Education in Nazi Germany - History Change and Continuity Assessment

Education in Nazi Germany – Change and Continuity Assessment When Hitler became Chancellor of Nazi Germany, in 1935, he proposed many changes in education and throughout the country. He believed that these changes would influence people and indigenise them of his beliefs and reforms that should happen in the country – to praise his glory and make Germany the most powerful country and its rule to continue forever. One of these integral changes was education. Hitler strongly believed that, younger minds were easier to infiltrate and indoctrinate, as they were developing and imposed this sudden change amongst schoolchildren to provoke stronger Nazism in the future generation of Germans. Older generations, could oppose and have opinions to disapprove Hitler’s ideas. So, the Nazis changed education drastically to mould these children for the future of Germany. However, some parts of education were vital for basic human needs and could not be changed. In contrast, they were continued but they were portrayed in such a way, which would influence the way a German child thought, in that time. They introduced a lot of changes to education, from the days of teaching to the subjects that had to be taught or taken out of the curriculum; which also had a lot of Nazi indoctrination in them. All of the changes that were introduced had a major impact on children, as Dr Bernhard Rust pointed out that, "The whole function of education is to create Nazis" which highlighted that indoctrination was a key fundamentality in education to induce Nazism. One major change was starting school at 8:00 am sharply and a higher emphasis on sport and keeping fit. This is because, Hitler wanted to create a future generations of tough and strong soldiers, that would fight for his country – so unfortunately for most boys, this would be the discipline in the army and Hitler exactly wanted then to be ‘trained for the army’. Hitler had always said that,’ boys had to be as swift