Re: "Auf der Jagd nach dem Aussteiger", ("On the Hunt for the former member"), MAZ, 26 May

Brandenburg. In connection with the fantasy-filed description by Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Gandow court proceedings in the United States were mentioned. The court said in April that Mr. Armstrong would have to pay 500,000 dollars in damages to the Scientology Church.

A somewhat abridged version of the background to this was presented in the above-mentioned article. In the 1970s Mr. Armstrong was an archivist and misappropriated a number of documents. In order to settle the dispute with him amicably, a settlement was decided upon in 1986. Mr. Armstrong gave the documents back, received a large amount of settlement money and obliged himself to no longer libel the Scientology Church. It wasn't until after he was squandering his money that Mr. Armstrong discovered his "victim role." If Mr. Gandow is now going to assert that Armstrong "wanted to make preparations in Germany for the legal proceedings," that is stretching the truth. It was much more a matter of Mr. Gandow wanting to market Mr. Armstrong in the media here at home.

The impression emerges that certain people, like Mr. Gandow, are worried less about facts than they are about upkeep, posts and budget. However, the results of past miscalculations and legal court judgments have already made themselves apparent.

On December 4 of last year the Berlin administrative court found that the mere mention of Scientology in the 2002 Constitutional Security report was illicit. The Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution officially dropped surveillance of Scientology back in August 2003. In important democratic nations, the religious nature of Scientology and, above that, the charitableness of the Church, has been officially recognized by the highest courts and authorities. Besides English-speaking countries like the United States, Canada and Australia, they include Sweden, South Africa, Italy and Holland. For years our community has dedicated itself to religious and humanitarian missions and in particular with the aftereffects of the greatest problem of our society today: the drug problem. There we are conducting a blanket information campaign to protect young people in particular and thereby our future generations from the decay of human relations associated therewith. In this connection it should not go unmentioned that the subject Scientology member from Berlin was held accountable according to internal church policy for his James-Bond incident on the autobahn and is performing volunteer work in the framework of the anti-drug campaign.

Georg Stoffel,
Scientology Church
Munich, Germany

Original German Article