Until Nothing Remains.
"The German government has said that it does not consider Scientology a religion, but a "commercial enterprise with a history of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and an extreme dislike of any criticism" whose "totalitarian structure and methods may pose a risk to Germany's democratic society"."
"German public discourse does not regard Scientology as a religion, but generally characterizes it as a Sekte (cult or sect), or as an exploitative profit-making venture preying on vulnerable minds."
"Public concerns about the potential dangers posed by cults date back to the early 1970s, when widespread debate took place about "youth religions" such as the Unification Church, ISKCON, Children of God, and the Divine Light Mission."
"Given the history of Nazism's rise to power in Germany in the 1930s, the present German state has committed itself to taking active steps to prevent the rise of any ideology that threatens the values enshrined in the German constitution."
"At the federal level, Scientology lost a complaint against continued surveillance by the BfV in November 2004. The federal court based its opinion on its judgment that the aims of Scientology, as outlined by L. Ron Hubbard in his writings, were incompatible with the German constitution. Lawyers acting for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution pointed out that Hubbard had written that civil rights, for example, should be restricted to Scientologists, and they asserted that the Scientology organization was taking systematic steps to infiltrate society and government institutions in order to prevent anti-Scientology legislation. Opposing counsel acting for the Church of Scientology had contended that Scientology was non-political, its aims were the liberation of the human being, and that Hubbard's instructions were valid only within the Church of Scientology and were subject to interpretation, and at any rate there was no effort to implement these instructions in Germany. The court disagreed and ruled that many sources, some of them not accessible to the general public, indicated that the aims of the Church of Scientology did include the abrogation of the principle of equality and other essential human rights."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_Germany
Tabby S.