They Shut Us Out Everywhere

My name is Berthold Ott. I grew up at Lake Constance in a small village with 500 inhabitants.

And then I founded a company, a carpentry business. Right away I had four or five employees and, at some point, I got to know Scientology. And I was very enthusiastic because there I learned a lot of things that helped me in my daily work. And then we had a big job—we were selected to take on the job for a group in Wilhelmsdorf, which was building a church. And at some point, by mail, a sect filter arrived. And then we were supposed to fill out the sect filter, but I refused and said, “I’m not going to fill out a sect filter. Why should I care about that?” In the end, because of the sect filter, we didn’t get the job and had a huge problem because, of course, no other jobs could be completed during that time.

So then it somehow became known that I am a Scientologist. And during that time, a lot of customers just didn’t come to us at all because they knew, “They are Scientologists. We’re not building a house with them,” because there had been so much negative talk about the subject. There were times when we really didn’t have enough jobs so there wasn’t enough work for our employees. Some employees came and said, “I can’t work for you anymore. Not because of you, because you’re really a great boss and boss lady. But this oppression we’re getting from outside, I can’t take it anymore.”

Then I was part of the business association, and once a year there was always a trade show. And then one time, the mayor came up to me and said that we were no longer allowed to participate. And then I said to the mayor, “Well, what’s this supposed to mean? I pay membership fees to the business association. I pay my business tax, so I don’t see why I should now be excluded.” Then it happened that he personally sent his secretary to my company.

She had to personally hand me the letter and tell me that I am not allowed to attend this trade show as an exhibitor with my company. And the letter even stated that the police station had been informed and if I came anyway, then they would arrest me. And I was really thrown out and taken out everywhere, from clubs, from groups. We were no longer given many jobs. And at some point they even put us in a huge newspaper article in which we were featured.

It was half a page of a double-page spread, where only we were featured: “If the boss is a Scientologist.” And everyone knew that this was us. Actually unbelievable that something like this can even happen in this day and age.