Does Germany Have Something Against These Guys?

John Travolta and Tom Cruise may be just pop-culture icons to you and me, but in Germany their faith in the preachings of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard is politically taboo; Scientology is deemed not a religion but a suspect movement whose activities verge on the dangerous edges of extremism. Now Germany's stern attitudes are raising something of an international ruckus, fueled in equal parts by the assertive Church of Scientology, Hollywood luminaries and a U.S. government caught with conflicting objectives.

Until last month, only the Scientologists and human-rights observers were paying much attention to what was going on in Germany. Then a startling letter appeared in the International Herald Tribune, signed by 34 show-biz celebrities and studio executives, comparing the purported discrimination suffered by Scientologists in Germany today to the "unspeakable horrors" perpetrated against the Jews in the 1930s. That comparison provoked outrage in the American Jewish community. Last week the State Department stepped in to address the charges in its influential yearly Human Rights Report. Spokesman Nicholas Burns went even further than the report, flatly accusing Germany of "discrimination" against Scientologists and of punishing them solely for their beliefs.

With that, Germany had had enough. In Bonn, the government declared that it was its "duty to publicize Scientology's practices and protect citizens from them." There were prolonged meetings at the chancellery, with much dark talk of slashing back at the U.S., reportedly by urging it to abolish capital punishment and do more to combat racism.

So why is all this erupting into an international dispute, albeit a well-contained one? The answer lies in the very different standards of religious freedom, the opposing views of the controversial Church of Scientology and Germany's intense sensitivity to its painful modern history.

The German campaign against the Scientologists as detailed in the State Department's report is a dry dish of bureaucratic caution, simply laying out the facts and calling no names. It says Scientologists have been barred from joining major German parties like the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats and that some who joined earlier are being purged. The state of Baden-Wurttemberg has ordered its equivalent of the FBI to put a watch on church members. Bavaria is screening them out of the state civil service and says it will deny funds to events that feature performers who are Scientologists. Cruise and jazz pianist Chick Corea, also a member of the U.S. church, have been the targets of a demonstration and a boycott, apparently with official approval.

Scientologists and their supporters say this is as bad as the Nazi regime. Church members, they claim, cannot obtain employment by the government, and their children have been kicked out of schools. Such "religious intolerance," said the Hollywood letter, is akin to Nazi policy that "first marginalized, then excluded, then vilified and ultimately subjected [the Jews] to unspeakable horrors." Those provocative charges put the U.S. in an awkward position: Scientology is a legally recognized church in the U.S., and its members are entitled to practice their faith freely. Burns, required to stand up for the principle of religious freedom but not to offend a major ally, denounced the ad's over-the-top parallels as "outrageous."