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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS