Berlin, Germany - The city of Berlin has put up a poster denouncing the group outside the Scientology headquarters in the German capital.
Local officials say they are afraid people will be drawn into the "church" as a result of Cruise's starring role as the German anti-Nazi hero Claus von Stauffenberg.
The sign outside the Scientology HQ is a poster with a big stop sign and a printed message: "The district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf expresses its opposition to the activities of the Scientology sect in this district and in Berlin, and hopes that responsible parties in Berlin will watch the Scientology sect with a critical eye in the near future, and that any new information will be made public."
Cruise is the world's most prominent Scientology member and posters advertising his new film, about the 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, are plastered across the German capital.
Cruise said little about Scientology during his publicity tour through Berlin last week, and the poster doesn't mention him. It only says that local officials see "a possible danger to democratic society" in the "increased activities of Scientology in this district."
The Scientology headquarters in Berlin opened in January 2007 amid national controversy.
The German government has never considered the US-based "Church of Scientology" a religion, refuses to exempt it from taxes and spies on it regularly for "anti-constitutional activity" because of aggressive recruitment practices.
During a failed attempt to ban Scientology in late 2007, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said; "Fundamental basic and human rights like the dignity of man or the right to equal treatment are restricted or abrogated by the organisation. It rejects the democratic system."
Many Germans are upset that Cruise is playing a man in รข Valkyrie' who despised the dictatorship of the Nazis while he promotes a "religion" that many see as being equally authoritarian, intolerant and sinister.