Disappearance Of Yolanda Klug

Yolanda Klug (born 1995 or 1996) is a German woman who disappeared on 25 September 2019 and whose disappearance has been linked to Scientology.

Background

Yolanda Klug grew up in Steinen in the county of Lörrach, Baden-Württemberg. Her parents are Annette Margarete Löffler (born 24 August 1966) and Peter Klug, both Scientology members. Anne Margarete Löffler has been holding high-ranking positions in Scientology both in Germany and Switzerland and in 2016 was the press spokesperson for Scientology in Basel. Klug has a two years younger sister, Elisa. Yolanda attended Scientology courses but later became attached to the German branch of ''Zeal Church'', a Christian "neo-charismatic free church".

Klug's parents later separated and Löffler eventually relocated to South Africa with her new life partner and Klug's younger sister to work for a local Scientology branch.

According to ''antiscientologyblog.com'' Klug's father has been a high-ranking member of Scientology as well and in the 1990s participated in multiple elite courses on the Scientology cruise ship Freewinds. Her sister joined Sea Org and now lives in the United States.

Disappearance

At the time of her disappearance Klug studied architecture at Leipzig University of Applied Sciences and had gone on a semester abroad in Amman. Five months earlier she had moved into a shared flat on Körnerstraße in Leipzig with another female student.

On 24 September Klug's father was in Leipzig on a business trip. The two met for dinner. On 25 September Klug was planning to go to the local IKEA store in Günthersdorf. For the same evening she had an appointment with a friend in Halle (Saale) to attend a public movie screening which was part of an event called ''Herbstsession'' at the local art school campus. About 3 p.m. Klug left her apartment in Leipzig and went to the nearest public transport station at Südplatz. She was last seen at Südplatz and is unaccounted for since then.

According to a friend, one of her teachers from high school, he tried to contact Klug on the instant messenger Telegram after her disappearance. She never responded but two weeks later the app reported that Klug had been online shortly before, implying that either Klug herself or someone else had used her phone at that time.

Investigation

Klug suffers from an unspecified condition that sporadically causes her to faint. Therefore one theory brought up during the police investigation is that she passed out in a place where she would not be found. Since detection dogs were able to register her scent at a bus in Leipzig, at the Günthersdorf IKEA and at the ''Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule'' campus in Halle (where she was supposed to meet her friend later that day), investigations at first focused on an excavation hole on campus which was sealed the day after her disappearance. However, a survey of the site did not result in any findings.

The possibility that Klug voluntarily disappeared has been considered. However, the fact that she left her passport and bank cards at her place makes this option very unlikely. There have been no movements on Klug's bank account since her disappearance.

Investigations into the possibility that Klug has been victim of a crime have focused on her Scientology background. Police has highlighted the fact that Klug is a close family member of a high-ranking Scientology executive who left the church. Klug's mother and sister are currently unaccounted for as well since police were unable to trace them after their relocation to South Africa.

In July 2022 the case was featured on the German TV program Aktenzeichen XY… ungelöst which reports on unsolved criminal cases. Police is specifically asking for witnesses who saw Klug at Burg Giebichenstein and for pictures and footage from the 2019 ''Herbstsession'' event.

German journalist Peter Jamin who has followed missing person cases for more than 30 years criticized the way German police investigated this and similar cases. Crime suspicions were investigated hesitantly and connections to other cases were neglected. Jamin suggests a connection to the missing person case of Scarlett Salice who went missing in a different part of Germany in 2020.

On 16 October 2022 the Police published a report on new witnesses who came forward after the broadcast of the ''Aktenzeichen XY'' feature. One witness claims to have seen Klug on the day of her disappearance around 3 p.m. at the tram station ''Richard-Lehmann-Straße/Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft'', just two stops from ''Südplatz,'' talking to a man about visiting IKEA. From there Klug supposedly took the tram in the direction of Connewitz, a nearby district of Leipzig. According to another witness, a truck driver, Klug walked alongside the Saale Elster channel in Günthersdorf, close to the IKEA store, and from there across a bridge in the direction of the road ''Bundesstraße 181''. On a parking lot located between the bridge and the main road she might have stepped into a car with an Esslingen license plate. This prompted renewed speculations in the media regarding the role of Scientology in this case as the German branch of Scientology has one of its main centers in the Esslingen area. According to the police another witness' testimony suggested a connection to Scientology's European headquarters in Copenhagen.{{Cite web , title=Vermisste Yolanda Klug aus Leipzig – neue Hinweise führen nach Dänemark und zu Scientology , url=https://www.stern.de/panorama/leipzig--vermisste-yolanda-klug---polizei-mit-neuen-zeugenaussagen-32829506.html , access-date=2022-11-12 , website=stern.de , language=de

It is still unclear whether Klug made it to Halle and specifically to the ''Herbstsession''. Yet only one person who attended the event in 2019 has come forward to the police.

See also

*List of kidnappings
*List of people who disappeared

References

2010s missing person cases
Missing person cases in Germany
Scientology-related controversies