Figure 1.--
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Figure 1.-- |
The NAZIs inherited 25 universities from the Weimar Republic, including siome of the most prestigious institutions of higher eduvation in the world. After graduating from secondary schools, qualified German students could attend university. The NAZI introduced a mandatory labor service. University amission required a racial test. Jewish prodessors were almost immediately dismissed and Jewish students soon also excluded from the university. I believe Mischling were generally excluded from secondary schools so had little opportunity to attend university. Students whose parents were involved in pre-1933 political activity oposing the NAZIs might also be excluded unless they redeamed themselves in the Hitler Youth. The NAZI Party also established new elite educational facilities for leadership training.
Upon graduation at age 18, students joined the German National Labour Service or Reichsarbietsdienst (RAD) where they worked for the government for 6 months. During the Wimar Republic, the Bruning Government in 1931 established work camps to house mostly young men who volunteered for labor service. The program was comparable to the Civilian Construction Corps (CCC) that was later created by the Roosevelt Administration (New Deal) in the United States. The purpose in both instances was to create jobs for unemployed youth as a result of the world-wide Depression. The NAZIs seized power in 1933 and in July 1934 established the RAD. It was expanded and made compulory in 1935. The RAD was the offical state and party labor service providing jobs for unemployeed men. Many boys then joined the military or found jobs until drafted. Others entered university. The RAD undertook the construction of Germany's innovative Autobahn system as well as other roads, land reclamation, drainage projects and soil conservation. The RAD was also helped to construct military fortifications and installations.
The NAZIs inherited 25 universities from the Weimar Republic, including some of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the world. Heidelberg University establishede in 1386 was the oldest in Germany. The largest university was the University of Berlin had an enrollment of about 6,000 students. Other prominent universities included Griefswald, Bonn, Cologne, Erlangen, Göttingen, Halle, Jena, Leipzig, Marburg, Munich, Rostock, and Würzburg. Many of these universities by the late 1920s had organized gangs of NAZI students who would attack Jewish students. After the NAZI takeover in 1933 in became very dangerous for Jewish students at many universities before they were finally expelled. Hitler's Minister of Education Rust quickly on assuming office saw to it that critics of National Socialism and Jews were dismissed from German universities which were state institutions. Rust unsuccessfully tried to favor working-class applicants, but succeeded in reducing the number of women accepted. Even after 6 years in office, at the beginning of Word War II in 1939, only 3 per cent of university students came from working-class families, unchanged from 1933. Rust was more successful in reducing the number of women in German universities, from 18,300 in 1933 to only 5,400 in 1939. During the Third Reich the historic spirit of liberalism disappeared from German university classrooms. Academic life was strictly regimented. The unicersity science research programs programs were reordered to support the massive German armament effort.
The NAZIs established 21 Political Institutes of Education in total. These schools were created to train Germany's military leaders, party leaders, and government administrators. [Overy, p. 42.] This education was supposed to model the training received in old Prussian military institutes. Students were geared towards a "soldierly spirit" with courage, motivation, and self-sacrifice. The teaching of these schools were under that instruction of
the SS. There were three schools founded in 1933 and this number expanded to 31 schools just up before the war. Three of these schools were for women. [Shirer, p. 13.]
These were the most elite out of all the schools. Only the most head strong National Socialists were allowed to attend this school. They were selected usually from the graduates of the NAPPLA and Adolf Hitler Schools. Again I am not sure what the selection process was, but cerainly phyical conditioning must have been a major factor. Their training was modeled after the Order of Teutonic Knights from the 1300's. The Nazi Order Castles had principles of absolute obedience, discipline, and physical training. The schools took pupils to the limits of physical endurance. War games were conducted with live ammunition. Some students were killed accidentally in these exercizes. There were four castles in all. The first 6 years were spent studying "racial sciences" and other NAZI beliefs. The second castle emphasized athletics and sports. Government and military instruction were implemented in the third castle, and during the fourth castle, they were sent to East Prussia where they concentrated on the question of expanding the German lands. [Shirer, p. 14.] The students that succeeded in graduating from the Order Castles could
expect to attain a high position in the army or the SS.
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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