Last Thursday the German police arrested Katharina Plett, a homeschooling mother of twelve. Yesterday her husband fled to Austria with the children. Homeschooling is illegal in Germany since Hitler banned it in 1938. The Plett family belongs to a homeschooling group of seven Baptist families in Paderborn. We wrote about their case last year.

Stefan Sedlaczek of the Catholic website kreuz.net heard about her arrest on Saturday. He reports today that a female plain-clothes police officer rang at Katharina Plett’s house on Thursday around 11:00 am. When she opened the door other police officers, who had hidden themselves, forced their way in. Mrs Plett was allowed to change, but a police officer followed her into her bedroom in case “she would arm herself and shoot us all.” The woman was able to inform her husband by mobile phone before the police brought her to Bielefeld.

The authorities later informed her husband that she has been imprisoned in Gelsenkirchen. Apparently she has been given a ten day prison sentence. When Sedlaczek rang the Gelsenkirchen prison authorities to get confirmation of Katharina Plett’s whereabouts, he was told that no information would be given. A written request for information has so far not been answered either. Unless we are mistaken, the German mainstream media have not written anything about this case yet.

Yesterday, Katharina’s husband fled with their children to a Christian family center in Wolfgangsee in Austria. A homeschooling couple from Hamburg has also fled to Wolfgangsee. Their case was covered in the media. In Austria parents are entitled to homeschool during a one year trial period, after which the authorities decide whether the parents are allowed to continue homeschooling or not.