Peter Schulte, author of The Brainwashing of a Nation: Germany’s Scientology File

IN HIS OWN WORDS

MEET THE AUTHOR.

Dr. Peter Schulte spent decades studying new religious movements—including twelve years as a government sect commissioner. Now he takes you inside Germany’s Scientology File.

PETER SCHULTE

Dr. Peter Schulte is a German social scientist who has spent decades studying new religious movements and society’s response to them.

From 1998 to 2010, he served as sect commissioner for the State of Tirol, giving him an unusual firsthand perspective on the institutions, policies and controversies examined in The Brainwashing of a Nation: Germany’s Scientology File.

His research has focused extensively on new religious movements, social stigmatization and the mechanisms by which public perceptions of minority religions are formed.

In 2012, he published Neue Religiöse Bewegungen: Gesellschaftliche Dramatisierungsstrategien und soziale Wirklichkeit (New Religious Movements: Social Dramatization Strategies and Social Reality), an academic examination of new religious movements and the social processes surrounding them.

He lives in Innsbruck, Austria.

THE BOOK

INSIDE THE BOOK.

The Brainwashing of a Nation: Germany’s Scientology File

For nearly thirty years, Germany watched Scientology.

Then the surveillance ended.

Former government sect commissioner Dr. Peter Schulte traces more than five decades of controversy through the documentary record itself.

THE ORIGINS OF THE CONTROVERSY
How Scientology became one of Germany’s most controversial subjects.

THE DOCUMENTARY RECORD
Government documents, intelligence records, police reports, court decisions and material once withheld from public view.

NEARLY THREE DECADES OF SURVEILLANCE
The record from the beginning of federal surveillance to its termination in 2026.

MORE THAN 500 PAGES.
DECADES OF GOVERNMENT RECORDS.
ONE EXTRAORDINARY FILE.