… Lutheran fundamentalist Rubens Horst is no stranger to the term. For decades, the concern of the Protestant Lutheran church has been to combat every religious orientation and worldview that might pose a threat to its own Lutheran existence. Since the 60s this battle has been fought under the leadership of cult commissioners – the so-called “commissioners for religious and spiritual movements”.
The scientist Martin Kriele describes the fascist traits of the cult hunt as “hysterical persecution of religious and ideological minorities in Germany”. The methods, actions, and ways of thinking of the cult hunters ”[are] strongly [reminiscent] of the 30s.”
[…] Little has changed. “Sect” is another word for “heretic” and what held for heretics in the past, holds today in Germany once more: “Exterminandus est” – if not by fire […] then by defamation, isolation, and economic destruction. There is a climate of terror and hysteria and it is in no way exaggerated to say that it has nearly taken on Fascist elements.
Kriele, Martin in: Besier, Gerhard/Scheuch K. Erwin (Ed.): The New Inquisitors, Part 1, 1999, p. 220
“Ordenskirche” St. Georgen
During his six-year tenure in office in Bayreuth (1990-1996) pastor Rubens Horst develops the Ordenskirche in Bayreuth-St. Georgen [translator’s note: one of the city’s Lutheran churches] into a serpents’ nest of apologetic combatants and informers. Defamation and exclusion of other religious orientations are methods that his mind vividly recalls from Brazil – experiences that he brought across the ocean to the Franconian Bayreuth. The Protestant Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil is a minority that manages to survive by collecting a following of like-minded people and laboriously trying to secure its existence by dissociating from alleged opponents, insulting, and fighting them.
The narrow vestry of the Lutheran “Ordenskirche” hosts a meeting. Rubens Horst, cult-chaser Bernhard Wolf, and Heidi Schönfeld – Vivian Fischer’s1 religion teacher in early retirement and ‘honorary’ cult commissioner – have gathered. Acting like alarmed generals, they direct religiously and politically motivated operations against Rhema Christian Center – as if it had intended to poach their state-church members that only exist on paper. Willing dogsbodies from Transylvania and Neudrossenfeld have already arrived alongside the sacristan and are warming up the pews in pre-emptive obedience. They are partisans of all stripes, from the former Securitate member from Transylvania to the train driver, to the carpet maker. Here they were engaged for a wild ride on the back of the local press; the Protestant Lutheran Church in Bavaria is endangered because of Rhema Christian Center!!!
Dogsbodies…
…who have never stood accountable for anything, are joining in. One might say: certainly these are good-natured country folk, friendly, helpful souls. They are the ones who will claim they haven’t seen or noticed anything. Of course, they were never involved and if they were, they were forced to because they had no other choice.
Pastor Horst caused my parents to change their minds [Karin and Heinz Fischer], so that they eventually destroyed their relationship with me and my family. […] The fact that he betrayed us in favor of his church is grave and has destroyed my trust in him.
Andreas Fischer about the deeds of his father-in-law Rubens Horst since 1996
Transformed into remote-controlled co-perpetrators, Karin and Heinz Fischer appear on local television all made-up and powdered, only to denounce their son in front of the camera. Their tendency to abuse state courts for their purposes and to mislead with fabricated information earns them a judicial rebuke. In a dispute over visitation rights, they exert emotional pressure on the grandchildren Hanna and Gabriel. Rubens Horst even sends letters to the court from Brazil, intending to ‘lend support’. But the judge does not give in to manipulation and decides: contact with their grandparents is against the best interest and welfare of the grandchildren.2
They generated pointless legal expenses in the five-digit range and threatened our existence and our domestic happiness massively.
Andreas Fischer about the trial at the Domestic Relations Court in Kulmbach, 2003-2006
Afterwards Rhema Christian Center serves the young Fischer family, cleaning up the mess caused by Rubens Horst’s psychological blackmail and helping them to deal with and overcome the serious traumata.
Apologetic Breeding Ground Neuendettelsau
If you endeavor to understand the source of the procedures described above, your search will quickly lead you to grandfather Georg Weger. In 1931 Weger was personally sworn in by mission director F. Eppelein from Neuendettelsau to fight the enemy – an underground fight with the purpose of degradation:
I hope to be able to send you a more detailed report in the foreseeable future about an interesting conference, which the head of the Provincial Office for Apologetics in Westphalia, pastor Müller-Schwefe, held for us in our recreation center. It will be our sincere effort to be in close exchange with our dear brothers in Brazil.
Mission Director Friedrich Eppelein to Pastor Georg Weger in Brazil, 1931
But who is Müller-Schwefe, the head of the Provincial Office for Apologetics in Westphalia?
Since 1931 Hans-Rudolf Müller-Schwefe has regularly been teaching courses, Reichsführer conferences, and meetings. One of these courses for students is titled: “The Church in the Fight with the League of the Godless and Tannenbergbund Movement”. They claim the two mentioned movements to be their strongest opponents, the most dangerous groups nationwide. At the invitation of Eppelein, several conferences are also held in Neuendettelsau. Here in particular, at the city of Luther and Löhe, the people of Neuendettelsau were to be mobilized against the ‘looming danger’ in so-called “combat training courses”.3
The Lutheran fighter Müller-Schwefe joined the SA on April 1, 1933, one month before joining the NSDAP. Until the end of World War II he serves Nazi Germany as Wehrmacht pastor. After his long, alleged ‘denazification trial’ was supposedly closed in 1948, the National Socialist was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Tübingen in 1955.
1 née Horst
2 File number 002F00196/04
3 Letter of Pastor Haffner (Association of the Protestant female youth in Bavaria) to the regional deans, 1931
Picture credits:
Cover picture: Ordenskirche St. Georgen, Bayreuth
Haus Lutherrose, conference and recreation center of the Society for Inner and Outer Mission in the Spirit of the Lutheran Church in Neuendettelsau, 2019
