The verdict of the Freiburg "Sozialgericht", which will allow the continued robbery of unemployed non-church members by enforced taxation, a practice that has, over the decades, run into billions, with the intransigence of stubborn bureaucrats, is now available in written form. It is definitely worth reading this text, for all the monotony of an act of injustice carried out as a matter of routine that it entails: it goes on and on in platitudes and stiff legal German and ignores fundamental articles of the German constitution throughout the text. However, there are some new utterances to be found within this, from which far-reaching consequences can be inferred.

The verdict was, of course, passed "in the name of the people" – yes indeed, of a people misled and duped as far as was possible by selective reporting on this fundamental act of injustice – first by simply keeping the matter quiet. However, the people then appeared on the day of the trial in a – for the judges – unexpectedly and undesirably high number, having previously articulated its protest against this arbitrary act by the German Church State in numerous letters. This so unaccustomed and so undesirable condition for German judges – "the people" is no longer a throwaway phrase but is physically present in the form of an attentive public audience – led to the following result worth of further consideration: "The court has been presented with a petition drawn up at a conference in Paris on 18.02.2002 [actually, it was September], in which those who signed the petition expressed their position against an allegedly enforced church tax imposed on the unemployment benefit of those who are not church members in the Federal Republic of Germany. The protesters claim that a whole series of basic rights are being violated by this, that millions of German citizens are being forced to support financially an institution of which they are not members and which they expressly do not want to support. In addition, numerous individual protest letters have been sent to the court." Allegedly – claim – here, the court is spitting something out, with very poorly concealed rage, which the judge at the trial, red-faced with anger, commented on thus: "If you think you can put a court under pressure, blackmail it, by means of a misinformed public audience, then I wonder where you think you are? Haven't you heard that the German courts are independent – in-de-pendent?! If you don't even know that, then what are you doing here?!" No doubt about it – the protests had had a striking effect on a judge who, while being independent from the constitution, was most definitely dependent on the wishes of her superiors and her bureaucratic milieu.

So, what arguments was the court going to use now, faced with the irrefutable fact of a constitutional violation? By means of a crypto-religious mantra, reference to higher powers, i.e. the superiors, that rock of hope for a shipwrecked civil servant, the last straw for a drowning bureaucrat to clutch at. This then reads as follows: "after the convincing statements of the Constitutional Court …The Federal Sozialgericht rightly pointed out in its decision …The Constitutional Court stated convincingly in its decision … The Constitutional Court has based its decision on comprehensive research" etc. There were times when the German legal system beat much less vigorously about the bush in following the orders of you-know-who, who, after all, is responsible for the church concordat on which the foundation of this verdict of injustice is formed.

There also remains room for distortions and inaccurate representations that blur the borders between truth and lies. The most popular confusing tactics with the enforced imposition of church tax on unemployed non-church members is to mention that this tax is "fictitious". This is a cheap story-teller's trick, an equivocation aimed at implying that there is no enforced imposition of church tax (fictitious=imagined, fancied, non-existent) because the monies stolen either actually or allegedly do not go to the church but to the church state. Those who wrote the protest letters admittedly did not let themselves be tricked into thinking that the enforced imposition of church tax – regardless of its real purpose – was anything but absolutely real. To use the clumsy, stiff language of the "Sozialgericht": "This ruling does not affect … the freedom of religious confession, nor does it affect the freedom of religion of any persons who do not belong to a church that is entitled to church tax. The ruling also does not – as has been assumed, which assumption is made clear by the numerous letters sent to the court and the personal statement made by the plaintiff at the trial – have as a consequence that those unemployed who do not belong to a church that levies tax are burdened with contributions to a church." Impure intentions result in impure formulations: the plaintiff, Dr Nittmann, had actually said in his statement that the enforced imposition of church tax was real (i.e. not "fictitious"), independently of whether the stolen money was used to

• convert 100,000 blacks to Christianity,
• kill 100,000 Iraqis
• or (with a view to the judge and the director of the Freiburg employment office) pay 100,000 civil servants.

Compare these statements with the wording of the verdict text.

It's clear here, too: the public and the protest letters have undeniably had an effect; the court found itself in a situation where it had to justify itself. This effect, however, was most clearly to be seen in an announcement that was kept vague:

In view of the public attention this matter has increasingly been receiving – the result of a laborious and expensive enlightenment campaign – not only did the Freiburg "Sozialgericht" set the date for the trial at unusual speed, after having actively postponed it, but there are also details in its verdict that are not to be found in any other relevant verdict and definitely jump off the page when you read it – such as the formulation on page 6 of the verdict, which states that the enforced imposition of church tax on unemployed non-church members is "not yet in violation of the constitution". Not yet – but maybe soon? One page later, this is explained precisely with reference to a ruling passed by the Federal "Sozialgericht" (BSG) on 25 June 2002 (File No.: B11 AL 55/01), which states that the enforced imposition will be in violation of the constitution as soon as "the proportion of those in work who belong to a church that levies church tax has decreased to below 55%. […] New figures pertaining to this will be available in the near future". This is a most interesting piece of information: three months before this BSG ruling, on 1 March 2002, the "Bund gegen Anpassung" distributed a mass flyer containing the information, which is difficult to obtain because it is – or was – being kept secret, that 43% of all those in work in Germany are not members of churches. And then this ruling in June 2002: enforced imposition in breach of the constitution from 55% church membership downwards, not 57% (NB: this figure of 57% is from 1999; now, at the start of 2003, the percentage of those in work in Germany who are members of a major church will be no or hardly more than a half, i.e. ±50%).

There can be no doubt about the apparent arbitrariness and definite absurdity of the BSG setting this figure, but let us take a closer look at the mechanics of this procedure:

• The announcement of a turnaround (once again unknown to the public and only made public outside the juristic circles involved by the Freiburg "Sozialgericht" trial) was made after the publication of the explosive, and thus concealed, statistic: 55%, all of a sudden, instead of 57%!
• Should the German Church State really lay down this figure as a threshold value for the unconstitutionality of this foray (let's wait and see: paper won't blush, and the mills of justice grind slowly), then it will be trying to don the halo of the rule of law in retrospect.
• The causal connection to the trials, which are ever increasing in number (precise numbers are not published), and the protests, especially those from abroad, is being withheld. But above all:
• The billions stolen unconstitutionally from those in work who are not church members are to be retained. This will then sound something like this: "After a thorough examination of all legal reservations and by entering the latest, carefully obtained statistics into the equation, the BSG/BVG has reached the conclusion that the imposition of a fictitious church tax will no longer be in accordance with the Constitution as of 01.01.2004." All those affected by this who have filed a suit against the enforced taxation must therefore insist that the money taken from them be returned. The threshold of 55% will definitely have already been reached in 2000.
• However, the most important consequence to be drawn from these events is not that the state organs have finally, at long, long last, seen the errors of their ways in this violation of the constitution that they have committed thousands of times. No: what they are planning is the extension of this violation of the constitution:

A proposal along these lines was propagated – time and place will also have been anything but coincidental – on 21/22 December 2002 in the tageszeitung. It is important to know that this daily is the only newspaper in Germany that is openly financed with tax-payers' money – on account of its low advertising volume and low circulation, it would otherwise not survive economically. The tageszeitung is the unofficial governmental organ of the Green Party, pampered with tax-payers' money, and accordingly, the writer of this article, a certain Gerd Grözinger, is a Green "tax politics expert" and also a lecturer in economics at the University of Flensburg. His article bears the signature of cynicism and the arrogance of power: "A long-term gift. Atheists don't pay church tax – and thus have immense financial reserves for setting up a nationwide fund for social engagement for the benefit of all". So – this whole thing is no longer called enforced taxation of atheists, oh no: in accordance with the pre-Nominalist maxim that changing something's name changes the thing itself, there is now to be a nationwide fund by the noble name of "Test the Future", to which the "social capital", i.e. the possible savings of the non-religious, will be transferred by force (the analogy to the "fictitious" church tax on unemployed non-church members is evident; but now, this tax, which would, in pre-revolutionary France, have been called "nigger tax", is to be extended to anyone employed). The author of the article makes no bones about this, once again with the cynicism and coldness that are the hallmarks of this government paper. The slogan is: "Let's get at the well-filled coffers of the post-materialists!" This last, somewhat curious word means that those who as modern-day supporters of the enlightenment do not believe in a god and therefore do not belong to a church should pay, and that as much as possible. The author makes the following suggestion: "Tax-payers who do not formally belong to any religious group should be made to pay an amount equal to the church tax that they would otherwise have to pay. […] the aim is to use atheists' money to promote a modern public spirit. […] There will be large amounts of money involved. [editor's note: sounds a bit like "Jews' property" in the "Völkischer Beobachter"]. […] Billions annually…".

These lines reveal not only the dastardly swindler's mentality of a parasitic bureaucrat's caste, but also the systematic extension of a constitutional violation that has previously "only" been committed against the poorest, and thus most blackmailable people. Freedom of religion, as the very core of the enlightenment of the once victorious, but now greatly eroded French Revolution, is under siege and being bombarded from afar before the final attack. The constitution remains on paper as it is, and is violated in practice, by order of the government, at the snap of a finger. This is how German soldiers are sent abroad, and this is how atheists' money flows into the state coffers.

The protest against the enforced imposition of church tax on unemployed non-church members in Germany has started to take effect, but it must be intensified and expanded if it is to have any hope of foiling such an attack on the German constitution. This, of course, depends on every individual – not only the unemployed, but also the employed tax-payers, and above all, those who have a brain!

The lawyer, Gottfried Niemietz, has appealed against the verdict of the Freiburg "Sozialgericht". We will be reporting continually on the further development of these proceedings – every voice of protest counts, as the events to date prove, and every sleepyhead may end up waking up to a nightmare!