Figure 1.--Lederhosen appear to have been particvularly popular at this school. I'm not sure if the school was in Bavaria.
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Figure 1.--Lederhosen appear to have been particvularly popular at this school. I'm not sure if the school was in Bavaria. |
The NAZIs maintained the basic educational structure established in the Weimar Republic. The Reichstag in 1920 passed a law providing for compulsory education of all children between 6 and 14 years of age. Children attended the Grundschule (Foundation School). Advanced primary education was provided by the Volksschule (People's School). The NAZIs did not alter this basic structure, but used primary schools as a forum for Party propaganda. Instilling young, impressionable minds with NAZI ideology was crucial to ensure acceptance of these principles as adults.
The NAZIs maintained the basic educational structure established in the Weimar Republic. The Reichstag in 1920 passed a law providing for compulsory education of all children between 6 and 14 years of age. Children attended the Grundschule (Foundation School). Advanced primary education was provided by the Volksschule (People's School).
Many children liked the increased focus on physical education after the NAZI takeover. Physical education was the step for self-discipline. Marching was the surest way of fulfilling one's duty to the Reich. By staying lean and mean children would be harsh, cruel leaders who could serve the nation first and foremost. They would be living-breathing NAZI robots.
The NAZIs did not alter this basic structure, but used primary schools as a forum for Party propaganda. Instilling young, impressionable minds with NAZI ideology was crucial to ensure acceptance of these principles as adults. Children were required to learn basic NAZI ideology. Children were taught only what was needed in a the new National Socialist world.
Racial ideology was at the forefront of the NAZI educational system. As a women's magazine stated in an article entitled "The Educational Principles of New Germany: What Schools and Parents Need to Know About the Goals of National Socialist Education", "Something should be awakened in the soul of young Germans that will fill their hearts and whole being until their souls can no longer restrain the overflowing, until a powerful and jubilant 'Hail Germany' springs from their lips!" [Bytwerk]. In order to be able to make this cry, children must learn the basics of anti-Semitism. Textbooks started with the physical characteristics. The children were told that typical Aryans would contain features such as being "tall and slender in the structure of the head, face, and nose...light-colored hair, blue eyes and a ruddy complexion" according to Volk-Bewegungreich. [Blackburn, p. 141.]
This image was contrasted with the image painted of the Jew. It seems by the following account that every abominable feature that existed was a adscribed as a trait of the Jewish people. "They are either pallid and yellowish, or dark-complexioned; they have generally large heads, large mouths and protruding lips, bulging eyes and bristling eyelashes, big ears, twisted feet and hands which hang below the knees" claimed a German text based on writings from the 17th century. [Blackburn, p. 141.] Hitler himself remarked "The crown of the volkishe State's entire work of education and training must be to burn the racial sense and racial feeling into the instinct and intellect, the heart and brain of the youth entrusted to it." [Stachura, p. 145.]
There was much increased bullying in German schools after the NAZIs took over. The Jewish children were the immediate targets in 1933. They could not go to their teachers who in many cases approved or only suggest the children leave school. Even after they were expelled in 193?, Mischling children were also targets, although this varied. Some Mischling children were no bullied. One Mischling reports, " I have to say that I was never picked on nor bullied by my class mates." [Evans.] This depended on the individuals, appearances, the extent to hich the other chidren knew, the teachers' attitude and other factors. It was not jut Jewish children that wer targets. Children from families that had Socialist or Communist backgrounds might also be targets, epecially if their fathers were arrested. Weaker or artistically orientd children were also targets.
Coming close to racial education was the importance of "character-building". [Stachura, p. 145.] This would include the physical activity and endurance that children must learn. Hitler wanted German children "slim and strong, swift as greyhounds, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel". [Stachura, p. 144.] When studying elementary children would focus on animals such as ants and
plants to learn the laws of nature. A Biology text for 5th grade girls reiterates again and again the "fight for survival". [Bytwerk.] "He who wants to live must fight, and he who does not want to fight in this world of perpetual struggle does not deserve to live!" Hitler says in Mein Kampf. [Bytwerk.] This theme was reiterated time and again, even to small children, that the "species goes before the individual" (Bytwerk). The whole of Germany was to be made of self-sacrificing individuals who deeply loved their country.
Jewish children were in the schools when the NAZIs took over in 1933. Many teaachers would not give these children the grades they derserved. The NAZIs in 193? expelled Jewish children from the schools. Many had already left because of mistreatment by their teachers and verbal and physical abuse from their schoolmates. Jewish schools for these children operated for a few years. Even after the Jeish children were expelled, there were still children of partial Jwish ancestry--referred to a Mischling. There were First (half Jewish) and Second (quarter Jewish) Grade Mischlings. They would receive poor grades from some teachers.
Hitler years before seizing power had given cionsiderable thought to German education, including primary education. National Socialism would be presented to the children beginning with their first primers in elementary school. He wrote in Mein Kampf, "For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: ‘Lord, make us free!’ is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: ‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’" [Hitler. pp. 632-633.]
Jewish children were expelled from the German schools in 1935. Many had already left because of the way they were treated. Mischling children, even if academically talented, might not be allowed to go on to secondary school. One girl in Austria reports, "I was a pretty smart kid, I could read the newspaper beforeI started school, but I could never get good grades. Consequently at the end of the four years of primary school at age ten I could not go to high school until the war was over." [Evans.]
The books and stories children read were designed to influence them and support NAZI themes. Some of these books were for small children ven before they entered the school system.
Blackburn, Gilmer W. Education in the Third Reich: Race and History in Nazi Textbooks. State University of New York Press: Albany 1985.
Bytwerk, Randall. The Educational Principles of the New Germany: What Schools and Parents Need to Know
About the Goals of the National Socialist Education. 17 April 2002.
http://www.calvin/edu/academics/cas/gpa/frau01.htm.
Bytwerk, Randall. German Propaganda Archive. "Der Giftpilz" 19 April 2002. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/thumb.htm
Evans, Lottie. "Lottie's Story," http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lotte.html
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, pp. 632-633.)
Stachura, Peter D. The German Youth Movement 1900-1945. St. Martin's Press: New York 1981.
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