Nazi Education Policies

1. Identify three important changes made by the Nazis to the education system. Explain the purpose of each change.

A. More Rules and Regulations

The rules were based around making the children support Hitler and the Nazis by forcing them to while brainwashing them so they will on their own. Also, teachers practically had to support the Nazis or else risk losing their job, which meant they will more effectively teach the Nazi ways to the children.

B. Change the Curriculum
Nazi ideas were incorporated into all subjects to plant those ideas into the children's minds and strengthen their support for the Nazis. Also, physical education was stressed, and eventually took up at least 2 hours a day, so that the children will be physically fit and able to fight for Germany.

C. Move Away From Co-Educational Schools

Boys and girls were taught separately so that the girls would learn what traditional women need to know to be a housewife, which is what was in store for them. The boys were taught to be men and serve their country.

2. Give specific examples of how the Nazis tried in schools to develop the spirit of Volksgemeinschaft in the following seven goals:

Anti-intellectualism:
Women were taught only to be housewives and mothers

Children brainwashed to believe Nazi ideals through all subjects

Adolf Hitler Schools lacked many qualities of typical scho0ls

Anti-semitism:

Blamed the Jews for Germany's problems

Taught the children to distrust and profile the Jews

Taught the children that the Jews had always been out to bring Germany down and conspire against it

Indifference to the weak:

Physical education stressed in all schools
Source 14.22 on teaching of history- "the powerless and insignificant have no history"

Nationalism:

In teaching of history- Germany must always show greatness (source 14.22)

Militarism:
Curriculum based on military

Schools had a militaristic environment

Obedience and discipline:
NAPOLAs (National Political Institutes of Education)- military like boarding schools to give the students discipline and military experience

Adolf Hitler Schools- dominated by physical, political, and military training

Hitler Worship:

Comparing Hitler to Jesus

Students had to Hitler salute their teachers daily, and the teachers had to return it with a "Heil Hitler," which the students had to repeat.

3. What methods did the Nazis use to try to ensure schools were teaching correctly? (This is from Friday's in-class work.)

The Nazis ensured that schools were teaching correctly by monitoring them in various ways. First of all, it was almost obligatory for teachers to join the Nationalist Socialist Teachers' League (NSLB) and receive a month of Nazi training. Also, Nazis oversaw classes, and they could arrest the teacher on the spot if they felt it necessary.

4. Write out a statement that explains the main educational aims of the Nazi Education System. (Reference some of the sources.)

The main educational aims of the Nazi Education System was to teach their ways to the children, to teach them to love Hitler from an early age, and to prepare them to serve their country. The Nazis establish a cult of personality around Hitler in the schools by comparing him to Jesus, as in source 14.25. Also, the children are made to honor Hitler by greeting their teacher with Hitler's salute every day, and their teacher has to do the same, after which they all say "Heil Hitler," as stated in source 14.18. Nazi ideals were incorporated into the curriculum, like in source 14.21, which has a math problem that intends to portray that disabled people are a waste of money and space. It says that the money needed to build one insane asylum could build 400 homes, and that the money needed to care for all the disabled people for a day could pay 1,200 wedding loans. These ideas are planted in the children's minds so that they will think like the Nazis and want to build a "perfect" society. Also, militaristic ideals are taught to them so that they will have discipline and be prepared to serve their country in war. For example, source 14.26 shows how important infantry was to Germany's past, and that the "the history of the German people is the history of its infantry."