Attempts by religious systems to defend themselves from challenging alternative ideologies constitute a crucial element of the history of religions. The technique of annihilation, whose main features have been described by Peter L.Berger and Thomas Luckmann, is one of the preferred means of dealing with such a challenge. This article argues that whenever an annihilation is intended, two basic principles are at work. First, certain aspects of a alternative ideology which is the focus of the annihilation process are overstressed. Second, previously established pejorative patterns of interpretation are applied to that alternative ideology. The article illustrates these two principles by referring to two examples from relatively recent German religious history: first, to the debate about German Buddhism in the late 19th and early 20th century; second, to the public controversy about new religious movements which started in the 1970s and has continued into the present day.