A document that was sent to us for our information in the case of Dr. Nittmann – concerning the enforced deduction of church tax from unemployed who do not belong to a major Christian church – at the State Sozialgericht in Stuttgart has led to the revelation of an atrocity that must be unrivalled even in the decade-long practice and routine of injustice within the German legal apparatus: in the part of the files that contained the protest letters from Germany and abroad under the title »petitions from citizens«, there was a handwritten note by the judge in charge on protest letter 136/137 saying: »Don't present any more letters from supporters. Bin them.« (»bitte keine Unterstützerschreiben mehr vorlegen, kann in den Papierkorb«

There is a long list of constitutional violations, from the berufsverbots to the deployment of German troops abroad under US command, amongst which the acts of robbery committed by the German Church State, which have their foundations in the Hitler Concordat, feature prominently, but this perfidious mixture of coldness and viciousness still succeeds in taking your breath away. It takes a while for the whole thing to sink in: while worthy ladies and gentlemen in gowns play judges and lawyers in a state under the rule of law on the courtroom stage, waving with paragraphs, juggling statistics, pulling makeshift constructions out of their hats and performing quite exquisite shadow boxing by means of bogus terms – the »fictional« church tax is such a cheek – a grey legal apparatchik is, behind the scenes, ordering the suppression and destruction of documents – how far this destruction has actually gone still has to be clarified – in order to do this, the painstaking and time-consuming comparison of the protest letters and petitions present at the courts with the copies we have received is necessary (as you can see, we had good reason to ask everyone sending a protest letter to send a copy to us) – but independently of this, the instruction from this judge demonstratively spits in the face of anyone who has written such a letter. But above all, one thing is clear: these protest letters have had an effect. They have put sugar in the legal system's tank, disturbed the flow of injustice. The national, and especially international public represented in the letters has proved once again to be the best and most efficient means of making routine injustice more difficult. For the significance of the trial in Stuttgart is that on the very same day the verdict was read out, the Federal Government announced the retraction of the enforced deduction of church tax as of 1 January 2005 – without, let it be noted, recompensing the victims; this is the decisive reason for the plaintiff, Dr. Nittmann, to go before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg now. In retrospect, some details from the trial in Stuttgart also become clearer: the courtroom that was much too small, with a view to keeping out more than half of the public audience – which failed after a massive protest; the massive, intimidatory police presence, which is extremely unusual for such a trial; the (equally unusual) response in a Stuttgart monopoly newspaper the day before the proceedings, and finally the prompt reaction from the government: all these things are reactions to the publicity we have generated, and it really must have got to the officials involved in it. So we should definitely continue on this path. It is the only way – if there is a way at all – to our aim: pay back the money that has been stolen to those it has been stolen from: the unemployed! There certainly can't be a lack of money, not when the major Christian churches are getting billions from the German state every year – not to mention the state injustice and spying apparatus! The rejection from the Federal Constitutional Court (BVG) in the case of Dr. Nittmann means that legal recourse to appeal has been exhausted in Germany – after four years of proceedings in which the courts preferred quoting each other, »overlooked« the constitution for sheer laws and threw the balls to each other in accordance with the rules of Messrs Ping and Pong. Some of those who »know the material«, who have fought themselves up to the thin air of the highest levels during their careers, allege that they can see an extraordinary document in the six-page communication from the BVG: rarely had the noble body shown so much movement and enthusiasm. But if you look at the communication a little more closely, then you will see that all that is being said here is what they have been regurgitating for decades. These texts, trotted out like an endless tape, read as follows, with almost devastating monotony: »This« – meaning said enforced deduction of church tax – »is a fictitious position; the unemployment benefit was not subject to income tax and therefore cannot be subject to church tax« (sic). The same old story: »fictitious« deduction of real money, with which one can buy food or send soldiers to Afghanistan ad maiorem gloriam Imperii americani. Or a sentence like this one: »The constitutional complaint has no basic constitutional significance« (p.4) – which means, with consecration from a high court judge, that non-Christians are to be treated the same as Christians. Amen. The BVG has this time spared itself the excuse that the poor employment offices are already so overburdened with tasks and administration that they would fold if they had to look at the »Religion« sections on their forms, as the Freiburg Sozialgericht had once adjudged. If you read, as was recently the case, that these same offices even pay temporary benefits to unemployed women working as prostitutes as long as the »balance sheet« is in order, then that is surely more than enough to make you sick. There are enough resources available to do this, aren't there? It's hard to imagine that this record low in terms of depravity and disgust could still be beaten, but this is obviously how they like the unemployed: resigned, humiliated and soiled; they can break open the piggy-bank for this and don't care about the »administrative effort« either. In other words, this has got nothing to do with administrative effort but is a glorious step forward whose development the readers of this magazine know more about: »Due to the removal without replacement of the regulation under criticism as of January 2005, the legal situation has changed since the pendency of the constitutional complaint« (p. 4) – but they still want to keep the money that was taken while the unconstitutional law was still in effect; the »abolition without replacement« of the enforced church tax should, above all, mean »abolition without remuneration«, right? And then comes this remarkable sentence: »The abolition of this regulation also is not significant for a considerable number of other pending disputes« – as if it were the number that was significant and not the fact that the constitution has been violated, for basic rights are individual rights, dear ladies and gentlemen of the BVG, which according to their text are to apply to »everyone« and not be withheld from »anyone« – the highly honoured »Fathers of the Basic Law« knew nothing about a »considerable number« of violations of the constitution, which should have only then been treated as such; they knew nothing about »large majorities« and »usually occurring« raids. But while we are on the question of quantity, which has nothing to do with the quality – the validity of basic rights for every citizen – (as little as the crimes of the Hitler regime should be allowed to be counted in terms of litres or hectolitres of blood shed, since they began with the Nuremberg Race Laws and the subsequent persecution of the Jews, which was bloodless at first) – a few precise figures on the complaints raised against the forced deduction of church tax from unemployment benefit in the last 15 years would be interesting. But these figures are protected as a state secret, just as the precise figures about the confession of those in employment were only provided with great reluctance and equally long delay; at the time this article was written, the figures for 2001 – the year Dr. Nittmann lodged his complaint – are still not available for all the German states. So, finally, the High Court rules, tersely and with an accomplished denial of reality (p. 5): »The unemployed are not required to pay church tax; the regulation does not lead to the unemployed being burdened with payments that are then paid to the Church.« This »finding«, as we cannot stress enough, has taken the highest judges in the land four years.
    As we already said four years ago, the final possibility is the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. In the last few days, an according brief was submitted describing this practice, unique in the world, of forcibly deducting church tax from unemployed non-church members from all possible legal points of view, in particular with reference to the relevant articles of the constitution, and detailing its prehistory. It is the last relic of Hitler, i.e. the concordat between the German Fascist state and the Vatican that is still valid to this day. But the hurdles to be taken before this complaint is accepted by the ECHR are high: since there are more than 40 member states, several ten thousands complaints are submitted every year, which are all examined and sorted for approval in complicated preliminary proceedings. The biggest asset in this action is the 3000 letters of protest and petitions from all over the world that have also, naturally, been submitted. It is now most important to demand that those rights that are fixed and written in the European Convention on Human Rights actually are applied in the countries in which they are valid, and that the Federal Republic of Germany is convicted because of its compulsory collection of church tax from unemployed non-church members practised for decades. Human rights, not the relics of Hitler! It goes without saying that such a conviction has to go along with reimbursement of the money robbed from the victims – in the case of Dr. Nittmann not less than 900 EUR, after all! Compensation instead of unjustified enrichment of the Great Churches! Of particular importance is the reference to the scandalous destruction of protest letters by organs of the German legal system – their scheming must not be allowed to succeed. Letters of protest to the European Court of Human Rights should refer to the file number