Hitler and his associates perfectly understood the proverb "what the shell will soak in the youth ..." and willingly put it into practice in National Socialist schools. To ensure the sustainability of their ideas, they created a gigantic educational propaganda machine. What exactly information did they 'feed' the children and adolescents?
Volk, or nation, had to be spiritually cohesive, punitive and blindly committed to the idea of the Thousand-Year Reich. For the leaders of National Socialist Germany, this meant that people had to develop a deep-seated sense of unity and national belonging. The lessons that the children took in schools, as well as during the afternoon or summer classes, therefore had a much deeper and more terrifying dimension than it might seem at first glance ...
Harmful idiots
The Nazi education reform is described in his book, Asperger's Children. Medicine at the services of the Third Reich ”Edith Sheffer:
The National Socialist regime took control of education when it came to power in 1933. New textbooks were published and teachers were purged, requiring them to join the National Socialist Union of Teachers (NS-Lehrerbund, NSLB).
Almost a third of the teachers were also members of the party. School children sang National Socialist songs every day, learned about the historical and racial uniqueness of the German nation and looked at the portraits of Hitler hanging in every class .
During the classes - in line with the new core curriculum - the youngest citizens learned, for example, how to distinguish representatives of other nations from one another. Even for this purpose, special teaching aids have been prepared for them - pictorial boards and posters showing the differences between the races. The main attention was paid to the color of the hair and eyes, the shape of the nose, and the shade of the skin. Of course, the main point was to emphasize the superiority of the Aryan race over the rest.
But not only people of "inferior" origin were stigmatized. People with disabilities were also "a problem for the nation". A problem that needed to be rectified as far as possible. From an early age, little Germans were accustomed to this idea. As part of the math classes, there were tasks such as:" The daily maintenance of an idiot in a nursing home costs about four reichmarks. How much will it cost to maintain it for forty years? "And elsewhere, students were asked," Wouldn't it be better if this baby hadn't been born at all? ".
But classes in the school desks were not enough - a large part of the education also took place during sports and meetings within the framework of youth organizations. All this had an obvious purpose - citizens who knew their own racial and national identity well, and were also perfectly aware of the source of all threats:other nations.
As you can guess, there were also insistent anti-Semitic threads. The Jews were portrayed as pests that lead to the fall of Germany. Various crimes were attributed to them. Thus, teachers were accused of infanticide, usury, conspiring against the Germans, and the like. In fact, the Jew must have been, in the eyes of the child, not a human, but a creepy monster. Remember that at the same time, posters showing caricatured figures of the followers of Judaism were also popular.
A healthy mind in a healthy body
A genetically healthy representative of the Third Reich society was supposed to be fit. That is why the children were sent to physical education classes lasting about two hours a day. Boys were especially encouraged to box, to learn defense methods from an early age.
In their free time, the youngest (and also the slightly older ones) could join one of the numerous youth organizations, such as Deutsches Jungvolk, Jungmädelbund, Hitlerjugend or Bund Deutscher Mädel. Membership was simply welcome at first, but from 1936 it became obligatory . Why? It's simple - there, too, the young were constantly inundated with Nazi propaganda.
Sport was an extremely important element of National Socialist education.
Seemingly, these extracurricular activities were very attractive:games, field games, excursions and evening meetings by the fire were organized. An important element was the uniform - each member received it to make them feel included in the community even more. All this, however, lost its amusing dimension when the true intentions of the teachers were revealed.
The boys were trained to be perfect soldiers. They learned fighting, handling firearms, tactics and "patriotic songs", in which there were phrases that left little for the imagination of "Jewish blood dripping from the knife" or "heads are rolling, Jews howling" . The goal was also clearly set for the girls:they were to become mothers of the next generations of ideal citizens of the Reich. And for them, a special series of exercises has been designed - preparing them for motherhood and homework.
Of course, there were many voices against such a reform of education. However, the outbreaks of rebellion, such as Edelweiss Pirates, Leipzig Aggregates and Swingers, were few and were quickly suppressed. Edith Sheffer in "Asperger's Children" reports:
The police detained Schlurfs for disturbing the peace and fights with Hitler Youth members who were in the habit of cutting Schlurfs' long hair. The National Socialists strongly opposed such dissident groups and severely punished their members.
No wonder that - having created such a powerful propaganda apparatus even among children - the Third Reich was able to push the nation to fight in the name of inhuman ideas. Soon the world could see with his own eyes what the social consent to dehumanization of all those who, for various reasons, do not like people in power ...
Bibliography:
- Evans R.J., Advent of the Third Reich, Napoleon V 2015.
- Evans R.J., The Third Reich in Power, Napoleon V 2016.
- Paul I., On Hitler's Mountain. My Nazi Childhood , Atlantic Books 2006.
- Sheffer, E., Children of Asperger. Medicine at the services of the Third Reich, 2019 Poznań Publishing House.