Religion: Tom Cruise and Scientology 2

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Germany and Scientology (Part 2)

The 2007 Tom Cruise controversy in Germany was not the first time that Germany and Tom Cruise have been at loggerheads.

Also see:
Germany, Tom Cruise, and Scientology (GW Expat Blog)
Germany and Hollywood - Valkyrie and Tom Cruise (GW Expat Blog)

Germany versus Tom Cruise - Part 2

First, Tom Cruise made the mistake of telling an interviewer during a Mission Impossible press conference for the film’s German release that his affiliation with Scientology was “a personal matter.” This seemingly innocent remark spurred the “Junge Union” youth branch of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Germany’s (and Kohl’s) conservative leading political party to call for a boycott of Mission Impossible when it opened in Germany in August 1996. (It probably did not help that Cruise was also known to be close friends with Scientology head David Miscavige.) Although the CDU boycott failed to keep the Tom Cruise vehicle from being the eighth biggest film in Germany that year, the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn, writer Mario Puzo, and 31 others still signed the full-page advertisement in the New York Times and the European International Herald-Tribune. (German papers refused to run the ad.) The ad was an open letter to Helmut Kohl that made a direct comparison between the treatment of Scientologists in modern Germany and that of German Jews prior to World War II. Cynics on both sides of the Atlantic said the ad reflected Hollywood’s concern about future movie releases in Germany that also star famous Scientologists: Michael with John Travolta, and Cruise’s new Jerry Maguire. One signer of the letter, who did not want to be identified, admitted he and probably others signed the letter, at least in part, to curry favor with Cruise and Travolta.

The term “negative response” is far too inadequate to describe reactions to the ad in Germany. In fact, even the American response was not totally positive. The Anti-Defamation League termed the ad “ludicrous.” Georgetown University’s Holocaust historian, Michael Berenbaum, considered the Nazi comparisons inappropriate and unfortunate. Even the U.S. State Department (which had just condemned Germany for its Scientology discrimination!) weighed in, terming the ad's language unfair.

One of the ad’s 34 signatories, Greek-French film director Constantin Costa-Gavras, later retracted his support, saying he had not read the letter carefully enough and did not want to lead people to believe he thought it possible to compare the current situation in Germany “...and the abominable laws of yesteryear which led to the Holocaust.” Cruise’s attorney, Bertram Fields, who initiated the open letter ad, defended its wording, pointing out that the Nazi era comparison in the ad referred specifically to Jewish persecution in Germany in the early 1930s and there was intentionally no reference made to the later death camps or the Holocaust. But as Frank Rich pointed out in the New York Times, the ad’s greatest failing was its lack of any hint about Scientology’s controversial past. The uninitiated (which did not include many Germans) could be left with a false impression from the ad’s evasiveness, making the issue seem more clear-cut than it truly is.

Americans used to First Amendment religious and speech freedoms, even for unpopular views, forget that Germany is a democratic country with a past that has led it to set narrower limits on its citizens’ rights. When it comes to nationalistic excesses (read “extreme right, neo-Nazi”) and dictatorial threats to democratic government (read “Scientology”), Germany does not share American-style tolerance. It is illegal in Germany, for instance, to even simply display Nazi symbols. Additionally, the concept of separation of church and state is a foreign one in a country where the tax agency collects a church tax (Kirchensteuer) for religious organizations. A court decision a few years ago in predominantly Catholic Bavaria banning crucifixes in state-run classrooms was so unpopular, many Bavarians were ready to secede from Germany!

Germany is a country fairly evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants who generally get along with each other without any of the problems seen in places like Northern Ireland. Most German students attend a class on religious instruction, depending on their own faith (usually Lutheran or Roman Catholic) as part of the normal public, state-run school curriculum. Religious minorities in Germany – Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Mormons and others – enjoy official religious status and tolerance. But the German government does not regard Scientology as a religion at all. Instead it sees a dangerous cult movement and a threat to German society. It will take a lot more than a few ads to change this German perspective on the issue.

The so-called Church of Scientology in Germany gets no church-tax money and is officially scorned as a conspiracy that drives members to financial and spiritual ruin. Among other things, Scientology has been blamed for buying up housing in cities like Berlin and Hamburg and driving out the former tenants with high rents. This in turn sparked protests in those cities.

 
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Related links

• Germany, Tom Cruise, and Scientology (GW Expat Blog)
• Germany and Hollywood - Valkyrie and Tom Cruise (GW Expat Blog)
• Read the full text of the “Open Letter to Helmut Kohl” advertisement.
• The Scientology - Wikipedia (English)
• The Scientology - Wikipedia (German)
• The Church of Scientology Web site

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