Education in Nazi Germany - History Change and Continuity Assessment

The root and future of your society is the youth. To have them follow you is to have definite power in the future. Hitler seems to have been aware of this when molding his perfect community, therefore he did many things to have his ideology accepted by

After Germany’s humiliating defeat in World War I, Germans had little faith in their government, and in the early 1930s following the stock market crash in New York, Germany was economically struggling . Millions of people were out of work due to the world wide catastrophe making it an opportune time for Hitler and the Nazis to rise into power. Hitler, who was a powerful and spellbinding speaker, attracted Germans desperate for change. He promised to make Germany a better country and promised the disenchanted, a better life. Nazis appealed especially to the youth, unemployed, and members of the lower to middle class. Hitler’s rise to power seemed instantaneous. Before the economic depression, Nazis were virtually unknown, winning less than 3 percent of the vote to the Reichstag, which was the German Parliament. However, in the 1924 elections, the Nazis won a whopping 33 percent of the votes which was more than any other party. In January of 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the head of German Government . The Germans were convinced that they had found a savior for the Nation. The timing of his rise made it very easy for Hitler to gain power in a democratic government because people were hopeless and wanted a fast solution to the deficit. He promised things like a stronger economy, prosperity, and anything that they desired . He focused on first getting noticed and then grew from there. He didn’t say anything but what the people wanted to hear. Getting the people of Germany to trust him was how he started to gain so much control. Unfortunately, Hitler’s charm and persuasion was not the sole reason why Hitler gained so much power in a democratic

After eliminating the previous government, he discovered that he could tap into basic human nature. Human nature, namely herd mentality, can be used as a foundation because of its natural occurrence. (Jowett 42). Humans will always inevitably revert back to their basic nature. Therefore, basing his efforts on such a stable foundation provided him an anchor. Not only that, but he could easily and efficiently persuade a large group of people, knowing that once he had enough support the other citizens would follow suit. In time, societal standards grew to accommodate the new Nazi mindset. Whether people supported these news ideals or not, many lacked the audacity to revolt against the government and demand change (“Causes” 1). Hitler silenced opposing views through societal pressure; people’s need to conform prohibited them from harboring different ideals, which would cause them to stand out. The citizens of Germany were left with the choice to conform or to stand up against the government. Many people ended up conforming, therefore lending Hitler the power and support he needed to further his

Naziism had a huge impact on German youth during Hitler’s reign of power over the state. The life of a German child changed dramatically during the 1920’s and 30’s, especially for

Education was deemed as an important factor in creating a strong, powerful Germany. The Nazi party modified the schooling system and used it as a tool to indoctrinate the youth with Nazi ideology. According to Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister of Education, “the whole function of education is to create Nazis”. In 1933, the Nazi policy passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service which permitted civil servants of Jewish background and socialist or liberal views to be

Hitler was able to slowly gain more and more power until he eventually was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The beginning of Hitler’s rise to power started when he joined the “Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” or the German Worker’s Party, in 1919 when he was just twenty years of age. In the year of 1922 to gain more power Hitler attempted to overthrow the Bavarian government. In Hitler’s viewpoint there were three great benefits of attempting this. The first benefit is that the attempt

Schools were riddled with propaganda like a disease, it controlled people instead of just influencing them. “The youth organizations, particularly the Hitler Youth, have been accorded powers of control which enable every boy and girl to exercise authority backed up by threats.”(Spartacus Educational, 1997) Even as the kids were being controlled, adults who worked in certain areas that refused to respect the Nazi Party ultimately became fired. “Teachers who did not support the Nazi Party were sacked.”(Spartacus Educational, 1997) Most of all, almost everyone became submissive and obeyed the Nazis. “Gradually, the old teachers were replaced with younger ones, those with Nazi orientations.”(Spartacus Educational, 1997) As so, the new teachers that had been radicalized conformed with and embraced the new curriculum. This new school curriculum was not very overwhelming but, most of the commands shaped the German children. The Holocaust Explained argues that, “Hitler and the Nazis wanted all young Aryans to be physically fit and perfectly obedient.”(The Holocaust Explained, n.d.) As more people and children submitted to the Nazis, commands that were made out of the bounds of an average school’s limits were enforced. Children were bribed out of their freedoms for money, unknowingly and

Within Germany, a country torn between the rise of a totalitarian party that determined a superior race, Nazism, and the survival of the oppressed, young Germans face a test between a sense of self and society. Individuality would be suppressed within this new type of society, and being different would be the deadliest obstruction to life. The violations of the rights to life, religion, and speech are relived through the stories of the German youth that lived through this haunting time, whose name would be tarnished in their struggle to survive. In their fight, their morals would be challenged and influenced until the Nazi regime ended, and the violation of human dignity would leave them wondering if life was worth living after all. The Nazi Party grew under its leader, Adolf Hitler, which struggled not to use violence against those that disagreed with their views, starting with armed groups known as the Strum Abteilung, who pledged to be ready to sacrifice their life in the aims of the Nazi Party and absolute loyalty to their leader. Their cruel intolerance began by their strong nationalism and their hatred of democracy and communism, and they gained power through the economic depressions around the world, controlling the media by instilling fear and propaganda that influenced a strong belief in their leaders. This belief in the leaders would soon seem to override Church influence when the official body of the Church failed to do anything significant

This source’s context contains information about how the youth were trained in preparation for the war and what they were trained for. It gives information about the age ranges for the different groups and rites of passages. It also describes the separation between boys and girls in these youth camps, and is thus valuable to one researching Hitler’s Youth. A limitation of this is that does not reveal anything about Hitler’s success or failure in his military involvement, or reveal anything about his invasions into other countries but simply informs about his Youth programs. It does not reveal his military involvement and is thus not valuable to one researching Hitler’s Involvement in other countries.

During the 1930’s Germany was at an all time low as the worldwide economic depression hit Germany hard. The confidence in Germany from the people was lacking due to the fresh memory of their defeat in World War I. This caused great need of a new leader, someone who could give the people change, and Adolf Hitler knew he could do just that. His rapid rise to power began when he started to promise things that intrigued the German people. He promised the hopeless and needy a better life, and promised opportunities that were exactly what the people needed. This caught the attention of so many young unemployed and middle class people. His party, known as the Nazi Party, won 33 percent of the votes in the 1932 elections. And by January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor, which was the head of the German government. Germany started to feel like they might've found the leader they'd been so desperate for.

Then the Nazis had to prepare for the future and the future of Germany was the youth. Many organisations like the Hitler youth and the league for German Maidens were set up to teach the youth to follow the Nazis. In the Hitler youth they were taught like the military, neat, tidy and organised. The youth saw Hitler as a father figure in the fatherland and obeyed him. Then Hitler used indoctrination in the education system to recruit them into the army as loyal Nazis. There were subtle Nazi views added into all school work to brainwash the youth, as they were naive and didn’t see the wrong side of the Nazis true nature. The future of the people’s community was successfully secure and the Nazis would keep control for years to come.

A proper education consisted of burning racial sense into the instincts of the youth. History classes focused on the triumphs of Germany. Math classes calculated the expenses for the disabled and were used to show why it was necessary to kill those asylum patients. Students with disabilities were screened and disappeared if found inadequate. Students that didn’t agree were beaten by the teachers. He circulated Mein Kampf in schools and created songs for the children to sing. One of the main concepts of bother was his desire to expand east of Germany. “We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east” (33). He wanted to reeducate those of German blood trapped there due to the Treaty of

In Nazi Germany, conformity was extended to schools and universities as education meant indoctrination. Hitler used the schools to promote Nazi ideas and to educate the themes of racial hygiene and the glories of Germany’s past. By 1937, non-Nazi teachers were sacked under Hitler’s wishes and universities were purged of all Jews. The school curriculum was dominated by subjects that served Nazi’s purpose. The German History was rewritten to glorify the fatherland’s past and students were being taught Anti-Semitic ideas in school and every subject was given special emphasis on the Nazi themes. Thus, it is evident that Hitler has effectively initiated changes in schools and universities in order to indoctrinate the young with Nazi ideology and hence mould a future generation of loyal supporters of the Nazi state.

There are many reasons why the Nazis changed the school curriculum. Firstly, the party wanted the German children to focus on important subjects that would be useful to the country when they grew up. For example, the boys in particular focused on physical education (so later on the German army would be strong), and the girls had lessons on home economics (which prepared girls to be good mothers and raise strong, German families). Biology and Aryan superiority were also taught in the curriculum, and so was German history and literature. From a very young age, the children were told what was right and wrong to build a “strong”, Nazi-led Germany. Furthermore, Hitler indoctrinated the youth or “brainwashed” them, drilling his ideology into their

Education for the HJ changed drastically during the years after Hitler became power, leading into the war. No longer were math, science and literature the focus in grammar school. It changed focus to Nazi racial principles, German history and leadership training. Teachers could not teach their normal lecture plans, and the German history they taught their students was