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The Holocaust and education: whatimpact did educators have on theimplementation of anti-Judaic policiesin 1930s Germany?Michael Lawrence Slavkin aa Department of Education, Manchester College , NorthManchester , Indiana , USAPublished online: 24 Aug 2011.
To cite this article: Michael Lawrence Slavkin (2012) The Holocaust and education: whatimpact did educators have on the implementation of anti-Judaic policies in 1930s Germany?,Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, 48:3, 431-449, DOI:10.1080/00309230.2011.603345
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The Holocaust and education: what impact did educators have onthe implementation of anti-Judaic policies in 1930s Germany?
Michael Lawrence Slavkin*
Department of Education, Manchester College, North Manchester, Indiana, USA
(Received 9 February 2010; final version received 28 June 2011)
The successful introduction of formalised anti-Judaic policies in mid-1930sGermany was one of the steps toward the extermination of European Jewrythrough the implementation of the Final Solution. The current paper seeks toexamine the role of social institutions, particularly educational systems withinthe greater German community, as agents of Nazi policy or agents of resistancein the years leading up to the Final Solution. In particular, the paper will empha-sise the first years of Nazi power and the rise of the Third Reich. Documenta-tion will include a general investigation into the reaction of professionaleducators as the nationalist hegemony of the Party came to rule curriculum andeducational environs across Germany.
Keywords: Nazi Germany; Holocaust; education; pedagogy; anti-Semitism
Introduction
Were teachers reflective practitioners who recognised their role in resisting Partypolitics and supporting their students? Or, were many teachers part of the systematicprocess of implementing a racist ideology that led to the near-destruction of Euro-pean Jews? As a conclusion and extension of the research, the paper concludes witha discussion of what twenty-first century teachers can glean from the moral, ethical,and professional practices discussed herein.
The current paper seeks to examine the role of social institutions, particularlyeducational systems within the greater German community, as agents of Nazi policyor agents of resistance in the years leading up to “the Final Solution”. The innova-tion of this manuscript stems from an analysis of Shoah Foundation testimonies asanecdotal evidence that supports theories of educators’ implementation of anti-Judaic policies in Nazi Germany. In particular, the paper will emphasise the firstyears of Nazi power and the rise of the Third Reich. Documentation includes a gen-eral investigation into the reaction of professional educators as the nationalist hege-mony of the Party came to rule curriculum and educational environs acrossGermany.
The investigation will begin with a review of policies and protocols officiallysanctioned by teacher unions before the rise of the National Socialist German Work-ers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NDSAP, or Nazi Party)mandated all teachers join the Party’s Union. A review of differentiated policies
*Email: [email protected]
Paedagogica HistoricaVol. 48, No. 3, June 2012, 431–449
ISSN 0030-9230 print/ISSN 1477-674X online� 2011 Stichting Paedagogica Historicahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2011.603345http://www.tandfonline.com
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and procedures will be performed after teachers had to work within the establishedbodies of Nazi government after 1933. Documentation reviewing the GermanState’s Ministry of Education will be gathered, along with information from thepre-Party trade unions, the German Teachers Union and the Catholic TeachersUnion, as well as the post-1933 National Socialist Teachers’ League.
The successful introduction of formalised anti-Judaic policies in mid-1930s Ger-many was one of the steps toward the extermination of European Jewry through theimplementation of the Final Solution. Yet, this “burnt offering” of the Holocaustwas only successful due to the ability of the Nazi Party to find limited resistance totime-honoured racist and hegemonic notions in European society.1 In his book,Anti-Semitism and Schooling Under the Third Reich (Studies in the History ofEducation),2 Gregory Wegner asserts that schools (and thus teachers) played a justi-fied part in the ideology of the Nazi party and were complicit in the legitimisationof prejudice that led to the murder of millions of Jews. Anti-Semitic foundations ofcurriculum were inserted into the state’s curriculum for elementary schools, espe-cially in the areas of history, literature, and biology. While these policies wereclearly understood, were teachers complicit with party politics, or were subtle evi-dences of resistance present in the classrooms of the Reich?
Wegner challenges that any study of Nazi Germany should explore the educa-tional system, so as to understand how the official platform of the state was legiti-mised. Yet, how the implementation of this curriculum looked to the students whoparticipated in classrooms also needs to be explored. Marjorie Lamberti, in herpiece entitled German Schoolteachers, National Socialism, and the Politics of Cul-ture at the End of the Weimar Republic,3 challenges that the politics of educationwere a powerful force in the socialist agenda of the 1920s and 1930s Nazi move-ment. Lamberti asserts that teachers were a cornerstone of educational culture warsduring the rise of the Party, suggesting that many educators were attracted to theNazi movement, largely due to economic downturns and massive layoffs during theWeimar Republic. While researchers like Lamberti provide evidence that educatorsin the 1930s included support for and opposition to the race-related school reformof the Nazi movement, it is interesting to note how school children at the time seetheir teachers and reflect upon their political and pedagogical actions.
Lamberti’s ultimate assertion is that many schoolteachers became active in theSocialist Party after 1933, largely due to fear of losing their positions. Yet, many ofthese members believed that adopting the curricular policies of the state was a
1Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2002), 64. According to Passmore, the introduction of historically valued “nineteenth cen-tury, Social Darwinist, imperialist, and racist ideas” gathered from sources such as Wagnerand Chamberlain, gave credibility to the notion that those people outside the Party, or itspseudo-Aryan race, required demonisation, deportation, and destruction. Also see Enzo Trav-erso’s The Origins of Nazi Violence (New York: The New Press, 2003).2Gregory P. Wegner, “Schooling for a New Mythos: Race, Anti-Semitism and the Curricu-lum Materials of a Nazi Race Educator,” Paedagogica Historica: International Journal ofthe History of Education 27 (1991): 194.3Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers, National Socialism, and the Politics of Culture at theEnd of the Weimar Republic,” Central European History 34 (2003): 53–82. Lamberti’s the-sis centres on the notion that the majority of civil servants within the National Socialist Partywere teachers, particularly those at the elementary level. To explore the ideological fascina-tion of these members as teachers of children is a unique opportunity in examining the poli-tics of education in Weimar and Nazi Germany.
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“necessary and unavoidable situation”.4 Involvement was not simply based on thestereotype that young teachers flocked to an energised party filled with new ideasand elements from a patriotic and strong Germanic past; involvement of teacherscut across generations and geographical areas, according to Lamberti. She arguesthat in a time when teachers saw their professional identities challenged and nearlypowerless, teachers sought out an ideology which reacted to the status quo, no mat-ter its position. Lamberti’s thesis and Wegner’s assertion that German schoolteach-ers were complicit with the movement of National Socialism and served as culturalagents can be examined by reviewing the Shoah Foundation’s survivor testimoniesand other autobiographical texts, which support the tenets of her theory. To system-atically clarify the response of the 300,000 teachers in Germany during this timewould not be possible. However, an analysis of Holocaust survivor interviews willexamine the variety of teacher responses to the Nazi rise to power. Did the Partyrequire that teachers teach the nationalist agenda of the Party in their classrooms?Shoah Foundation testimonies will be used to explore individualised accounts ofthe systemic changes in the Reich’s educational system. To understand the roleteachers played in advancing or attacking political rhetoric in their classrooms inthe heated political climate of 1930s Germany can provide some reflection fortoday’s teachers in exploring the politics of education within their own classrooms.
The USC Shoah Foundation testimonies: an introduction to the survivors
In order to understand how national socialist policies had implications upon the dailylives of teachers and students, it is necessary to examine examples both from litera-ture and collected testimonies. This work emphasises the use of testimony as a pri-mary source. Not only does this resource serve to support what is already knownabout the Holocaust, but it also serves to further enhance our understanding of whatspecific policy implications looked like from the perspective of citizens living inNazi Germany. If historians are to understand how political policy was enactedacross the Nazi system, it is critical that they examine not only historical artefacts,but a recounting of events from the perspectives of bystanders as well. Such testimo-nies may help teachers, educators and those in the field today recognise how teachersshould be trained to subtly or overtly reject racist, prejudiced, or politically chargedpolicy. It is believed that the testimonies will provide a context for exploring the roleof teachers within the politicisation of Nazi Germany’s educational system.
Five sources of testimony were gathered from the USC Shoah Foundation bankof testimonies. Individuals were selected based on whether they were raised inGermany prior to or during the Nazi rise to power from the late 1920s through thelate 1930s. Also, individuals were selected who could represent different areas ofGermany, including urban areas (e.g. Berlin, Nuremburg) and rural areas (e.g.Gelnehausen, Kassel Hesse-Nassau). Finally, individuals were selected from variousregions of Germany, including Bavaria, the Black Forest, Germany’s East, theRhine Valley, and the Baden-Wurttemberg/south-western region.
John Meyer
John Meyer was born on 4 December 1913 in Danzig, part of the eastern frontof Germany both during and after World War I, and at times, after 1919, as part
4Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers,” 81.
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of the Polish Free State. Meyer is able to detail information about the WeimarRepublic’s public schools prior to the National Socialist involvement witheducation.
Hans Bensinger
Bensinger was born 19 July 1928 in the city of Pforzheim. Pforzheim is a city inBaden, located in south-western Germany, at the gate of the Black Forest.
Ernest Lorch
Ernest Lorch was born on 15 May 1923 in the southern town of Nuremberg (Mid-dle Franconia, Bavaria, Germany). Nuremberg is a Bavarian city in south-centralGermany.
Ilse Meyer
Ilse Meyer was born Ilse Leichtenstein on 24 February 1923 in Volkmarsen, a smallrural community in central Germany.
Otto Stern
Otto Stern was born on 1 July 1922 in the small town of Roth, near Frankfurt.
Teachers under the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich
In her article, “German Schoolteachers, National Socialism, and the Politics of Cul-ture at the End of the Weimar Republic,” Lamberti asserts that many of the civilservants who were involved in the Nazi Party early in its political life were teach-ers. In fact, Lamberti suggests that the German Teachers’ Association (DeutscherLehrerverein, or GTA) was more a “precursor than an opponent of fascism”.5 Mem-bers of the GTA were instrumental in challenging the social, economic, and politicalinstability of the Weimar Republic, pushing for a new form of government. Yet, likemost memberships of professional civil organisations, teachers unions include adiversity of opinions; while many younger members of the GTA were in favour ofa dramatic change in government and educational policy, experienced teachers con-tinued to favour the classic pedagogical practices used since the nineteenth century.Immediately prior to the Nazi’s ascension to political power in 1933, Ernest Kreick,a propagandist leader of the German Nationalist Teachers Organisation (Nationals-ozialistischer Lehrerbund, or NSLB), shared frustration with the principal teacher’sprofessional union, the GTA. Kreik felt that the teachers “older than 40 years ofage . . . believed that the ideas of 1848, ideas rooted politically and pedagogicallyin the eighteenth century, can master the problems of the newly emerging times”.6
As a party with limited social and political influence in 1927, the Nazi Party’sNational Socialist Teachers League formed the NSLB. Founder of the NSLB and a
5Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers,” 55. Lamberti mentions the high percentage of civil ser-vants, many of whom were teachers, who were early supporters of the Nazi Party. Due toheavy inflation, the failing of the German Reichmark, and a halving of salaries from 1928–1932, teachers were part of the political movement that led to the rise of the Nazi Party,though elementary educators were often seen as being more differentiated than secondaryeducators in their political values.6Ernst Krieck, “Die Lehrerschaft Und Die Politische Entscheidung,” Volk im Werden 1(1933): 32–5.
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Nazi Reichstag deputy since 1928, Hans Schemm and other early leaders within theParty envisioned the NSLB as a “combat battalion for Adolf Hitler”, not a profes-sional educational society. At that time, only 2% of the teachers in Germany weremembers of the NSLB. The profession of teaching was subjugated to political aspi-rations, as can be found in the Nationalsozialistische Lehrerzeitung, the league’sdeclared policy: in this 1930 article, teachers are described as “fanatic political radi-cal, the member of the league had little or no interest in questions related to peda-gogy and the profession”.7 The National Socialist teacher was, in fact, devoted tothe life of the Reich, and not first and foremost a teacher.
Analysis of teachers’ affiliations in the early 1930s suggests that most youngteachers from small to mid-size towns subscribed to right-wing or far right-wingperspectives. Teachers in areas like Hamburg and Saxony tended to assert politicalleanings that were Social Democrat.8 It may be likely that students living in largecities outside of Berlin may have experienced few of the pedagogical changesenacted by the Nazi regime early during its tenure. Holocaust survivor Ernest Lorchstates that in Hamburg, the second largest city in the northern part of Germany, henoticed very little change in his public school life until the dictum for all schools tobe closed to Germans of Jewish descent in 1935, over two years after the Naziscame to power. Lamberti also cites a poll from the GTA in Hamburg that suggeststhat most schoolteachers supported social democracy and “stood squarely on thedemocratic left”.9 Even after the NSLB began making curricular changes and man-dating modifications to the teaching profession, schools in larger cities may haveremained fairly sheltered from the Social Darwinist changes of the Party Union.
Yet, changes to the profession were occurring throughout the Republic at thehands of the NSLB. The Weimar Republic of the early 1920s had passed the BasicSchool Law (1920), creating a progressive agenda for schools and providing greaterautonomy to individual schools, teachers, and principals; the professionalisation ofteachers occurred through formalised schooling under the Pädagogische Akademien.Newly opened teachers colleges ensured that teachers would be instructed in peda-gogical strategies for a democratic populace. Teacher training was valued, the prac-tice of teaching was a reputable and laudable venture, and autonomy for theadvancement of teaching as a profession occurred. Greater school governance(kollegiale Schulleitung) gave teachers greater “self-determination and responsibil-ity” in comparison to the rule under religious school rectors prior to the GreatWar.10
7Nationalsozialistische Lehrerzeitung, 5 November 1930, p. 3. Politics, not pedagogy, wasthe emphasis of their organisation.8Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers,” 54. Leftist refers to political views that favour theworking class over the upper class, whereas social democrats address belief in the need forpolitical activism (though in Central Europe at this time, it did not as much emphasisestrictly classist struggles). The SPD had distinct working-class roots, and by 1933 they hadmore working-class support than any other party.9Konrad Jarausch and Gerhad Arminger, “The German Teaching Profession and Nazi PartyMembership: A Demographic Logit Model,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 20 (1989):211. Jarusch and Arminger state that teachers who joined the National Socialists early weremore likely to be Protestant, were younger professionals, and lived in small towns and mid-sized cities.10On the reforms and improvements in the elementary school system during the WeimarRepublic, see Dieter Langewiesche and Heinz-Elmar Tenorth, eds., Handbuch der deutschenBildungsgeschichte, vol. 5, 1918–1945 (Munich: C.H. Beck Publishing, 1989).
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The Basic School Law of 1920 and the emphasis on professional developmentwere not supported by the Party, which saw teachers as instruments of social policy,not professionals with any sense of curricular or pedagogical values. Such beliefsmay have stemmed from the school-related professional histories of NSLB mem-bers. Most high officials within the NSLB were not teachers prior to 1914; manyjoined the profession and had their political and classroom perspectives driven bylife after the Versailles Treaty and the embarrassing defeat at Allies’ hands in 1918.Because of this, many NSLB members had limited experience in classrooms, andexamined the role of teachers as instruments of social policy. Because they hadnever actively been a part of Weimar schools and professional organisations, manyof these men (and perhaps a smaller number of women) saw embarrassment indemocratic policies from the 1920s that drove the professionalisation of teachers.11
As such, many members of the NSLB worked to advocate for the destruction of theGTA by de-professionalising the field of teaching.
Educational background or previous experience with institutions of higher edu-cation was not specified by the NSLB.12 The NSLB’s principal mission was toindoctrinate all school experiences under the National Socialist world view. Theorganisations’ fundamental focus was on coalescing efforts for those members ofthe Party who saw themselves as teachers or “wanted to be seen as educators”.13
Further limitations to teachers’ opportunities to join the Party occurred in 1931 and1932, as both the Prussian State Ministry and the Catholic bishops in Germanychallenged the contradictory nature of National Socialist policies related to educa-tion.14
Upon their ascension to power in 1933, the NDSAP required that all teachersin the German Reich at the primary (elementary) and gymnasium (secondary) lev-els must belong to the NSLB. In 1935, members of the NationalsozialistischerDeutscher Dozentenbund (National Socialist German University Lecturers League,or NSDDB), principally made up of university faculty in teachers colleges, wererequired to merge with the NSLB as well. The years 1933–1935 saw challenges touniversity faculty, who protested the encroachments of the state on faculty auton-omy, recognising teachers as professionals, and affording members of a legislativedemocracy the opportunity to participate within a political process affecting theirroles as teachers within the Republic. The advancements made by the WeimarRepublic from 1920–1933 in seeing teachers as professionals needing latitude todefine curriculum and shape pedagogical practice was largely discontinued by1935, as teachers colleges and the German Teachers Union saw their powerwane.15
11Jarausch and Arminger, “The German Teaching Profession,” 211.12Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers,” 62. Lamberti cites documentation from the Lehrerzei-tung fur Ost-und Westpreussen, 12 November 1921, which documents the continued strug-gles of the Junglehrer, young soldiers returning from the Great War who were also teachersin assistant positions, vying for hard-to-find tenured positions in schools.13Nationalsozialistische Lehrerzeitung, 5 November 1930, p. 5.14Padagogische Post, 12 November 1931, 745–6; see also ibid., 5 March 1931, 158; ibid.,30 April 1931, 292–4. The Chairman of the Prussian Catholic Teachers’ Association statedearly in 1931 that the church should make a clear and “unambiguous statement on theNational Socialists’ position in cultural and school politics”.15Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers,” 78.
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Nazi anti-Semitism and the republic
The Nazi Party would not have been as successful in its implementation of racistideology were it not for the influence of educators in the Republic. Known through-out Europe for its progressive educational system, German school teachers andadministrators during the Weimar Republic were well-trained professionals. ManyJews found that the anti-Semitism they faced throughout the community was rarelyevidenced within classrooms, perhaps evidence of their training and diverse back-grounds.
John Meyer’s account of schools in Berlin in the mid 1920s highlights that anti-Semitism was evidenced in society well before the Nazi’s advanced in political cir-cles. Meyer moved to Berlin in 1920 when he was six years old and was tutoredprivately before he came to Berlin. He started public school when his family arrivedin Berlin. Despite the fact that Jews were distributed throughout Berlin at that time,relationships between German Jews and other Germans were “generally rough”,according to Meyer. He details the bias he felt as a young child recently joiningclasses for the first time:
Class companions and teachers would make remarks all the time. [Anti-Semitism] wasa part of life . . . All the political parties existed around such statements . . . Kids maderemarks, but we were still friends, even if they made remarks.16
Meyer also recounts that a group of Jewish students grew tired of the chiding oftheir peers, as well as the bias shared by teachers. Meyer recounts how one of histeachers, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed German, indicated that Jews should only asso-ciate with other Jewish kids. When Meyer and several other Jewish students con-tacted a group that fought against anti-Semitism within town, the principal wasenraged that they “dare to bring an outside organisation in”. No other punishmentwas provided, despite this chastisement.
Further, Meyer shares that though public education during the Weimar Republicwas considered strong, religious instruction was still a component of the curriculum.A rabbi would come into the school weekly to work with Jewish students as anobligatory part of their educations. Such differentiation of curriculum based on reli-gion naturally helped other students to recognise the students in their school whowere Jewish. Meyer recalls that, once the Nazis rose to power, peers in high schooljoined the Hitler Youth. He shared that one student “would sleep in class becausehe was out all night fighting, well, hunting . . . Jews”.17
Similar to Meyer’s testimony, Hans Bensinger recounts a childhood filled withfond memories of the education he received. Bensinger’s childhood in the BlackForest in Pforzheim reveals a love of education and appreciation for learning,despite his “always misbehaving”18 Bensinger attended kindergarten at a publicschool, but was sent to a Catholic kindergarten due to his behaviour (“Those nunsreally knew how to deal with children. They kept us entertained. I loved it – noproblems”). He shares that he never felt any sense of anti-Semitism or bias toward
16Shoah Foundation (1997). John Meyer - Shoah Visual History Testimonies. Los Angeles,CA: USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, 16216.17Ibid.18Shoah Foundation (1997). Hans Bensinger - Shoah Visual History Testimonies. Los Ange-les, CA: USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, 33828.
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him until, in 1936, he was removed from Miss David’s classroom. He said,“I didn’t understand at that precise moment, but I certainly understood as things(anti-Semitic movements) moved along”.
Documentation of swift firings of Party challengers is noted from 1933–1935, aspolitical opponents, Jewish teachers, and those deemed “not Aryan” enough weredismissed from their positions. Anti-Jewish legislation related to schools began on25 April 1933, when the Law Against Overcrowding in Schools and Universitieslimited the number of Jewish students allowed to attend public schools; largely feltin Berlin during that year, most of the Shoah testimony survivors reviewed did notsee the implementation of the policy until 1935 with the announcement of theNuremberg Laws.19 Jewish teachers were banished from public schools in 1936,and the Mayor of Berlin ordered local public schools not to admit Jewish children“until further notice”.20
Rationalisation for these changes stemmed from the National Socialist politicalmovement in Germany, with Jews being defined as the natural enemy of the Volki-sche Gemeinschaft (community of the German people), separate from the mysticbonds of racial superiority. Because educators would imbue children with the senseof purpose behind the Volksgemeinschaft (the collective identity of the German peo-ple), Jews could not be trusted to participate in this process, nor could homosexu-als, Communists, Roma, or political opponents of the Party.21 While it is unclearwhat the level of tolerance was toward the systematic extermination of the Euro-pean Jews early in their tenure, the Party instituted racially-based curriculum andpolicies that systematically drove opposing ideas from classrooms, emphasisingOne Voice, One Ruler, One People.
As part of the Weimar Republic’s educational system, a tradition of educationalexcellence was the norm in early twentieth-century Germany. Students studied cur-riculum with an overarching goal of personal growth through individual achieve-ment. Upon the ascension to power of the Third Reich, individual development wassubsumed under the need to prepare youth for service to the state.22 Reich Ministerfor Science, Education and Popular Culture Bernhard Rust re-trained those teachersdeemed appropriate to keep their positions in 1935. Teachers participated in amonth-long training in NDSAP principles. Textbooks were screened for theiremphasis of Party principles, and inserts were included in Weimar textbooks toassert Party allegiance, alternative telling of history, and racial hygiene curriculum.
19United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Online, “Anti-Jewish Legislation in Nazi Ger-many: 1933–1939,” http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005681(accessed 25 November 2009).20Ibid.21William F. Meinecke, Alexandra Zapruder, Timothy Kaiser, Laura Glassman, and BarbaraHart, Nazi Ideology and the Holocaust (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust MemorialMuseum Press, 2007), 13. According to Meinecke, Zapruder, Kaiser, Glassman, and Hartthe NDSAP could not have achieved the successful implementation of anti-Semitism were itnot for the ability of the State to re-educate its young populace away from the “weakness”of the Weimar Republic.22Detlev J.K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Every-day Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 111.
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Greater emphasis was also placed on physical fitness, as gymnastics and fitnessgrew to consume nearly half of the school day.23
Bensinger recounts feeling that he had a happy childhood until the advances ofthe Nazi Party to power in 1933, and his shock at the widespread anti-Semitism thatsurrounded him. He recognised later that his sister, eight years his elder, “had to gothrough the thick of it”. As he grew older and anti-Semitic attacks grew stronger,Hans detailed one event that is striking of the day’s activities in 1936:
One day we stayed after school. We were using the gym. I guess we weren’t allowedto use the gym during school hours . . . and Hitler Youth was waiting for us as wewere coming out [of the school]. The porter (doorman) chased them away . . .
I had to run to my father’s business. My father and my uncle and a man I didn’tknow, and I was out of breath, and I said ‘Well, you know’, . . . well, I knew at thattime to watch what I said, so I thought ‘Is this man Jewish?,’ so I already knew at thattime [that people couldn’t be trusted] . . . I don’t know how much that could haveimpacted me, every kid had it, just a part of the school day. Things didn’t change . . .I mean, they continued [trying] to beat us up until Kristallnacht.24
Bensinger is able to recall a bystander who did not allow Hitler Youth to enact theiraggression on him or his friends, but his testimony also details the ever-growingaggression felt by Jews in the Black Forest region nearly four years after Hitlerassumed power. While his testimony demonstrates that schools in this region ofGermany may have been slow to enact the racial policies of the Third Reich,clearly, the prejudices of the Party were felt.
Anti-Semitism was widespread throughout the Weimar Republic and continuedinto the reign of the Nazi Party. What did change significantly in 1933 was thecomplicity of the state in enacting legislation that formalised policy against Ger-many’s Jews in waves not felt since the early nineteenth century.25 Growing up inVolkmarsen in central Germany, Ilse Meyer remembers starting to read in January1933 in her local newspaper how “Jews are the undoing” of German society. Sheremembers citizens in plain clothes (perhaps Party members) standing outside ofstores in the Spring of 1933 taking pictures of people entering Jewish businesses,yelling, “These are Jews, don’t buy from them”.26
23Shoah Foundation (1997). Ernie Lorch – Shoah Visual History Testimonies. Los Angeles:CA: USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, 33702. Lorch sharesthat he noticed increased attention and time devoted to “gymnasium” activities, such as calis-thenics, physical fitness, and team-based sports during 1934. Lorch indicates that up to fourhours daily would be spent outside in physical education activities, at the expense of read-ing, mathematics, social studies, and science.24Shoah Foundation (1997). Hans Bensinger, 33828. Bensinger recounts his memories ofKristallnacht, the “Night of the Broken Glass”, perhaps the most infamous of the pogromsduring Nazi Germany.25Doris L. Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Lantham, MD:Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 71. Bergen reviews the two primary sets of lawspassed in the Fall of 1935, the Law for Protection of German Blood and Honour (which for-bade social, marital, and sexual relationships between Jews and others) and the Reich Citi-zenship Law (which detailed explicitly for the first time in the history of the Republic whowas determined to be a Jew, and thus, not privileged to the benefits of German citizenship).26Shoah Foundation (1997). Ilse Meyer - Shoah Visual History Testimonies. Los Angeles,CA: USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, 14606.
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By clarifying who could teach, what could be taught, and how children were tobe taught, the Nazi Party effectively silenced diverse beliefs in the Republic,destroying the democratic principles known during the Weimar period. While theNazis may not have introduced anti-Semitism, they did ensure that it was actedupon. Jews were to be segregated, discounted, and devalued. The intellectualstrength known during the 1920s through progressive movements and professional-ism were no more, ensuring that the Republic was primed to act upon its Jewishcitizenry.
An analysis of curriculum and learning in Nazi schools
Marion Freyer Wolff’s, The Shrinking Circle: Memories of Nazi Berlin, 1933–1939,recounts how students were challenged by the National Socialists’ re-orientation ofthe role of education and thinking. Freyer Wolff considers how for Jews, the questfor knowledge is a sacred part of development, and how books play a critical rolein that growth:
I had been taught to respect books. My grandmother had told me that a droppedprayer book had to be picked up and kissed. I had seen her do it in the synagogue.We were never permitted to mark a page or turn dog-ears in any book . . . My fatherexplained that . . . in school, there were different rules, and they had to be followed.‘You must not believe everything they tell you in school’, he said. ‘At home, we willtell you the truth, but in school you will be taught many lies. Do not call attention toyourself by questioning anything.’ He then turned to my mother and said quietly,‘Marion is such a serious and sensitive child. She will have a very hard life.’
I realized then that, in order to survive in the public school, I would have to lead adouble life with two conflicting standards of behavior – at school as a Jew amongNazis, at home as a Jew among Jews. This dual existence required ingenuity and self-control. Outwardly, I had to conform to the rules while inwardly trying to maintainmy ethical standards. I soon learned that open defiance would backfire and that otherways had to be found to resolve the conflicts that would arise.27
For a student to be taught that school is not a place to be trusted is a significantchange for Germans, who had generally valued the public education offered by thestate. But, as Freyer Wolff shares, the duality of thinking would quickly become away of life, as some Germans were devalued while others were applauded. Similarstatements are included in James V. Wertsch’s findings in Voices of CollectiveRemembering, in that a society must be vigilant in not attempting to control the nar-rative information or collective memory of its citizens.28
The implementation of anti-Jewish legislation in 1933–1937 impacted not justthe life of schools, but also the world outside of schools, including civicorganisations, civil services, legislative branches of government, and business-related enterprises. Though Jews were not excluded from owning their own busi-nesses until 12 November 1938, the boycotting of Jewish businesses had been
27Freyer Wolff, The Shrinking Circle: Memories of Nazi Berlin, 1933–1939 (New York:UAHC Press, 1989), 5.28Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering (New York: Cambridge University Press,2002), 179.
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widespread throughout the mid-1930s.29 Jews who had for much of the twentiethcentury felt acclimated into the climate and culture of German society and industrybegan to see themselves (and be seen by others) as distinct and different. The poli-tics of Volksgemeinschaft was more than an ideology . . . it was a way of life thatsegregated Jews as being non-German well before the enactment of the NuremburgLaws. The duality of their existence, feeling a part of the society but being dis-counted and distanced from it, was as much a social phenomenon as a politicalreality.
Dualistic thinking – the “us versus them” mentality – became a part of the wayeven Jews thought about themselves. Ernest Lorch, growing up in Nuremburg,knew this duality as “[bias] was part of everyday life. We were Jewish. That iswhat we know . . . [To stay] it was not a good move”.30 Lorch recounts the schizo-phrenic relationship he had with other Germans, the everyday relationship one hadwith one’s community: “should one stay or should one go?” The events ofKristallnacht reinforce this thinking, as Lorch to this day questions what he mighthave done differently; while he was away in Berlin on 10 November 1938, his fam-ily store was destroyed, his family’s apartment was ransacked, and his father (inJewish hospital for an appendectomy) suddenly died without explanation. In returnfor being able to bury him, the family could not view the body. To date, Lorch stillwonders what happened.31
Ilse Meyer recounts a story about how her best friend, Emma Koechling, a girlher age who was Catholic, was nearly arrested for being friends with Ilse. Whenthe Nazis came to get Ilse, the Liechtenstein family hid her overnight so that shewould be safe (though Meyer herself doubts what might have happened to her).“Us versus them” was a part of thinking and responding to the closed-minded nat-ure of the National Socialists. Ilse’s Hebrew teacher often reminded her that “what-ever you put in your head, no one can take away from you. That is the only thingyou can take along.”32 Jewish students were challenged to be respectful of knowl-edge and to recognise their role in carrying on their culture and their beliefs. Whilethe singularity and narrow-mindedness of anti-Semitism would be great throughouttheir communities, Jews were challenged to think broadly and consider the diversityof life and learning that surrounded them.
Learning in the republic: nationalism as curriculum
No longer a national school system dedicated to individual growth, schools in theThird Reich emphasised the racial superiority of German ancestry. An emphasiswas placed on the ideology of the strength of the German Aryan nation, the feebleand dirty nature of Roma and Jewish peoples, and the need for abdication of indi-vidual needs for the common good by all members of society. Physical educationand physical “conditioning” were critical components of public education after1935. Physical activity was designed to harden children in preparation for militaryservice (boys) or development of the coming generation of Germans (girls).
29Bergen, War and Genocide, 71–5; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Online,“Anti-Jewish Legislation,” p. 3.30Shoah Foundation (1997). Ernie Lorch, 33702.31Ibid.32Shoah Foundation (1996). Ilse Meyer, 14606.
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The national curriculum was dominated by pro-National Socialist forces, empha-sising the student’s role in the development of a “New World Order”.33 The faithand determination of young people in advancing this society stemmed directly fromtheir investigation of German history. The politics of education were formalised, asevidenced in the following account from Noakes and Pridham, experts on the riseof the Third Reich’s economic policy and ideology. The authors recount how pro-German rhetoric and dogma was introduced into curriculum:
A new understanding of the German past has emerged from the faith of the NationalSocialist movement in the future of the German people. The teaching of history mustcome from this vital faith, it must fill young people with the awareness that theybelong to a nation which of all the European nations had the longest and most difficultpath to its unification but now, at the beginning of a new epoch, can look forward towhat is coming full of confidence [...] 34
In her childhood memoir from Nazi-dominated Germany, Marion Freyer Wolffrecounts the changes in the Weimar Republic after the National Socialists took overin 1933. Recounting the spring term of 1933 in a public school in Berlin, Wolffshares how the Nazis not only altered the curriculum, but the way children were tothink about learning:
Hitler did not lose any time in indoctrinating the young. The Burning of the Books(10 May 1933) sent a clear message to all that any criticism of the Nazi world viewwould not be tolerated. All textbooks were censored or rewritten . . . the teacher askedus to place our books on our desks. She then wrote a list of numbers on the board.These were the numbers of the pages that we were to tear out. She did not tell uswhy we were mutilating our textbooks, and nobody asked. She collected the loosepages and counted each sheet to make sure the forbidden words had been removed.35
Ernest Lorch remembers similar events occurring within his classrooms, as curricu-lum became more polarised against Jews than at any other time he can recall. Hedetails how in elementary school during the Weimar Republic, he was one of thefew Jews at his school, and indicated that he “wasn’t bothered much” at that timebefore he was asked to leave public education at the age of 12 years old (whileLorch states it occurred in 1937, the law was enacted in 1936). Lorch recounts howhe was introduced to the concept of Judenrein, as his teacher had created a “Stuer-mer caricature” on the blackboard: the “typical Jewish kind of face”, with the subti-tle “and a nigger got into that” (the term referring to Jews). He also recalls the biashe felt in one of his favourite classes, physical education:
I belonged to an athletic group that was part of the Jewish Community Center. It wasa Jewish sports club . . . for young people . . . I did an awful lot of triathlon type ofthings. It was my way of showing what I could do surviving as a Jew, showing Icould do it. . . . You know, Jews were not supposed to be good at sports, and I was.
At school, though, at school the teacher marked me. I never got any good grades atit because Jews weren’t supposed to get good grades. I always got a 3 (which was,
33Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Nazism, 1919–1945, Vol. 2: State, Economyand Society, 1933–1939 (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2000).34Ibid., 244.35Freyer Wolff, The Shrinking Circle, 4–5.
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you know, like a C) . . . [because I was Jewish]. Not because I wasn’t good or couldn’tdo it, but because of who I was. Used to gripe me . . . funny what you remember.36
Racial education
While it is clear that changes in the national curriculum began early in the Party’spractices, what is less clear is whether teachers enacted such curriculum. Formalimplementation of Social Darwinist and racist curriculum was in place by 1935, asRust re-trained public school teachers in Nazi Party ideology during 1935. But, didthese teachers actively teach such policies, or does evidence exist that resistance tothese practices occurred?
A formalised component of all students’ educations during the Third Reich after1935 centred on racial education. Edification of the German lineage as strong, dom-inant, and advanced was applied to science coursework. Even before teachers wererequired to join the Party to maintain their positions, documentation exists of theideology of hate being transmitted in classrooms, as Jewish children were deemedinferior, dirty, and “un-German”. Students were used as models, required to citetheir own inadequacies, challenged by both peers and teachers to discuss their phys-ical characteristics that “defined them as Jews”. Evidence of these situationsincreased after the Nuremburg Laws ensured that Jews were deemed “subhuman”in the national school curriculum.37
For example, in the NSLB document Guidelines for the Teaching of Historyfrom 1938, the Party’s emphasis of the interconnectedness between racial identityand German history is clear. As the guidelines clearly show, Social Darwinism iscomingled with German history to reform how German’s feel about themselves andnational pride:
The certainty of a great national existence [...] is for us based [...] at the same time onthe clear recognition of the basic racial forces of the German nation which are alwaysactive and indestructibly enduring. Insight into the permanence of the hereditary char-acteristics and the merely contingent significance of environment facilitates a new anddeep understanding of historical personalities and contexts.38
Such statements were rampant in the national curriculum at this time. Racial ideol-ogy became a common component of curriculum in both history and science clas-ses. In Mein Kampf, Hitler incorporates Germanic heritage, racial superiority, andthe need for the purity of Aryan blood. In discussing the volkisch state, he assertsthat the Nazi curriculum was organised to guide teachers to support the advance-ment of the German populace. Specifically, he states:
He who speaks of a mission of the German people on this earth must know that it canexist only in the formation of a State which sees its highest task in the preservationand the premonition of the most noble elements of our nationality which haveremained, even of the entire mankind, unharmed.
By this State for the first time receives an inner higher goal . . . Out of a dead mecha-nism that claims to exist only for its own sake, a living organism has now to be
36Shoah Foundation (1997). Ernest Lorch, 33702.37Bergen, War and Genocide, 74–5.38Noakes and Pridham, Nazism, 244.
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formed with the exclusive purpose of serving a higher idea. The German Reich, as aState, should include all Germans, not only with the task of collecting from the peoplethe most valuable stocks of racially primary elements and preserving them, but also tolead them, gradually and safely, to a dominating position.39
As with the Party’s position on teachers, curriculum was designed not to advancethe learning of youth, but to advance the beliefs of the Party. Racial eugenics wasthe focus on this revised curriculum, and most Nazi educators, such as AlfredVogel, perhaps the most infamous of Nazi curriculum specialists, rewrote curricu-lum to move the Party forward. Gregory Wegner asserts that biology lessons wereless about educating students to understand life, or even understanding eugenics,but more about creating motives for students’ action in the community.40 Teachingstudents about racial hygiene was designed to protect the sanctity of Aryan blood,and to advance greater anxiety at sharing space with European Jews, Roma, andhomosexuals (who did not advance the propagatory needs of the society). Biologi-cal science, history, reading, and writing were organised to advance a political mis-sion and vision, one that advanced separateness from those deemed as “others”.
Wegner asserts that while the curriculum advanced a hatred of Jews and “oth-ers” in society, no discussion of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” everappeared in textbooks. Mass murder was not indicated, but outward aggressiontoward Jews was incorporated: it was the responsibility of the people to make thatdistinction (or connection). Pedagogy and curriculum were designed to advance thepersecution of Europe’s Jews.41 Students in their fourth and fifth years of schoolwould learn about a variety of cultural eugenics and racial biology. Students weretaught about Gregor Mendel’s studies of pea plants and how these studies couldlink to an awareness of Mischlinge, a slang term for bastard or “half-breed”. Cross-breeding between races was an abomination and a destruction of the purity ofGerman blood. Even if Jews or Roma looked Aryan, the discussion of geneticsindicated the “hidden tendencies” of heredity and how mischlinges might attempt topurposefully deceive.42
Racial mixing was the least of the curricular concerns for Vogel and other Nazicurriculum developers. Biological bases of racial eugenics movements were a strongcomponent of curriculum in the sciences. Mein Kampf was used as a revisionist his-torical text to examine the genetic mentors of Hitler and other statesmen, leaders,and soldiers. Such cultural influences also transformed how students viewed sub-jects such as reading, writing, and even mathematics. Vogel’s charts were used todemonstrate how students and the young must be persistent in ensuring theiradvancement of the Aryan race through avoidance of racially inferior peoples (SeeFigure 1). Students in the seventh and eighth years of school would be educatedabout their role in learning about families of inferior blood and stock. Such peoplesincluded drunkards, those with propensities toward criminal behaviour, the mentallyill, those with physical disabilities, and especially those with Jewish blood. Even ina “sterile” curriculum like mathematics, eugenics was included. In a chart entitled“Expenditures for Hereditary Diseases: Social Effects”, students would be shown:
39Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, nt. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Publishing, 1939), 601.40Wegner, “Schooling for a New Mythos,” 194.41Ibid., 299.42Ibid., 311.
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A drawing of a school for the mentally ill at Ettingen with the inscription that annualexpenditures for the institution amounted to 104,000 Reichmarks. The adjoining draw-ing depicted an orderly village of some seventeen private homes owned by the Arbeit-erfamilen, presumably requiring the same total cost as the annual budget for theschool. The theme was a wasteful state . . . the last line printed on the chart reads:‘Hereditary disease is a burden to the state.’ . . . Teachers and pupils must once again. . . [sing] the praises of rising birthrates initiated under National Socialism.43
Figure 1. German elementary racial hygiene.Note: This illustration from the Nazi magazine Neues Volk (New People), 1934, shows aGerman elementary school class in race hygiene.Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “German Elementary School Programon Racial Hygiene,” USHMM Photo Archives #13394http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/detail.php?content=racism&lang=en&print=y.
43Wegner, “Schooling for a New Mythos,” 205.
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Students were to demonstrate mastery of Party platform by implementing what theylearned at school. “Good German youth” avoided those who were “different”.“Good German youth” avoided thinking beyond what they were told at school.“Good German youth” thought more of the state than they did of themselves. Edu-cation in Nazi Germany emphasised compliance and not resistance, passivity andnot activism, and the group’s values and not the individual’s beliefs.
Advancement or resistance?
Otto Stern, born in Roth, near Frankfurt, and in gymnasium by the time racial ide-ology was being fully implemented in the mid-1930s, believed that his teachersfully supported the policies of the state. Roth was a small community, despite itsclose proximity to one of the larger cities in Germany. Stern asserts that when hewas in school, he knew of one teacher who was a member of the Party and worethe armband with a swastika.
We had one teacher who was a Nazi, he was a big Nazi, and the other teacher, he wasa gentleman. He was a decent man . . . he used to take me along, even though theother [teacher] didn’t approve.44
Stern suggests there was nothing in the demeanour of his teacher that would makehim think that he had moral issues or concerns with the curriculum he taught,which included Alfred Vogel’s teaching charts (Erblehre und Rassenkunde in bildli-cher Darstellung, or the Teachings on Heredity and the Study of Race inPictures).45 Stern recounts not being called upon by his teacher, but upon his returnto his town as a liberating United States soldier in 1945, he found two formerteachers, neither of whom shared any remorse for what they had taught or whatthey had exposed the adolescents to in Stern’s class. Stern shared, “when I wentback in 1945, but he wouldn’t come, why he wouldn’t come I don’t know . . .maybe he was ashamed what had happened . . . I will never know”.46
It is interesting that Stern actually sought out his teachers, a comment that wasnot discussed by other survivors. Implied in his reflection is the notion that hesought understanding of why teachers acted the way that they did. Stern considersthat the teachers may have felt ashamed at their behaviours; though we are unsureif this is accurate, it is a powerful result to hear a survivor provide this analysis.
Freyer Wolff’s account of her personal history in Nazi elementary schools ques-tions whether her teachers during that time valued the National Socialist propaganda.While her teacher in 1933 may not agree entirely with the platform of the Party, it isclear that she follows the guidelines set down in educational doctrine and dogma:
I cannot say with certainty that Miss Pfefferkorn was a true believer of the Nazi doc-trine. As a state employee, however, she was obligated to follow the Party line. Andso the traditional greeting of ‘Good morning, Miss Pfefferkorn!’ ‘Good morning, girls.
44Shoah Foundation (1997). Otto Stern, 34935.45Wegner, “Propagandist of Extermination: Johann von Leers and the Anti-Semitic Forma-tion of Children in Nazi Germany,” Paedagogica Historica 43 (2007): 312. Wegner recountsthe voluminous nature of materials disseminated by the Third Reich for use in classroomsusing the latest technology of the period.46Shoah Foundation (1997). Otto Stern, 34935.
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You may be seated,’ was replaced with the Hitler salute . . . I kept my arm down andremained silent. Miss Pfefferkorn noted my disobedience but said nothing. At the endof the week, I was summoned before the school principal, who warned me that itwould be in my best interest, and in the interest of my parents, if I would cooperatefrom now on. I remembered my father’s admonition (‘Never call attention to your-self’) and nodded my head.
The next day, I stretched out my arm with the rest of the class. But, when I said ‘Heil,Hitler,’ it was not to honor the dictator. In German, the word Heil can mean ‘Hail to’or ‘May you heal.’ By endowing the salute with the second meaning, I could prayevery morning that God should heal Hitler of his madness. This was my way of solv-ing the conflict of my dual existence, enabling me to keep my self-respect.47
Most testimonies noted that teachers “towed the Party line” on a day-to-day basis,and that they did not recall examples of kindness or resistance in the face of bias intheir classrooms. Testimonies are fallible, in that survivors were not specificallyasked to what extent their teachers were engaged in such actions, as well as otherconcerns about survivor testimony. What is clear is that teachers were largelyinvolved in facilitating the Party’s curriculum.
Summary: the role of teachers in the Nazi regime and further implications foreducators
Documentation demonstrates that curriculum was changed to advance anti-Semi-tism already prevalent within German society. Teachers had been trained to sup-port Nazi ideology. Like the other survivors, all who were deemed unnecessary inthe advancement of National Socialist ideology had been removed from positionsof power or influence in society, including Jewish civil servants, such as teachers.Otto Stern details that he believed this training was part of the policy dictated bythe Party, and that teachers, as professionals, may have felt some sense of embar-rassment or shame at what they did.
However, what is less clear is how complicit teachers were in advancing theNazi agenda, or if evidence exists to substantiate resistance to the Party. MarjorieLamberti’s research has demonstrated that more teachers from small and mid-sizedtowns, as well as younger teachers, supported the Nazi Party early on (and through-out the regime), and that teachers in and from larger cities supported the progressivemethods and ideas of the Weimar Republic. Were these differences confirmed in theexperiences of Holocaust survivors?
While only five testimonies are used here, their use as a source in clarifying theimpact of Nazi policy on youth during the Holocaust was helpful. The stories ofthese individuals shed light on the implications of political and social policies andhow educators could be complicit in their application in society. Reservations doexist due to the limited number of testimonies reviewed, but their impact in explor-ing historical documentation and artefacts should be noted for future research. Astrong pedagogy that could be used with these testimonies is to have students inmiddle school, high school, and at the college level compare and contrast experi-ences and determine why different experiences existed. Were discrepancies theresult of different locations? Were differences due to unique perspectives of teachersin implementing Nazi ideological policies? Such questions about a specific experi-
47Freyer Wolff, The Shrinking Circle, 6.
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ence (e.g. relationships with Nazis, relationships with neighbours, interactions withteachers) could provide students with a stronger appreciation for the Holocaust.
This paper concludes with reflections for twenty-first century educators. Arethere lessons to be learned by today’s teachers as we examine the responses ofteachers in pre-Holocaust Germany and their response to the Nazi Party’s politics?What are the challenges of belonging to a professional organisation when that orga-nisation is based in nationalistic or hegemonic ideals? What response do educatorstake when schooling is based on emphasised politics of bullying and exclusion?What response should teachers take when a “dumbing down of the curriculum” isexcused by a government? Finally, are there general ethical dilemmas for teachers:do we as professionals “hide behind rules and books” or recognise individual issueswith policies and our need to provide individual resistance?
In considering the questions at hand, the conclusions that could be made dohave implications for today’s educators. It is hard to imagine a person dedicatinghis/her life to educating young people, only to demonstrate bias toward some stu-dents. Harber’s text, Schooling and Violence, extends this theory, suggesting thatschools throughout the world actually harm students and society.48 While this is notoften considered, it does demonstrate one perspective of clarifying how teacherscould have participated in the Nazi policy.
Discussions of what occurred in Nazi Germany’s classrooms are well docu-mented. However, little remains that explores whether subtle acts of resistance mayhave been evident in classrooms; it may be that this knowledge is lost. No primaryinterviews of Nazi schoolteachers could be found, and students would not be asprivy to such acts (though examples of bystanders protecting youth were discussed,no mention of teachers performing such acts was evident).
Were teachers complicit in the implementation of Nazi policy? Their complicityseems founded based on the research and based on the sources identified. Lam-berti’s thesis of small town, mid-sized town, and young teachers being involved inParty affairs was supported by Shoah Foundation testimonies. It may have beennecessary for teachers’ professional survival to maintain National Socialistcurriculum, teaching the rhetoric of Party. However, teachers reviewed in thetestimonies and biographies demonstrated that they modified practices with themorning message (“Heil, Hitler!”), changed the content of textbooks (Freyer Wolff’steacher tore the pages of the text), taught race hygiene (several examples), and dis-counted students because of their heritage. Evidence does not exist in the documen-tation reviewed of teachers terrorising students, but the information also does notdemonstrate that teachers supported Jewish students or did not actively participatein segregating them.
What can be learned from the testimonies is that today’s teachers need to con-sider how they might respond in similar circumstances. It is clear that the ethicalcodes of educators challenge them to be more than what was seen in NationalSocialist classrooms; the voices of opposition that Lamberti cites occurring from
48Clive Harber, Schooling as Violence: How Schools Harm Pupils and Society (London:Routledge, 2003). Harber’s assertion that schools as a system often model youth in violence,and that the Nazi policies toward educating youth in this regard were just one example of alarger system of harm toward moral society.
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1927–1936, when the professional bodies were eliminated are worth noting.49
Today’s teachers must help to clarify that the behaviours of German teachers andpoliticians of the 1930s and 1940s are radically different than how German teachersand politicians perform today.
Yet, whenever the education of young people is considered, moral expectationswill exist. In general, it behoves the profession to, above all else, advocate for theneeds of the individual and not the majority in the class, to advocate for the weak-est student and not the strongest in class, and to advocate for the student who strug-gles and not the student who can learn without help. Today’s teachers can gainfrom exploring the history of other societies that have used curriculum for propa-gandistic and even prejudiced actions. Resistance may not be a component of tea-cher training often discussed, but having educators take the time to explore theirrole as political agents of change and safety in insane times is worth noting.
Notes on contributorMichael Lawrence Slavkin is the director of education and professor of education atManchester College in North Manchester, Indiana. He principally teaches coursework inelementary education, including development and social studies methods. In addition to hisresearch interests on service-learning and authentic assessment, he is a former universityfellow from the Holocaust institute for Teacher Education at the United States HolocausMemorial Museum in Washington, DC.
49Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers,” 62–4. Throughout the ascent of the National Social-ists to dominance and political power, Lamberti cites countless examples of evidence ofopposition to their advances, as members of the German Teachers Union, Catholic TeachersUnion, and sub-unions throughout the country questioned the tactics and methods of theNSLB. It is encouraging to note that even in those trying times, voices of resistance wereevidenced, if not recognised.
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