Table of Contents – page 2
Abstract – page 3
Introduction – page 4
Depiction and Targeting of the Youth – page 5
How the Nazis were Manipulative – page 6
How were the forms of Propaganda used?
i. The School Environment – page 8 ii. The Professors and Teachers – page 9 iii. The Curriculum and Textbooks – page 11
Conclusion – page 13
Bibliography – page 14
Abstract
To what extent was the Nazi propaganda seen in the education system successful in the indoctrination of the youth? This will be measured by the aims of the Nazi party against the results that they achieved. The essay explores the methods of indoctrination used by the Nazi Party that were seen …show more content…
It was the educational system that proved to be the perfect tool for the indoctrination of the youth. Nazi propaganda could be inputted throughout every stage of the educational system, from kindergarten to university. The results of Hitler’s plan of fully restructuring the educational system was that all schools had shifted from focusing primarily on academics to focusing on teaching nationalistic values. This was seen as German schools had lost their reputation for producing famous academics6 and instead had turned into “propaganda centres”7 overshadowing the need for the youth to pursue in their …show more content…
The teachers were offered a chance to quit, but those who kept their jobs and went through severe consequences. As the historian Jean-Denis Lepage states, the teachers were sent to concentration camps or “harassed, dismissed, forced into exile and retirement, and even imprisoned.”34 An example of a defiant teacher was Dr Schuster, a geography teacher who criticized what education had become in Germany in a letter he sent to a family member. Amy Buller’s book Darkness over Germany quotes this letter. He claimed that education was being degraded by all the political interference, which did not allow students to grow and mature, and also have open minds. “I am trying through the teaching of geography to do everything in my power to give the boys knowledge and I hope later on, judgment, so that when, as they grow older, the Nazi fever dies down and it again becomes possible to offer some opposition they may be prepared.”35 We learn from this that some teachers were able to look past the indoctrination intended by the Nazis, even through all the new rules that were being