Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an Instrument for Character Assassination
But prejudgement is exactly what happened in the case of Otto Dreksler.
For four months, the OPC enveloped Dreksler, Chief of Operations of the Berlin Police Force, in clouds of guilt and suspicion. A mere whisper to the OPC – and the whisperer was anonymous – was enough to remove Dreksler from his senior position in the Berlin police.
What happened to Otto Dreksler can happen to anybody in an environment where suspicion reigns and real evidence is ignored or distrusted.
It began in autumn 1997. An interreligious body called Freedom for Religions in Germany, composed of members of the Church of Scientology and other minority religions, announced that a religious freedom march with some ten thousand participants would take place in Berlin in October. When Senator of the Interior Joerg Schoenbohm asked Dreksler, who knew Scientologists to be peaceful people, if the march gave any cause for alarm, Dreksler’s reply was negative. “You may take the weekend off, nothing worrisome will happen,” a newspaper later quoted him.