NAZI Education: Level--Secondary Schools


Figure 1.--

The NAZIs maintained the basic structure of German secondary education inherited from the Weimar Republic. There were three categories of state secondary schools which offered a total of up to 9 years of instruction. The best known was the Gymnasium which offered a classical curriculum. The other two, the Real-Gymnasium and the Oberrealschule, offered a curriculm giving greater emphasis to the sciences and utilitarian courses. The NAZIs while not changing this basic structure, added new schools that were designed to train the future leaders of the Third Reich. Two new types of secondary schools were created. The first was Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt (NPEA or NAPOLA) schools. The second was the Adolf Hitler Schools. The difference between these two schools is not altogether clear and sems in part to reflect the intermable beureaucratic infighting so prevalent in the Third Reich.

Established Secondary Schools

The NAZIs maintained the basic structure of German secondary education inherited from the Weimar Republic. There were three categories of state secondary schools which offered a total of up to 9 years of instruction. The best known was the Gymnasium which offered a a highly academic classical curriculum. The other two, the Real-Gymnasium and the Oberrealschule, offered a curriculm giving greater emphasis to the sciences and utilitarian courses. One student describes at 12 years of age entering athe Materschule, which was a very demanding high school with extremely high standards and an unusually difficult schedule. Tp graduate one had to pass the "Abitur" examinations which he claimed procided an education equivalent to high school and four years of college in the United States.

NAZI Elite Party Schools

The NAZI Party established secondary schools for carefully children. The were primarily for boys, but a few were also for girls. The schools were to train the Party elite. The major program was the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt (NPEA or NAPOLA). The other kind of secondary schools created by the NAZIs were called the Adolf Hitler Schulen (AHS--Adolf Hitler Schools). The AHS were founded because the SS essentially seized control of the NAPOLA. Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley (DAF leader of the DAF) and Baldur von Schirach (Hitler Youth leader) agreed to set up the new schools in January 1937. The schools as far as we know were very similar. The primary difference was simply who controlled them.

Movies

Several movies have been made about these schools.

(The) Ogre/Der Unhold (British-French-German, 1996)

A French simpleton named "Abel" becomes manservant of Field Marshall Goering during World War I at Goering's hunting estate, and, later, at a Hitler Youth school. "The Ogre" stars John Malkovitch and was directed by Volker Schlondorff. The Ogre is a joint British-French-German production), about a Frenchman during World War II. The German title is "Der Unhold". I believe the French title is something like "The Monster". The film open in a Paris suburb of 1925, at St. Christopher's School for Boys. The boys are shown as wearing brown smocks (over shirts and short pants), fastentened in back with three buttons. "The Ogre", which stars John Malkovich is an intense film. The last half or so of this film is set at a German Napola in World War II. The Napola, were NAZI party training schools. They were boarding establishments which were run like military schools.

Sources

Nizkor Project, "Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression Individual Responsibility Of Defendants: Baldur Von Schirach (2653-PS).

Overy, Richard. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich. Penguin Group: London 1996.

Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1960.







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