Strangers Came to His Family Home

So, my name is Kurt. I grew up in a completely normal family in the Palatinate.

Until I was 35, discrimination was actually a foreign concept to me. At that time, I found Scientology and became a Scientologist. And then various things happened. So, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, even then, came to my family’s home to influence my family. Of course, I was shocked that something like this was possible in a modern country like the Federal Republic.

Later on, I had a company and we worked together with Deutsche Bahn—actually, it was a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn. And we worked with them for a few years. And then in 2003, they included a Scientology sect filter in the contracts. And this sect filter stipulates that you must not be a Scientologist, and that you must not have taken any courses at the Church of Scientology, nor otherwise engaged with the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard. And, of course, I was very shocked that a German company which is very close to the government would include such a sect filter in its contracts. So, after this sect filter appeared in the contracts of Deutsche Bahn, we had to end the cooperation. That, of course, had a very negative impact on my company, and it took us a while to recover from that.

Of course, the discrimination continued. There were, in fact, many anti-Scientology events that were held everywhere—mainly by the Christian churches, by IHKs [chambers of industry and commerce], by private companies—where we were more or less portrayed as stupid and brainwashed. Of course, people were sometimes so incited and agitated by these event organizers and speakers that afterwards, they also attacked us. So that was, of course, an experience that deeply affected me and left me shaken. Of course, all the events, all the press and all the reprisals from the government were not justified by anything. There was no reason why all these things were stirred up. And what they did was total intolerance.