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A new court ruling categorizing homeschooling as "child welfare endangerment" contains "chilling" parallels to earlier decisions that in their time allowed German authorities to confiscate children from their parents if they were part of "fanatical Bible" groups, according to a homeschooling advocacy group.Those earlier decisions, according to information being publicized by Netwerk Bildungsfreiheit, an organization that advocates for homeschoolers in Germany, were from the Nazi era.As WND has reported, the newest court ruling not only found the basis for child endangerment in homeschooling, but also determined a local government was remiss in allowing a mother to take her two children to another country where homeschooling is legal. The decision from the Federal High Court in Karlsruhe, Germany's highest court, was reported by the German edition of Agence France-Presse as well as Netwerk Bildungsfreiheit.Now the organization is noting the similarities with earlier court rulings, when Adolf Hitler was in power.A ruling from the State Court in Hamburg dated 1936 pointed to "endangerment of the mental wellbeing of children, who would have been denied participation in the national community…," a premise that corresponds to the recent Federal Supreme Court decision, the group said."Only the words have been chosen somewhat differently by the Supreme Court in order to conceal the fascist spirit of the decision," the analysis said."It is quite chilling that the reasons stated by the authorities and courts in child custody terminations in Hitler's regime … correspond in their spirit exactly to the decision recently rendered by the Federal Supreme Court," the analysis said.It said what courts used to call the "national community" now is the "public" and what was "participation in the national community" now has been called a justified interest in "counteracting the formation of religiously or ideologically characterized parallel societies and integrating minorities in this area."The analysis found that the "National Socialist (Nazi) regime" specifically targeted members of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, including the State Court in Hamburg decision from 1936 in which judges found: "Custody rights shall be terminated for parents who, as fanatical Bible students, cannot rear their children in accordance with today's State and because this endangers the mental wellbeing of the children, who are thereby prevented from participating in the national community."Hundreds of children were taken from their families for reasons no more important than they failed to sing Nazi songs with others, the analysis noted."Authorities, who interpreted the civil code according to their national socialist legal notions, considered it beyond question that the childrearing practices of Jehovah's Witnesses was 'endangerment of child welfare' and 'mental and moral neglect,'" the analysis said.It was simply that their lives conflicted with the Hitler Youth Law: "All of German youth, except in the parental home and at school, shall be reared to serve the people and the national community physically, mentally and morally in the sense of national socialism in the Hitler youth."A 1937 decree followed, requiring "all state police bureaus to 'pressure the competent civil courts to terminate the personal custody rights of members of the International Bible Students Association who endanger the mental wellbeing of their children through their illegal activities and through their adherence to the teachings…"The new court decision did not directly identify the family involved but described the case of two children from a homeschooling family in Paderborn.The court found the city and its social services agencies were "obviously unsuited" to the task of enforcing mandatory public school attendance, and rather than protecting against "child welfare endangerment," the city allowed the family to move to Austria where the two children now are being educated by an "uncertified" mother.An internet blogger's site, Principle Discovery, which monitors some such situations, also translated the report and said the Paderborn case specifically involved issues of religious belief, but the decision also could impact another homeschooling case, from Bremen, which WND has reported.In that case, the parents have been battling the government over their children's education for educational, competency and cultural reasons, not necessarily religious reasons. For a time, however, they were relegated to begging a public court system for their own money to use for groceries after authorities froze both personal and business bank accounts to pay a $6,300 fine for homeschooling.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
