Brainstorm:

1. Brainstorm: • In a group of two or three, brainstorm 5 classes that you must take as high school students in Canada • Why? • Is there another subject that all students in Canada should take? • What subjects do you think they took in Nazi Germany?

2. The Holocaust: Pt. 1 Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group. Also known as racial killing or mass slaughter Holocaust: destruction or slaughter on a mass scale. For example, the killing of 6 million Jews in Nazi Germany. Have you ever wondered why?

3. Education in Nazi Germany How schools were expected to train their students to “work towards the Fuhrer” from 1939-45

4. Hitler's view on the young and education • “The weak must be chiselled away. I want young men and women who can suffer pain. A young German must be swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather, and as hard as Krupp’s steel.” -Hitler

5. Education “The whole function of education is to create Nazis” -B. Rust, 1938. Eugenics: the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. “...No boy or girl must leave school without having attained a clear insight into the meaning of racial purity and the importance of maintaining the racial blood…” Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1939

6. Here is a maths problem from a Nazi text book: • “A Sturmkampfflieger on take off carries 12 dozen bombs, each weighing 10 kilos. The aircraft makes for Warsaw, the centre of international Jewry. It bombs the town. On take off with all the bombs…and a fuel tank containing 1,500 kilos of fuel, the aircraft weighed…8000 kilos. When it returns from the crusade, there are still 230 kilos of fuel left. What is the weight of the aircraft when empty?”

7. School Assignments based on the recognition of races • “Observe the Jew: his way of walking, his bearing, gestures, and movements when talking.” • “In what stories, descriptions, and poems do you find the physical character of the Jew best portrayed?” J. Graf, 1935

8. How did the Nazis start education? • “Our State’, said Dr. Ley…’is an educational State…We begin with the child when he is three years old. As soon as he begins to think he is made to carry a little flag. Then follows school, the Hitler Youth…” by A. Wolf, 1944

9. What were teachers told? • “Military education is not a special part of a general comprehensive education, but the centre of all our obligations as teachers.” • From ‘The German School’ a publication for teachers, 1937

10. What would you be taught? • “All subjects - German Language, History, Geography, Chemistry and Mathematics - must concentrate on military subjects-the glorification of military service and of German heroes and leaders and the strength of a regenerated Germany…”

11. What would you be taught? This is the timetable from a Nazi girls school

12. Nazi Boarding Schools: 1 • The Nazis added boarding schools to the school system. There were 3 main types. The first was the National Political Educational Institutions (NPEA), and by 1943 there were 37. They were supervised by the Reich Minister of Education. Life in these schools was hard and militaristic. They had indirect associations with the S.S. and were for children over the age of 10. Fees varied depending on the means of the parents.

13. Nazi Boarding Schools: 2 • The second set of boarding school were the Adolf Hitler Schools, and there were 10 of these by 1943. They were actually organised and maintained by the party and offered free education for those over 12. Their function was to train a highly indoctrinated elite of leaders capable of serving the state.

14. Nazi Boarding Schools: 3 • The third type were the German State Boarding School, introduced in 1941, there were 66 by 1942. They were for children of parents whose life was disorganised by the war. Priority was given to children whose fathers had died on national service.

15. What does this tell you about the role of education in Germany?

16. Sport Sport was seen as essential in Nazi Germany. It helped develop strong, Germans, who were needed for the new order. Athletics and gymnastics were undertaken by all. “Sport exists to make a person strong, agile and bold. It also toughens him up and teaches him to bear hardship.” Hitler Special training manuals were produced. No free or spontaneous sport or dance was allowed as this went against the Nazi sense of order.

17. Who went to school? • School was mandatory for all children, including Jewish children (although they did begin separating the Jews eventually) • One person who attended school was Anne Frank • Anne was a German citizen of Jewish heritage • In 1941, her citizenship was taken from her. • The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam before the war. The Nazi’s took over the Netherlands and they were trapped there.

18. Anne Frank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0G3mTRh9ro&safety_mode=true • The Frank family noticed the persecution of the Jewish people, so they went into hiding • After two years, they were discovered and shipped to various concentration camps. • Anne and her sister were transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. • While there, Anne kept a diary. It was auto-biographical and after the war, it was published and turned into a book.

19. For hundreds of years Christian Europe had regarded the Jews as the Christ -killers. At one time or another Jews had been driven out of almost every European country. The way they were treated in England in the thirteenth century is a typical example. In 1275 they were made to wear a yellow badge. In 1287 269 Jews were hanged in the Tower of London. Jews were a SCAPEGOAT This deep prejudice against Jews was still strong in the twentieth century, especially in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe, where the Jewish population was very large. After the First World War hundreds of Jews were blamed for the defeat in the War. Prejudice against the Jews grew during the economic depression which followed. Many Germans were poor and unemployed and wanted someone to blame. They turned on the Jews, many of whom were rich and successful in business.