Historical Outline

Report about

“Why Bayreuth is the Primeval German Hell on Earth”

This was the title under which “Welt” editor Dennis Sand published the “psychogram of a cultureless city”:

“I am very certain that there is no place in this country that could be closer to hell. […]

People who do not know Bayreuth mostly associate Bayreuth with the Bayreuth festival and Wagner and Hitler, and with that they have already understood almost everything there is to understand. But only almost. Once a year Bayreuth gets in the focus of the world public. […] For a few hours [so-called celebrities] give the world the beautiful illusion that Bayreuth is a place of culture. But what remains, when everyone leaves again, is the misery, the naked misery.”

published on welt.de on 29th August 2014

In the middle of this “primeval German hell”, Johannes and Katharine Siegling with their team founded Rhema Christian Center, a non-profit Christian organization, in the early 1990s. At that time we had no idea which gruesome, “brown” abyss would be exposed before us in the Wagner city. Rhema Christian Center became the target of an unscrupulous defamation campaign, a power struggle aimed at curbing the number of people leaving the state church and eliminating competition. These intentions strikingly united with the Bayreuth soul, which is historically deeply rooted in contempt, denunciation, and destruction.  

As Rhema Christian Center, we sought court protection during this time. As a result, the initiators of the campaign committed themselves to refrain from their defamatory and credit-damaging allegations and criminal defamations. The court threatened to impose a fine of up to 250,000.00 euros for each repeated case, or otherwise, imprisonment. 

Up to the present day, one can observe that free thinkers are being ostracized and hatred is fueled against them. It seems that the Bayreuth scene of state church, politics, and business is unchangeably stuck in these practices that have been cultivated on the basis of racial ideology. It is a deadlocked mindset that intends to suffocate every form of life.

Students and graduates of the University of Bayreuth from the fields of teaching, law, and economic sciences launched their own project of a children and youth academy, implementing a progressive educational approach. They, too, became the target of a state church and politically driven defamation campaign that almost drove them to the brink of financial ruin. 

Since 2012 Katharine Siegling has been invited to Switzerland as a guest speaker. The decision to emigrate to Switzerland, made in late 2014, developed from these seminars. When her decision became known, a group of about 20 educators and business people also decided to leave the region of Bayreuth. They gave up their status as civil servants for a new home in Switzerland, where they can implement progressive educational initiatives happily and successfully.

In a scientific-historical research project, we systematize and analyze the ‘delusions and deeds’ of Bayreuth and thus tie in with the insightful publications of  Hope Germany

Documentation