility to exercise Hubbard's mind control technology.

There is no doubt that German government should prosecute Nazi-like ideology. With regard to rightwing extremism, however, the Germans seem more concerned about fighting Nazi-fad symbolism than about identifying and thwarting the methods by which totalitarian cults undermine democracy. Meanwhile, Scientology's "OT Committees" have had a good chance to establish "safe points" from which to make Hubbard's totalitarian technology available and acceptable to the German public. From a practical and expedient point of view, this is no longer a matter of fighting Scientology, but of bargaining with a totalitarian cult on its own terms.

Mutual advantages in bargaining can be expected to arise from common points of view. The official position of the Scientologists and of the Germans are similar in at least two unique ways. Both use public perception:

1. to associate the highly dissimilar concepts of Revisionist dissidence with Nazi authoritarianism and
2. to dissociate the highly similar totalitarian concepts of Scientology's "Clear the Planet" from the neo-Nazi "Fourth Reich".

Since the above two points are a paired contradiction in terms, one consequence has been more public and government confusion and inaction. An associated result is that the Germans who helped Scientology gain ground on the above two counts are in an even more awkward position than Willis Carto was in November 1993. Carto and the Revisionists could credibly claim that, prior to 1993, they were knowing allies of Scientology. Since the Germans claim they were fighting Scientology the whole time, however, they will be more reluctant admit they too were taken in by a cult.

"I think we have been missing the cult's tax exemption withholds big time every
time they shriek about Carto and the IHR and label the credible critics Nazis."
-- Gerry Armstrong, 25 February 1999

Notes

List of references, including those cited below:

[1] The "Church of Scientology - Ministry of Public Relations" undated booklet, "The Character of the Church of Scientology," which contains "Scientology: A Religion," by L. Ron Hubbard.

[2] Quote in context: "Dear Senator Enzi: Thank you for your July 16 letter regarding religious freedom violations in Germany and the State Department's 1998 Human Rights Report. I am responding on behalf of Assistant Secretary Grossman. Your letter raises several important issues concerning ongoing efforts at the State Department to work with German officials and affected minority groups to end discrimination in Germany based on religion or belief. Wherever it may occur, discrimination against an individual or group is a fundamental human rights violation, and the United States Government is still very concerned about incidents of discrimination in Germany. As the past six years of Human Rights Reports indicate, religious discrimination in Germany continues to take place and the Department of State is committed to addressing issues of religious intolerance. We, too, were puzzled with characterizations of the 1998 Human Rights Report as ending criticism of Germany. While we would rather devote our time to working with the German government on ways to end discrimination in Germany based on religion or belief, it is also very important to express criticism and concern with ongoing German discriminatory actions and policies. This critical review is one of the primary purposes of the annual Human Rights Report. To interpret the 1998 Report's greater inclusion of German government statements attacking minority groups and rationalizing discriminatory acts and policies as State Department agreement with such statements is wrong. [...]"

[3] See the "Human Rights Practices for 1998 Report" released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, FRANCE COUNTRY REPORT, February 1999

[4] "German who trained 'Nazi dog' escapes jail" by Roger Boyes and AP in Berlin, February 05, 2004

[5] "German Police raid 300 homes of Music Nazis" Berlin, Germany (Reuters), Thursday, March 25, 2004

[6] 2002 report of the Nordrhein-Westphalia (NRW) Office for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC).

References:

[1]

The "Church of Scientology - Ministry of Public Relations" published an undated (probably 1969 or 1970) pamphlet, "The Character of the Church of Scientology," which contains "Scientology: A Religion," by L. Ron Hubbard. From Hubbard's point of view, "genocide has been practiced against Scientology" by its critics. The context is as follows:

"For years now Scientology, a religion, has been attacked, persecuted and had reams of half-truths, perfidious lies and slanderous impugnations made against it. We have tired of private interest groups, governments and newspapers trying to make a Roman circus out of our religious beliefs. One can state definitely that such attacks signal the fact that man has sunk too low to be aware of God."

"It is interesting to note that the operative word in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide employs the use of 'religious', not 'religion', as the operative word. It states: 'In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.'

Except for (a) and (d) genocide has been practiced against Scientology, not as religion, but as a religious group as defined in the wording of the law as above. Even newspapers recognize without fail that Scientology is a religious group. For fourteen years they have referred to Scientology as a 'cult'. They have almost never called it anything else. This makes a tradition and public acceptance of this understanding. "Cult" by the Merriam-Webster dictionary means: 1: a religious practice.

[...]

Thus there was no doubt in the minds of those persecuting Scientology that it was a religion; for 'cult' is uniformly defined as its first definition, 'a system of religious worship or ritual.'

The religious background of Scientology is reflected in its books- the whole overall purpose of Scientology is religious; every book mentions the Eighth Dynamic, the Supreme Being, and states that if man were to be sufficiently aware, he would become aware of his relationship to the Supreme Being. The writings of Scientology can be excerpted, as can any religious works, and these excerpts can then be said to be non-religious; however, such must be referred to and related to the overall basic premises of Scientology to have meaning and the meaning clearly and simply is religious."

Taken from Executive Directive
of 25 August 1969 by L. Ron Hubbard

To back up its claim that Scientology is religious, "The Church of Scientology - Ministry of Public Relations" included substantiating material in its booklet, excerpts of which include:

• "Scientology Church Ruled A Religious Organization" by Donald Hirzel of the Washington, D.C. "The Evening Star" of February 5, 1969 said, "The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled today that the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington is a religious organization. The court held that the government erred in 1963 when it confiscated the group's E-meter (a lie-detector machine) used to 'diagnose the mental and spiritual condition' of a subject. In a 2-1 decision, the court reversed the finding of a trial judge and held that the organization has made a case 'that it is a bona fide religion.' It also held that the machine is 'integrated into the general theory of scientology' as a religious doctrine."
• A "Church of Scientology - Ministry of Public Relations" press release of December 12, 1969, "Australian Scientology Ban Ruled Invalid," said "Freedom of Religion triumphed in Australia this week when a High Court of. Appeals in Perth, West Australia, handed down a decision invalidating the 1968 Scientology Banning Act. This act, passed as a result of political pressures exerted by officials of Mental Health groups in Australia, made it a crime for members of the Church of Scientology to practice their religion or teach anyone the tenets of the Church. Even possession of Church literature was made a crime by this fascist law."
• Included in the booklet is "A Prayer from Human Rights." "A special prayer was said by the Rev. T. Morgan. Written especially for Human Rights Prayer Day, May 18, 1969 London, an illuminated scroll of the prayer was prepared and taken to Buckingham Palace for Her Majesty the Queen, as an expression of loyalty from Scientologists in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth."
• To add to Scientology's credibility a certificate from the "Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S., Department of Minnesota" "For Patriotic policies in support of our Nation and encouraging re-dedication of our American heritage. Given at the City of Saint Paul, Minnesota this 23rd day of November, 1964" was also included.

[4] From http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-990445,00.html

February 05, 2004

German who trained 'Nazi dog' escapes jail BY ROGER BOYES AND AP IN BERLIN

A German businessman who trained his dog to perform a Nazi salute was today sentenced to 13 months' probation for violating laws banning neo-Nazi activities. Judge Wilhelm Brand told Roland Thein, 54, a rightwing fanatic: "You are very close to going to jail for a very long time. I don't want to hear of you again, not another provocative word." Thein, who runs a prosperous truck dealership and a wine import business, responded by taking out a comb and brushing his hair to resemble Hitler's distinctive fringe. He was already sporting a toothbrush moustache.

"You are trying my patience," said the judge.

The judge had earlier ordered Thein to remove a T-shirt depicting a baby with Hitler's head superimposed. Officials also confiscated a picture of the German flag with his dog at its centre. The charges against Thein included the wearing of a shirt with banned Nazi symbols, including the swastika; the taunting of foreign schoolchildren; the shouting of Nazi slogans in the middle of a Turkish market in Berlin and insulting a policeman. These incidents were only the tip of the iceberg, according to witnesses.

Thein, accompanied by his dog, Adolf, criss-crossed Berlin looking for people to provoke, the court was told. The dog, which lives in a fortified kennel marked with his name, was an essential prop. For years, it has allowed Thein to shout out Nazi slogans while pretending to bark orders. When he spotted a foreigner coming in his direction, Herr Thein shouts: "Sieg Heil! Adolf - sit! Give the salute!" The dog - an Alsatian vaguely resembling Hitler's favourite dog, Blondie - obeys.

German lawyers have been unsure as to whether yelling Nazi catch phrases at a dog constitutes an offence. As a result, Thein has escaped serious punishment, getting away with a £100 fine and probation. Thein could have been imprisoned for three years. German authorities started to take a tougher line with him when he and his dog started to become minor celebrities featured in the tabloid press. Japanese tourists have come to visit the dog and police have become used to frog marching Thein and his faithful companion out of public meetings after loud homophobic tirades against Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin.

Thein was unrepentant, telling the court that the only good judge there had ever been in Germany was Roland Friesler, Hitler's hanging judge. The leniency shown to the businessman is largely because he is not linked to any recognised neo-Nazi group. "He is simply a very offensive eccentric loner," said a court official.

Thein said: "I am a German. I was born in Bavaria, the son of a cavalry officer, and I grew up this way - I don't know any other way."

"Adolf is a very sweet dog," said Nicole Bumann-Zarske, the man's lawyer. "He loves biscuits, just like his owner!" A friend of the man, who declined to give his name, said that the dog had been hit by a car, damaging his right paw. "It's all bent, he can't stick it out anymore."

[5]

Thursday, March 25, 2004

German Police raid 300 homes of Music Nazis

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- German police raided the homes of more than 300 people Wednesday whom they suspect of posting neo-Nazi music files on the Internet for others to download, the Federal Crime Office said in a statement. Police said the nationwide raids followed investigations into 342 people who had posted songs by skinhead bands on the Internet. The songs contained lyrics inciting racial hatred, the crime agency said.

Police said they would carry out 333 raids by the end of Wednesday at the homes of people who posted songs on a music sharing Web site. "Inciting racial hatred is more than just a petty crime," said Federal Crime Office President Joerg Ziercke. "Skinhead music groups create an enemy image and help propagate extreme right ideas."

Inciting racial hatred, displaying Nazi emblems like the swastika and performing the stiff-armed Hitler salute used under Adolf Hitler are crimes punishable by imprisonment in Germany, the country which carried out the Holocaust. The Federal Crime Office started clamping down on Internet trading of music inciting neo-Nazis to hate and attack Jews and foreigners in 2001.

The songs convey Nazi ideology and contain lyrics such as these from the group Tonstörung (Sound Interruption): "Sharpen your long knives on the pavements; delve them into Jewish bodies."

More than 100 people have been killed in racist violence in Germany since unification in 1990. Most of the attacks are random and involve skinheads picking on foreigners in the street. Property has also been attacked. Swastikas have been daubed on Jewish gravestones, bricks thrown at Turkish kebab shops and firebombs hurled at asylum hostels. Most synagogues have 24- hour police guards. German police raided homes of more than 300 people on Wednesday whom they suspect them of sharing neo-Nazi music files on the Internet.
Copyright 2004 Reuters. All rights reserved.

David Irving comments:

LET ME JUST GET one small thing straight here (as Monica L might have said to President C): I can imagine nothing worse than a Germany governed by people to whose ears this kind of noise is music.
But these raids on private homes in Germany do seem to raise questions at several levels; for example, if it was really the violent nature of the lyrics that upset the gentlemen in green, are they also raiding the homes of millions of downloaders who listen to gangsta- rap: from what I have read, those sings use pretty violent language too.
More ominous is the question of how the German police built up their "to-raid" lists: it is unlikely that they carried out a monster street-survey of every German town and city asking, "Do you listen to/enjoy/download neo-Nazi music? Download it? If so please fill-in your name and street address HERE: ..."
MORE likely is that the German police have developed software that enables them to trace the identities of people conducting such online transactions, and are using these data to compile lists of the street addresses of subscribers to the domestic, school, or office dial-up, or DSL, services which are used to download the music, and are using these lists to conduct their raids.
Today music -- tomorrow, what else? People subscribing online to Skeptic magazine, or Der Spiegel? Who knows how far the horizons of the German police force will reach, once they have climbed out of the Klosettendeckel [toilet seats] which seem to have been the previous limiter to their field of view?
Will they prosecute people who download the books by me, David Irving?
The German police have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing, from their experiences of the last hundred years. They still click their heels and shout Zu Befehl, Herr Oberst -- it is just that the armbands are of a different color now.

[6]

In 2002 the Nordrhein-Westphalia (NRW) Office for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC) published a 315-page annual report, a scanned version of which is available in German on the Internet. In general, the OPC calls the groups it has under surveillance "extremists." These extremists are divided into rightwing, leftwing, Islamic, foreign, and politically motivated criminals. There is no section on Scientology in this report.

The largest section of the 2002 NRW OPC report is devoted to rightwing extremism. The first chapter of rightwing extremism is about political parties, such as the National Democratic Party (NDP). (Recent press has suggested that the NDP became popular in the former eastern German states not so much because of its ideology, but because it offers those raised in the Communist East German tradition an alternative to the West's capitalistic views.) The second chapter is about neo-Nazis, under which US citizen Gary Lauck is listed as a prominent player. The third chapter is on "Skinheads," for whom Great Britain is given much (dis)credit. This includes the "Blood & Honour" group, which is banned in Germany. There is a special section to warn the German public about skinhead music, part of which reads:

Skinhead concerts and other musical events ("Lieder" or "Balladenabende") serve as a meeting point for rightwing extremist Skinheads and neo-Nazis to consume alcohol and dance the Pogo, as a place where contacts are made and furthered and where rightwing extremist propaganda is distributed. The sale of audio material and fan magazines of rightwing extremist content, along with the merchandising of articles, not only at concerts, but also by catalog or Internet, is a source of financing.

The fourth chapter of the rightwing extremist section covers four revisionists.

Presumably as grounds for surveillance, the OPC specifically mentioned certain quotes from these four revisionists. Ernst Guenter Koegel, for instance, wrote that there is "probably no people on this Earth whose recent past is so falsely presented as that of the Germans, no people that are so lied to and misled as the Germans." David Irving of Great Britain, reportedly said "that Germany continued to be an occupied country, because the occupied territory was the German soul."

The OPC report states that Udo Walendy, with a degree in political science and the publisher of numerous revisionist writings that deny the Holocaust and Germany's war guilt, used to be one of the most active revisionists in Germany. Numerous search-and-seizures and legal proceedings to put his published works on [government black] lists, as well as prison sentences for mass incitement, among other things, brought his activities to decline. Isn't this also the goal of Hubbard's depopularization technology?

Germar Rudolf, because of his writings denying the Holocaust, was prosecuted and sentenced to prison. Rudolf avoided prison by fleeing to other western European countries, and later to the USA. Finally, the NRW OPC report brought up the "Zündelseite" Internet pages, which it says are operated from the USA by Zündel's wife Ingrid Rimland. "Besides material in ten languages, the site contains links to ... extensive documentation and many books on the topic of the Holocaust."

In recent news, Ernst Zuendel, the German citizen for whom the "Zündelseite" Internet pages are named, was handed over to Germany by Canada in March, 2005. The sort of material Herr Zuendel is faulted for includes not only revisionism, but science fiction. For instance, there was his 1975 booklet called "UFO`s: Nazi Secret Weapon?", from Samisdat, Toronto. Besides that, Zuendel wrote about an alleged secret Nazi base in Antarctica. To contradict these incredible tales, one March 8, 2005 article on Zuendel's extradition refers the reader to "Denying History" by the Californian historian Michael Shermer, who worked with Alex Grobman.