Nazism in the Classroom
In the first of our mini-series on the Nazis and social culture, Lisa Pine looks at how lessons in the classroom were perverted in the service of the Third Reich.
Whilst most governments seek, or have sought, to imbue their nation's youth with correct values and ideals, these regimes of an authoritarian nature have attempted to do so with greater thoroughness – in part, to create a consensus for their rule and ideology. This is clearly demonstrated, for example, by the way in which Mussolini's regime reformed the education system in Italy, introduced state textbooks and set up youth organisations in order to instil Italian youth with Fascist ideology.
In Austria, too, the clerico-fascist regime of 1934-38 attempted to inculcate its beliefs in Austrian youth by similar means. But perhaps the most striking example of this type of youth manipulation (through ideological 'education' was the Nazi regime, which introduced sweeping reforms into the German school system, reinforced by the activities of its youth groups, the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. It went so far as to utilise school textbooks as propaganda tools, with which to disseminate its ideology.
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