The cult of race instead of biology lessons. Peany in honor of Hitler's youthful achievements at the site of history class. And the mathematics that were counting on getting rid of subhumans as cost-effectively as possible. What else did the German school teach during the Nazi era?
“For over a century, the German education system has been a model for the world. German organization of learning from kindergarten to higher education, the status of teachers, the nature of the curriculum; all this aroused widespread recognition, ”emphasizes Louis Snyder with clear exaltation in the pages of the Encyclopedia of The Third Reich.
However, this was the case only until Adolf Hitler took power. And when good school changes were announced overnight to ensure that children were educated to the requirements of the new government.
As early as 1933, the Reich's Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust, stated:"From now on, it is not your role to decide whether or not something is true, but whether it is in the interest of the National Socialist Revolution" (quoted in:R.J. Evans, Arrival of the Third Reich ).
His students were lecturers from universities. If honorable professors were expected to immediately become party propagandists, tens of thousands of primary and secondary school teachers were cast even more in this role. From then on, the program of science was to be Nazism.
A History of the Achievements of the Aryan Race
As Richard J. Evans explains in The Third Reich in Power , portraits of the Fuhrer were hung in all school rooms. Each lesson began and ended with a Nazi greeting. Students were also regularly summoned to gymnasiums to listen to important political speeches.
Nazi Education Minister Bernhard Rust had a clear vision of what a National Socialist school should teach.
Between each call of Sieg Heil there was also room only for education in the Nazi spirit. Already on July 30, 1933 (ie only six months after Hitler was sworn in as chancellor!), The authorities introduced the "Guidelines for history textbooks" by decree. According to the document, science was to be based not on reliably presented past facts, but on "the concept of heroism in its German form, combined with the idea of leadership."
Of course, the Kaiser and then the Weimar school had already successfully taught nationalism and concealed all failures, embarrassments and crimes of the Germans. Now, however, it has gone to the absolute extreme.
As stated by Louis Snyder in the Encyclopedia of The Third Reich , to the curriculum the failed Nazi coup d'état of 1923 was quickly hit. The infamous Munich coup collapsed in one day, and Hitler and his associates demonstrated extreme incompetence in it. For the students, however, the would-be coup was to be a lesson in the highest patriotism. A Nazi apparatchik killed in 1930 as a result of an argument over unpaid rent, Horst Wessel, was in turn presented as the national martyr.
Finally, there were also lessons in aversion to any opponents of Hitlerism. Already children of a few years old learned even ... about "bayonets gracefully submerged between the ribs of the Russians.
Aryan Laws of Science
The cult of the leader and a blind hatred of non-Aryans were instilled in the children as soon as they left the kindergarten. The first textbook that every elementary school student had in hand was the so-called Primer. On its cover there is a disgusting caricature of a Jew, with the caption explaining everything:“don't believe any fox. Don't believe any Jew! ”.
In biology textbooks it was read that "The animal world is divided into the Nordic people and the lower animals - the Jews." During the lessons, the students were also proved that Germany is the creators of culture, and the Jews - its destroyers.
From books on geography, students learned what "living space" is, what is the meaning of blood and toil, and what is the reason for the superiority of the Germanic peoples and their right to sovereignty over their neighbors. On the walls of the classrooms there were maps depicting the idea contained in the words "one nation, one Reich." And teachers were advised that discussing Middle Eastern topics was a good introduction (and how) to the "Jewish question".
German children in geography lessons.
The new textbooks even took effect in math lessons. For example, children were told to count how much the state has to pay for the maintenance of patients in psychiatric institutions. Of course, to show that it is simply unprofitable and unnecessary. Students were also instructed to count ... how many blondes there are in Germany.
Such a school task is quoted by Richard J. Evans in his worksheets Third Reich in power :
The percentage of people with Nordic blood in the German nation is estimated at 4/5 of the population, "said one task:" a third of them can be considered blond. According to these estimates, how many blondes will there be in the population of 66 million in Germany? ”
In another book by Professor Evans, The War of the Third Reich , on the other hand, there is the topic of lessons aimed directly at Poles. School textbooks repeated propaganda phrases according to which Poles cannot rule themselves, there is a constant "Polish mess" in their country ( Polenwirtschaft), and they themselves are economically backward and bogged down by Catholic superstition. As if that were not enough, the lands inhabited by them are the area of the former "civilization mission" of the German nation, carried out since the Middle Ages. And demanding a repeat.
Homework in the spirit of the Nazis
Author of Third Reich in power it also provides a whole range of topics for essays that were given to German students as early as the mid-1930s. "Hitler as the ultimate unifier of Germany", "national revolution as the beginning of a new era" , "Hitlerjugend Quex as a work of art", "I am German (expression of pride and duty)" ... These are just a few of the typical examples.
Nazi school students were expected to skillfully counter any attack against their nation's dignity.
The children were expected to be able to prepare an essay praising Hitler's youth, but also that they would skillfully counter any attack against the dignity of their nation. As Evans states:
Another child, an elementary school student, when asked "Were our Germanic ancestors barbarians?" she knew very well how to draw an analogy to the recent past:"The accusation that our German ancestors were barbarians," he wrote, "is as much a lie as, for example, that only Germany is to blame for a world war. It was proved that the Germanic tribes stood at a high level already in the Stone Age. ”
Anti-Semitism at school, at home and on the street
There were also anti-Semitic topics. And the children were quick to learn how to write about Jews to get the highest grade. Irmgard Paul, author of On Hitler's Mountain. My Nazi Childhood recalls how she herself fell into the trap of school propaganda:
We used a book in which page after page was shown the physical differences between Jews and Germans. There were grotesque drawings of Jewish noses, lips, and eyes. The manual encouraged each child to pay attention to these differences and to report anyone who characterized them to parents or teachers.
Anti-Semitism was an integral part of the Nazi curriculum. The illustration shows an anti-Semitic propaganda poster.
I myself was terrified of the crimes Jews were accused of:killing children, usury, conspiracies to exterminate Germany and take over the world. The description of the Jewish race was able to convince every child that he was reading about monsters and not about people like us.
Richard J. Evans presents the story in a similar way in Third Reich in power . He quotes a student who wrote that Jews were pests that had to be "killed this way." And also a student who spoke about the situation before the advent of Nazism in the following words:
"It was impossible to see a working Jew because all they wanted was to cheat and deprive their non-Jewish comrades of their hard earned money." The Jews, he concludes, “led the German people into the abyss. Now those times are over. ”
The Nazi school subjected students to constant indoctrination.
In another book of his, The War of the Third Reich , Professor Evans emphasizes that the sharpness of the criticism was directed primarily at Jews from the East:that is, those living in Poland or the Soviet Union. They were to be the most "dirty, dangerous, adulterous and infected." They were - in short - "enemies of all civilization." And this is what the German children blindly believed.
This is exactly what Adolf Hitler dreamed of. As he stated in one of his radio speeches:“My science is hard. All weakness must be removed from the young. Young men will grow up at the sight of whom the world shrinks. Ruthless, domineering, brutal - that's what I want. ”
Perfect candidates for future soldiers, ready to conquer, rob and exterminate in line with the Nazi vision of the world. Exactly the one they were taught in class.
Are you interested in this text? Its author also runs the "Wielka Historia" channel on YouTube.
Bibliography:
- Evans R.J., Advent of the Third Reich , Napoleon V, 2015.
- Evans R.J., Third Reich in power , Napoleon V, 2016.
- Housden M., Resistance and Conformity in the Third Reich , Routledge, 1997.
- Paul I., On Hitler's Mountain. My Nazi Childhood , Atlantic Books, 2006.
- Snyder L., Encyclopedia of The Third Reich , Wordsworth Editions, 1998.
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