German suspicion of Scientology resurfaced in Hamburg this week after a security official said he would seek a nationwide ban against the organization. He's arguing that Scientology is an "unconstitutional" big business.
DDP A German police officer stands in front of the Berlin Scientology Center after its grand opening in January 2007.
Germany and Scientology have never been the best of friends. German officials consider Scientology a business, not a religion, and tax the outfit accordingly. Scientology has responded by complaining about "religious discrimination." Yet Berlin has a Scientology center, and the famous Scientologist Tom Cruise came to Berlin this year to film a big-budget Hollywood film -- even, after some debate, in restricted Nazi-era buildings.
Now an official in Hamburg named Udo Nagel is pursuing a national ban against the US-based organization.
As the city-state's interior minister, Nagel is Hamburg's top security official. At a meeting this week of other interior ministers from other states around Germany he plans to argue that Scientology is not only a commercial enterprise but also an "anti-constitutional" group with "aggressively fierce" tactics.
The argument is nothing new; in fact the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution has watched the group for years because of its recruitment practices. The federal government worries that Scientology, as a foreign organization, wants to win over adherents and influence German politics. "There is substantial evidence that the Scientology organization is involved in activities directed against the free democratic order," the agency has written in official reports.
Nagel hinted at his new campaign last summer, when he said the group founded by and devoted to the American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard aimed at nothing less than the "complete repression of the individual."
But Nagel's office said a single German state can't push through a ban. (The city of Hamburg is governed as an independent state.) So Nagel is taking his case to colleagues in other states with the idea of forging a nationwide prohibition.
Whether it will work or not is far from clear. A spokesman for Scientology in Germany, Sabine Weber, said the new ambition to ban the group was "more than incomprehensible." She pointed out that the European Court of Human Rights had ruled in favor of Scientology after Russia denied its application to register as a religion.
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Official warning leaflets from the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior on (from left to right) Islamic extremism, Scientology, and organized crime. 

After an investigation into the Church of Scientology (CoS), top security officials in Germany said that they consider its goals to be in conflict with the German constitution. Hamburg's Interior Minister Udo Nagel first brought complaints to state interior ministers in Hamburg. The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution has also been monitoring the group, fearing they may gain control in German elections. In official reports, the government agency has said "There is substantial evidence that the Scientology organization is involved in activities directed against the free democratic order." Nagel has been building support among other interior ministers.

Berlin's Interior Minister, Senator Erhart Koerting, presided over a two-day conference on the issue with the interior ministers of all of Germany's 16 states.  Federal Interior Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, also attended. The German government does not believe Scientology is a religion, but instead treats it as a commercial enterprise, and states that it takes advantage of its members. The government taxes the CoS and its sister organizations as businesses in the country.

The interior ministers will ask Germany's domestic intelligence agency to determine what will be necessary in order to ban the CoS in Germany. The organization has been under investigation by the German government for over a decade, under allegations that it "threatens the peaceful democratic order."

Scientologists have said that the investigation is a violation of their freedom of religion, and the United States Department of State has criticized Germany in its Human Rights Reports in previous years. Sabine Weber, a representative of Scientology in Germany, called the actions to ban Scientology "more than incomprehensible."

This past summer, Germany had initially refused producers of a film starring Scientologist Tom Cruise to film at key sites. Cruise was later able to shoot his film in certain restricted areas.