The skull and crossbones image was exploited by the Christian Democratic Union in cover art for boxes of condoms promoted as “90 percent effective” in “preventing” future Scientologists.

Art in Reverse

      The issue of art in the discrimination which pervades modern-day Germany also has flip side: German officials use art as a weapon to spread false propaganda — not only about Scientology, but any other religion or belief deemed “wrong.”

      In a paper entitled “Art As Propaganda Against Jews and Scientologists in Germany: Echoes of the Past Reverberate in the Present,” Dr. Stephen C. Feinstein, authority on European history and art and chairman of the history department at the University of Wisconsin, published his observations on current German attacks on minority religions, including Scientology.

      “Many of the attacks and representations of Scientology bear more than a slight resemblance to the misuse of art... in the anti-Semitic campaigns against the Jews,” writes Feinstein. “In contemporary Germany, the attack on Scientology has a crusade-like mentality associated with images intended to demonize and destroy, in a way not clearly delineated. ... One need not seek a consistent logic or message in this attempt to demonize. None exists.”

      Yet however reprehensible the role of German media in spreading intolerance, none of the propaganda art currently distributed in Germany is as virulent as that produced by members of Chancellor Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union.

Continued...

| Previous | Glossary of Scientology Terms | Contents | Next |
| Your view on this Scientology Website | Scientology Related Sites | Bookstore | Church of Scientology Freedom Magazine |

editor@freedommag.org

© 1999-2008 Church of Scientology International. All Rights Reserved.

For Trademark Information