German social services officials have raided the home of a family and abducted their children on the sole grounds that the parents were exercising their right to home-school.
The armed raid occurred on the morning of 29 August, just as the Wunderlich family was beginning lessons.
The team of 20 SS personnel, police officers and special agents approached the home with a battering ram after Judge Koenig, a Darmstadt family court judge, authorized force “against the children” since the children had “adopted the parents’ opinions.”
The four children, ages 7-14, were all forcibly removed and taken to unknown locations, leaving the parents devastated.
Home School Legal Defense Association obtained the court documents authorizing the seizure. The documents reveal that the only legal grounds for action against the family was their decision to home-school. There were no allegations of abuse or neglect, nor any concern that the children were receiving inadequate education.
Dirk Wunderlich, the father, reported, “I looked through a window and saw many people, police, and special agents, all armed. They told me they wanted to come in to speak with me. I tried to ask questions, but within seconds, three police officers brought a battering ram and were about to break the door in, so I opened it.
“The police shoved me into a chair and wouldn’t let me even make a phone call at first. It was chaotic as they told me they had an order to take the children. At my slightest movement the agents would grab me as if I were a terrorist. You would never expect anything like this to happen in our calm, peaceful village. It was like a scene out of a science fiction movie. Our neighbors and children have been traumatized by this invasion.”
“When I went outside, our neighbor was crying as she watched. I turned around to see my daughter being escorted as if she were a criminal by two big policemen. They weren’t being nice at all. When my wife tried to give my daughter a kiss and a hug goodbye, one of the special agents roughly elbowed her out of the way and said, ‘It’s too late for that.’ What kind of government acts like this?”
Having been pestered by the state for their decision to home-school, the Wunderlich family has traveled throughout the EU in the last four years looking for a place to live in freedom. Sadly, the family was forced back to Germany by lack of work. Upon returning to the country, the children’s passports were immediately seized to ensure they could never leave again.
The right of German parents to home-school is recognized by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Ignoring these and other declarations, the German government seems to be following the directives of Adolf Hitler, who wrote in 1937: “The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”
Dirk Wunderlich spoke with Mike Donnelly, HSLDA Director for International Affairs. “These are broken people,” Donnelly said. “They said they felt like they were being ground into dust. They were shaken to their core and shocked by the event. But they also told me that they had followed their conscience and the dictates of their faith. Although they don’t have much faith in the German state, they have a lot of faith in God. They are an inspiring and courageous family.
“I’ve been fighting for German home-school freedom for years,” he continued, “and I had hoped that things were changing in Germany since it has been some time since brutality of this magnitude has occurred. But I was wrong.”
Petra Wunderlich said her heart was shattered. “We are empty,” she said. “We need help. We are fighting but we need help.”
Obama Interferes to Deport German Homeschool Family
Many other families have been persecuted at the hands of the totalitarian German state for wanting to home-school. One particular family, the Romeikes, fled Germany in 2008 after being ordered not to home-school. They hoped to find safety in the United States. In 2010 the Romeike family were granted asylum to remain in the U.S. on the grounds that returning to Germany would be dangerous for them (Michael Farris has pointed out that the German High Court is on record for saying that religious home-schoolers should be targeted and severely punished). Since then they have been living in Tennessee, where they purchased a farm and have been educating their children according to their evangelical Christian beliefs.
In an unexpected act of executive interference, President Obama appealed the ruling which allowed the Romeike family to remain in America. In April, the Obama administration obtained an order from a higher court to deport the family., arguing that parents essentially have no right to determine how and what their children are taught. At the same time, Obama is granting amnesty to millions of people who have gone to the US illegally. He has also released thousands of illegals who have committed crimes.
In the German state schools, children are exposed to graphic sex education, violence, witchcraft and atheism. Moreover, the German government has openly declared that its policy is based on suppressing minorities. One German court decision explained their opposition to home education explicitly in terms of ideological thought control:
“The general public has a justified interest in counteracting the development of religiously or philosophically motivated ‘parallel societies’ and in integrating minorities in this area. Integration does not only require that the majority of the population does not exclude religious or ideological minorities, but, in fact, that these minorities do not segregate themselves and that they do not close themselves off to a dialogue with dissenters and people of other beliefs. Dialogue with such minorities is an enrichment for an open pluralistic society. The learning and practicing of this in the sense of experienced tolerance is an important lesson right from the elementary school stage. The presence of a broad spectrum of convictions in a classroom can sustainably develop the ability of all pupils in being tolerant and exercising the dialogue that is a basic requirement of democratic decision-making process.”
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Another example of Western hypocritical “democracy” which will forcibly apply its politically correct agenda on anyone not conforming. This is no different to life under communism in Europe 1945 to 1990 or life in North Korea to-day. Humanism/ liberalism/ political progressiveness is wicked. On a larger scale this same western democracy deemed a war on Iraq ‘the right thing ” to do and finally left a shattered country which has yet to recover to the same level of everyday life and security as it did under its former ruler. Incidently the UK and USA now so outraged at the use of gas in Syria had no qualms about using depleted uranium and white phosphorous on the people of Iraq. So why should it show any concern for a family trying to bring up its children the way it wants to? The Lord will judge you very harshly all you leaders who make these wicked laws.
Soon, there won’t be any children for them to “snatch”. Germany has entered the demographic twilight.
It is the duty of christian parents to teach their children from the Word of God. This idea of banning home schooling – together with the multi-faith education and evolution / atheism being in the public school curriculum will ( IS ) ruining this generation – especially in the UK..
Any Government countermanding the teaching of Scripture at home – or even in public school – as it used to be taught in the morning assemblies – especially relating to the tenets of The Christian Faith – will be judged – perhaps sooner than later.!!
Pr 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it
Ex 12:26 And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? 27 That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped
De 11:18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 20 And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: 21 That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth. 22 For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him ( THEN BLESSING WILL ENSUE )
Eph 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord
2Ti 3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus
Scripture says that we should teach our children God’s ways which includes the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any government which prevents parents from so doing will have to answer to the Almighty. Sweden, Germany and now USA are seeking to destroy families by confiscating their children. How long will we be free in Britain to home school? As David says, “No different to North Korea!!!
Rather surprising is the claim that the European Convention on Human Rights recognises the right of German parents to home school.
That argument was attempted – entirely unsuccessfully – in 2003 by a German homeschooling parent couple who argued Germany’s compulsory school attendance endangered their children’s religious upbringing, promoted teaching inconsistent with their Christian faith – especially the German State’s mandates relating to sex education in the schools—and contravened the declaration in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that “the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”.
The ECHR found against them, upholding the German ban on homeschooling, stating “parents may not refuse… [compulsory schooling] on the basis of their convictions”, and adding that the right to education “calls for regulation by the State”.
The European Court took the position in that case – Konrad –v- Germany – that the plaintiffs were the children, not their parents, and declared “children are unable to foresee the consequences of their parents’ decision for home education because of their young age…. Schools represent society, and it is in the children’s interest to become part of that society. The parents’ right to educate does not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience.”
Or put another way, parents are not entitled to inflict any bonkers views they choose on their children.
Well, they can, out of school hours, but you are saying that the European Court of Human Rights held that during the school day, only teachers can inflict bonkers views onto children.
Govt “education” is there to ram THEIR PC views in to the next generation, to make them more compliant tax payers. The govt no longer considers itself as a civil servant body, but as a civil master/subversive dictator/object of worship.
It wants serfs to leach off, and moulding thought patterns in the young is a long term strategy of control.
The 12 protestant nations descending back in to the controlling dark ages. There was darkness over Egypt before judgement day came. Jesus said the end times would be primarily a time of deceit as he continually warned us to take care that not to be deceived, including by governments.
This family should teach about Jesus and the Bible. it’s our God giving right to do so. They should also stay in America. May the Lord keep you all.
Correspondence (home) schooling is not uncommon in New Zealand/Australia/South Africa/Canada…., due to the rough terrain and isolated farms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_status_and_statistics
Furthermore, the facts of the matter are that home schooled children of all ages usually far exceed the national average under exam conditions in all subject areas. Maths, language, science, whatever….
It’s not the ‘education’ level of the parents that matter, but the quality of the relationship between the child and parent. The relationship is the key to the child’s ability to learn. A hired teacher with no blood/emotional bond can never compete with the intangible biological link and concern that a parent has. The vastly diminished relationship between a hired teacher (for a single year), with 40 other children is laughable and can not be compensated for by a “degree” in teaching.
Please could you identify the decision that you say supports your statement the German High Court is on record for saying that religious home-schoolers should be targeted and severely punished)?
I’d be interested to read whether such a thing was actually said
It was said in the quote which ended the above article.
The only problem being that there is no mention of punishment – much less targeted and severe punishment – against any group in that quote. So I wondered if this came from another source. Or if not whether it was made up as hyperbole to fit in with the general tone of the piece.
Good question! I’ve checked my sources and that information came from a secondary source. Lawyer Michael Farris of HLDA said, “The German High Court is on record for saying that religious homeschoolers should be targeted and severely punished, yet our Justice Department sees nothing wrong with that.”
Farris may have been referring to when the German court announced that “The general public has a justified interest in counteracting the development of religiously or philosophically motivated ‘parallel societies’ and in integrating minorities in this area.” It’s hard to find a clearer example of singling out (targeting) homeschoolers, and we know that what they are singled out for is severe punishment because of the heavy fines that the High Court levies against them. Don’t forget that the reason the Romeikes were granted political asylum in America in the first place (before Obama began to interfere) is because an American judge recognized they would be punished if they were sent back.
What can we do?
My bible reading yesterday was 1 Samuel 30 –
may the Holy Spirit do what David and his men did in that case.
Home schoolers sit the same national exams as do the conventionally schooled. In the UK, this includes GCSEs, & A-Levels. In NZ, the Govt Dept of Education exams are ‘School Certificate’ & ‘University Entrance’. These are not sat at home, but at controlled exam centres, or in public schools. The UK Education Acts including ‘The Education Act 1996’ make it quite clear that education is compulsory but school attendance is not. Similar laws are common in other Protestant nations.
The UK is not a protestant nation – it is a non-religious nation. The courts have made this clear several times, most recently in the case about the potential foster parents who were anti-gay.
“A significant discovery in the study “Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America” stated that … students in grades k-12 averaged in the 87th percentile (Klicka, 2006, p. 1). This isn’t the case in public school systems….”
“Overall, the structured homeschooling group performed much better than the public school group. And the margin was pretty dramatic. In 5 of 7 test areas, (word identification, phonic decoding, science, social science, humanities) structured homeschoolers were at least one grade level ahead of public schoolers. They were almost half a year ahead in maths, and slightly, but not significantly, advanced in reading comprehension.”
“In other news, home school students and Christian school students are outperforming their public school peers consistently and continually. Is it any wonder that the government wallows about and tries to protect the teachers union and preserve the Department of Education while throwing up obstacles to try to slow down home school growth while attacking Christianity?”
Many home school children have an active social life. I’ve known some to be involved in swim clubs, acting clubs horse riding, soccer teams,….. whatever. I’ve seen them go off to uni and earn distinctions, have lasting intimate relationships, get quality work quickly,… learn to drive,…. BE NORMAL!
It’s common for parents to teach children to drive, who then sit the govt’s national driving exams to obtain a nation’s driving licence. Home school is just the same…. REALLY!
Furthermore, it is common for programmers once leaving university to study industry recognised qualifications at home, and sit exams in national exam centres, such as in Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Seldom can a programmer with a PhD command a higher commercial salary than one with an ordinary degree. BUT a programmer with an industry qualification (not an academic one) can earn significantly more money.
Formal education can be a start for some people, but it is not the final solution – as is currently mentally raping children by the ‘no home school’ Nazis in Germany.
The use of SS to refer to a horrific part of history is disgusting. But your site has been disgusting for years – Don’t ever change you little monsters!
Thankfully god made sure that your insignificance remains so very very insignificant.
Bless is.
You are a man who believes governments should steal people’s children. An insult from you is like a compliment from someone decent.
And we are so ‘insignificant’ that you took time out of your day to place a comment on our website.
Where in my post did I actually state that governments should steal people’s children. I criticised your use of the SS abbreviation.
It is provocativ to use “German SS” for German Police and Child Protection Services, yes. Unfortunately referencing the NAZI practices in connection with litigations of home educating families against the German bureaucracy was used by some self declared “Christians” who claimed to help those families, yet barely knew the German culture. They were German-Americans and were eager to get families into litigation and to start fighting the authorities that was unnecessary. These helpers organised HSLDA, American help for German home educators. The American way of doing things just did not work with German Administrations and courts. You can hardly think of something more offending for a post-NAZI Government-Administration than calling them “NAZI”, what those helpers did. The helpers had worked on the Konrad family to make them willing to let the “helpers” lawyers do the work and to bring their case to the European court, a case that was partially based on religious arguments and it could bee foreseen that it would fail … to cut it short: Neither religious rights nor human rights are of use to defend the family versus the state. – Let’s not talk about rights but about duties: Whose duty is it to see to the wellbeing of children? If it is the state’s, why should parents then care for a newborn child? Let the state do it. Why should a mother to be bother to carry her child for nine months within her and than for months and years on her arms? Forget mother- and fatherhood. If on the other hand the family was before and more important than the state, than let’s look at it the other way: A family can exist without the state (whilst a state cannot exist without families). Why should a state intervene in educational matters at all? – But as long as we look at the state as our father-god that provides all the “necessary” benefits to allow families to make a living, the state will always want to have a say how children must be brought up. (As far as I know all the home-educating families in Germany and elsewhere have taken child benefits from the state!)
Perhaps one day the Christian community will wake up to understand that the social welfare state has usurped family-rights and -duties and therefore what is going on in Germany and also in other European countries seems to be acceptable to most people. Since God is dead as a German theologian seems to have found out about 50 years ago, god was replaced by the state. This is the logical concequence of the takeover of the western mind by secular humanism which was initiated by the French Revolution and at least partially sucked up by the Christian Church. Within the humanist system the state is the untouchable god, the transcended human being, human despotism in place of God given order and law, Only by the time we get clean of all humnaist-secularist contamination we will be able to understand the God-given role of the state. Nowhere in the bible the state has the role of a father-god governing and organising family and social life and providing services from craddle to grave. A Christian Church that does not hold to and strenghten the natural order (God, Family, Church, State) must suffer it’s own irrelevance and the exposure of it’s members to a state with unlimited powers. Such a state is not interested to hear or recognize proofs of home-educated childrens performance, but all the more about “conformance”
What can we do? – Renew your mind.
(Apologies: My first languange is not English)
You raise some good points which I want to interact with.
“German SS” referred to German social services. In our articles about Britain social services we use the same abbreviation.
It is a well-known fact of history that Nazi Germany introduced laws to criminalize all private education. This is not something that was just made up by Americans without a knowledge of German culture. I’m in my office right now and don’t have access to the documents which verify this. Tonight when I go home I will get some Nazi-era documents which reveal much continuity between Hitler’s attitude towards education and the approach currently taken by the German government. I should have something posted about this in the next day or two.
My understanding is that HLDA did initially try to work through the German court system, and only started using this rhetoric after all negotiations broke down. Whether they could have done more to work with the system or not is a point on which I am not qualified to comment.
What you say about the relationship between the state and the family is spot on. We agree completely with your assessment on the humanist philosophy behind the deification of the modern state.
The wisdom of serpents is an exceedingly good thing.
To Robin:
You are correct in so far as the German school attendence laws date from the Nazi era, You need not search for documents.. But in European “democracies” you cannot bring about a change of a law or it’s different application by court decision (like it works in the US). And let me just add: If you want to bring about change you have to respect the political process which only few home educators did with some success. The mentioned helpers and HSLDA hoped for short cuts by insisting on religious liberty rights. This led the state (school autthorities and social services and judges) to statements like the following: “we cannot stop fathers or mothers of holding some strange Christian convictions (about sexual education mainly) but we have to protect the children from being indoctrinated in such absurd views by their parents. This than became the basic official pretext in connection with home educating families. The application of school attendence laws in the most severe way possible was in all sincerity to secure the well being of children. – All warnings could not stop certain Christian activists to defend themselves in public with bible verses or launch petitions with questionable wording. One of the petitions started with the following statement: WE ARE BIBLE BELIEVING CHRISTIANS and continued with pious formulations to blame the state and all it’s schools for being nocent for OUR CHILDREN. Such activities were counterproductive. The CHristian activists must take at least part of the blame why school authorities tend to be intolerant against religious “fanatics”. The authorities call them sects and think to do the public a good service. By taking the children away from their parents the authorities find approval in the press and generally in the population because nobody wants sects.
Who can help home educators in Germany? The Germans need to get on their onwn feet instead of asking HSLDA to help them. They need to understand how the humanist system works against them and what their Christian faith has to offer to confront the humanist religion and ideology that has permeated the western legal system, schools and society (including the churches). One thing seems to be sure: you can’t use court cases as a short cut to fight one of hundreds of symtoms of an overwhelmingly powerful secular-humanistic system. Here is the challenge for the Christian community: to learn how to contend with a religious system that pretends not to be a religion, with a worldview that claims to be religiously neutral. Therefore this is not a challenge for home educators only once the big issue is understood. Then home educators will not be so much isolated as exotic beings and their cases might one day not look so hopless any more because the Christian community will give them full support and encouragement.
Hold on, are not the family in violation of the law of the land? The law is not anti-Biblical so there is no grounds for dissent from a Christian stand point. The family is not being prevented from or being persecuted specifically for being Christian. Homeschooling is not a fundamental right granted by God to man. Though it breaks my heart to see the children taken the family were essentially performing criminal activities.
The German Government’s view on homeschool is dumb, I know. But there is no Biblical ground to argue the family has the right to act criminally in this case.
Christians are required to violate the law of the land (to become “criminals” in man’s eyes) when the law commands them to sin, and these parents no doubt believed that they would be violating Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it”) to send their children to the German state schools where they would have been exposed to graphic sex education, violence, witchcraft and atheism. It puts German Christians in a very hard position.
Hi Robin,
I believe your argument is flawed on a few accounts –
First, Proverbs are not commandments, they are guidelines/principles and truisms.
Secondly, German law does not discriminate specifically against Christians, therefore, Christians have no Biblical mandate to rebel. If this family were atheists (or Muslims, or Buddhists etc) the same thing would have happened – in the eyes of the law at least.
Third, sending your kids to public school doesn’t violate the Proverb at all. You can train up a child in the way he should go without homeschooling. Its tougher, but its not impossible. . If the law of the land does not permit homeschooling then you can’t do it full-time. There is no reason why you can’t teach the child before and after school and on weekends. It is more the cost of it all – in time, money and effort.
Certainly I don’t agree with this law. Family’s should have the right to teach their kids as they like. But just because the public system is pagan isn’t Biblical grounds for rebellion, IMO. Was not Daniel and Moses raised in even more pagan schooling yet they were still instructed on Biblical teaching effectively?
You really can’t accuse German state schools of teaching violence and witchcraft. What evidence is there of this ?
“At the same time, Obama is granting amnesty to millions of people who came here illegally. He has also released thousands of illegals who have committed crimes.”, but are you not writing this from England? Therefore this should be At the same time, Obama is granting amnesty to millions of people who went there illegally. He has also released thousands of illegals who have committed crimes….
??
Obama has supported the DREAM act which would have granted amnesty to millions who came to America illegally. Also see the facts that Jessica Zuckerman reported on in her article, ‘Obama Grants Amnesty to Illegal Immigrants Without Congress.’ As far as him releasing thousands of illegals who committed crims, see the following sources:
ICE admits hundreds of illegal immigrants with criminal records released
Whistle Whistle Blowers Say Obama Releasing Violent Illegal Aliens
[…] Last month we reported on the tragic series of events, which resulted in the four Wunderlich children, ages 7-14, being separated from their parents and taken to various unknown locations. […]
[…] now been reunited after an armed raid by German authorities following their decision to homeschool.Last month we reported on the tragic series of events, which resulted in the four Wunderlich children, ages […]
[…] September we reported on the armed raid in which German social services abducted the Wunderlich children on the sole […]
[…] visas and travel to another European country where homeschooling is legal. In September we reported on the armed raid in which German social services abducted the Wunderlich children on the sole […]