GERMAN IMPRESSIONS
I.
By AN ENGLISH SCHOOLMASTER
ONE of the most noticeable features of National Socialist Germany is the intrusion of politics into every sphere of life. Particularly is this true as regards education. It is the aim of the State to weld all (Aryan) Germans throughout the Reich into a solid and united body ; and this can only be achieved by imposing on them all a common Weltan- schauung (philosophy of life). It has been found at times somewhat difficult to convert the middle-aged to the new ways ; but youth is a pliable material, which the Government is unquestionably succeeding in moulding into the shape it desires. The youth of both sexes is enlisted in uniformed bodies (the Hitler jugend and the Bund Deutscher Made°, and receives within these formations its political schooling, which gives it the Weltanschauung required.
In order to maintain a united front the Government feels that it must suppress any attempt at originality of outlook. It declares, however, that the individual does not thereby lose his freedom. On the contrary he is held to have won for the first time a genuine freedom, in that he has been freed by the State from all such shackles as Christianity, class conventions and political strife, which have in the past prevented him from developing along those lines which are decreed by biological laws and which are therefore natural to him. This may sound an original conception of freedom, but it is nevertheless true that the younger generation today in Germany is more buoyant with vital energy than perhaps ever before. It has unbounded confidence in its leaders and is prepared to follow them blindly. " Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die." And with each successive year a further million loyal followers is added to their ranks.
To maintain this enthusiasm at a high pitch the chief educative factor is the cultivation of the spirit of Kamer- adschaft. Team games, camps and mass expeditions of various kinds, community singing, all play a leading role in the upbringing of both sexes. The boarding school, contrary to all precedent in Germany—the Land der Familienerzie- hung—has come to be recognised as the ideal form of school for inculcating this spirit into the young.
Boarding schools are expensive institutions, and Germany is financially poor. Nevertheless, since 1933, the State has founded fifteen boarding schools, which it subsidises in a most generous style. These schools carry the impressive title of Nat ionalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (mercifully shortened for all practical purposes to " Napolas "), and arc beginning to take a very important part in the life of the country. They obtain all the best material, both in masters and boys ; and as officially privileged organs of the Government, they form the nurseries of Germany's future leaders.
In conformity with the fashion prevalent in Germany today, these schools have a military uniform of their own and are subject to military discipline and military formalities. But it is a mistake to imagine that this makes them automatically militaristic institutions. The Prussian's love of marching, of martial music, and of military forms is just as much a national characteristic as the Englishman's love of sport. In the same way as English schools use sport as an instrument of education, the Germans are basing their educational system on military formulae. Military discipline teaches the boys to undergo hardships, to perform unpleasant tasks willingly, to subordinate personal desires to the interest of the com- munity ; and these are not very different from the lessons taught in English schools by other methods. That such methods are ill-suited to the British temperament should not necessarily condemn their adoption in countries whose outlook and ways of life differ from our own. We are, perhaps, too apt in our insularity to judge others by our own standards, and criticise things about which we may not be wholly competent to express an opinion.
National Socialism is not merely content with pervading the activities of the Hitler jugend and the life of the boarding schools. It penetrates into religion and all branches of learning. History, literature, languages, are no longer subjects to be studied for their intrinsic value, but for the light that they throw on National Socialism. Historians today have all to learn to interpret history in the same way, and must regard every event in Germany's past as a landmark on the road leading to the predestined climax of German history—the accession of the National Socialists to power. The history of the last thousand years must, therefore, be represented as a period in which every attempt of the people to unite as a nation was frustrated by the Church. Hitler, in one of his speeches last year at Nuremberg, even went so far as to declare the last thousand years to have been an era of Christianity, and the coming thousand as destined to be an era of National Socialism. (It is still a matter of open dispute amongst German historians whether they shall claim Luther as the first National Socialist or not.) In art, it is declared that the Germanic genius has in the past been hampered by having to adhere to Christian formulae. It has even been asserted that the text of the gospel lies like a dead weight on the music of the St. Matthew Passion, and that Bach would have created something far greater if his genius could have found outlet in more national channels.
Until quite recently too, considerable uncertainty prevailed in pedagogic circles as to how far Goethe should be studied in the schools. How, for example, was one to interpret in the light of National Socialism his attitude during the Wars of Liberation, when he openly discouraged the patriotic efforts of his countrymen ? Fortunately for the Aryan cause, however, Baldur von Schirach, the Reichsjugendfuhrer, has succeeded in unearthing a sufficient number of quotations, sparsely scattered among Goethe's profuse works, which, when strung together and cleverly interpreted, make it appear that the author of " Tasso " and " Iphigenie " was in many ways a precursor of the National Socialist move- ment !
Even science has become shackled to politics. Biology, now a principal subject in all schools, serves to convince the young of the necessity for racial purity, early marriage, and the sterilisation of the mentally defective and those suffering from hereditary diseases.
The present situation is one common to all revolutions. Those who have seized the power rush violently to extremes in an endeavour to consolidate their position. The forceful onrush of a new movement brings with it new ideas and new theories, which must be given a trial. Then, gradually, as the political situation becomes more settled, a sobering element creeps in, and the excess and excrescences of the revolution disappear. Germany is still intoxicated by the early successes of her revolution and can think only in superlatives. Her outlook in many things is distorted and narrow ; but when the more violent of her experiments have failed and the fever-heat has subsided, it may be found that National Socialism has contributed much that is of permanent value in education.
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