The longstanding antagonism between Germany and the Church of Scientology escalated over the weekend when a high-profile historian compared Tom Cruise's performance in a Scientology video with the style of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Guido Knopp, who has written a number of books on Hitler and his inner circle, said the video, which surfaced on YouTube last week, "inevitably" recalled Goebbels' landmark speech delivered in a Berlin sports stadium when the propaganda chief asked: "Do you want total war?"
In response, the crowd famously thundered: "Yes!"
The Scientology footage shows Cruise, wearing a large medallion and speaking from a podium.
"So what do you say, we gonna clean this place up?" he asks.
He is greeted by zealous cheers.
"It may be the case that Cruise's delivery style is not uncommon in certain religious movements in the US," Knopp told the Bild am Sonntag in an interview. "But for Germans with an interest in history, that scene where he asks whether the Scientologists should clean up the world and everyone shouts `yes' is inevitably reminiscent of Goebbels' notorious speech."
Parallels with the Third Reich remain highly sensitive, even in a Germany that has taken large strides to come to terms with its past. But Scientology has generated a visceral opposition in Germany -- last month security ministers sought to ban it, saying it contravened the Constitution -- and Knopp's remarks found few critics yesterday.
Thomas Gandow of the German Protestant Church, who has previously compared Cruise to Goebbels, said the video revealed the actor's high standing in the organization.
"He is not your average sect member but rather a propaganda minister ... I still believe it: Tom Cruise is the Goebbels of Scientology," he said.
Ursula Caberta, who leads a Hamburg-based research group into the Church of Scientology, said the latest video was "hard evidence" that the group was anti-constitutional.
There was no immediate comment available from the Church of Scientology in Berlin.
The organization has said the footage came from a meeting four years ago. It was posted on several Web sites last week, but some took it down after copyright claims by the Church.
Other footage shows the Oscar-nominated actor speaking above the Mission: Impossible theme music. He presents himself and fellow Scientologists as "authorities on the mind."
Among his enthusiastic comments Cruise says: "We're the authorities on getting people off drugs. We're the authorities on the mind. We're the authorities on improving conditions ... We can rehabilitate criminals. Way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures."
But such claims are treated with suspicion in Germany, where there is decades-long scepticism about anything regarded as an ideological movement, a trait some say is a legacy of the country's past.
Germany has taken a very distinct stance among European countries towards Scientology, considering it not as a religion but as a commercial organization.
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