How far do you agree education in Germany was transformed between 1918-1989?
In the years 1918-89 the German government underwent radical transformation, with the
Liberal era of the Weimar Republic brought to an abrupt halt upon the shift to dictatorship
under the Nazi party and the collapse of the Nazi regime marking the beginning of a journey
to regain equality for all Germans under the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Looking at
these drastic changes in the German government, I would consider similar transformations
in Germany’s education system inevitable in accordance with them. I would define a
transformation of education system as a fundamental change in the purpose or aim of
schooling, the levels of central control over the school system and the educational standards
maintained by the system.
The first example of transformation of Germany’s education system can be seen in the shifts
in the purpose of German schooling throughout the years 1919 to 1989. At the beginning of
the period, under the Weimar Republic, the purpose of Germany’s school system was to
educate children and strengthen their support for the new democratic republic. Liberal
values were encouraged by making citizenship education compulsory, in which students
studied the Weimar Constitution and the constitution of the League of Nations.
Unsurprisingly, the aims of the education system changed radically upon the Nazi’s rise to
power. From 1933 to 1945 German schools became used as a means of indoctrination
rather than academic education which had previously taken precedence, embedding Nazi
ideas and values, primarily anti-semitism and patriotism, in the youth of Germany. Alterations
made to the curriculum by the Nazis prioritised the development of desirable personal
characteristics such as courage, physical fitness, map reading and handling weapons;
physical exercise became a priority of the education system and boxing was made
compulsory in all secondary schools. Even school subjects that would traditionally be
considered purely factual were manipulated into forms of brainwashing, with alterations to
the curriculum and textbooks ensuring Biology lessons were focused on race science and
even Maths lessons would consist of exercises to do with ballistics or financial savings from
a policy of the euthanasia of the disabled. This meant that upon the collapse of the Nazi
regime in 1945, the aim of schooling underwent a complete transformation, now focusing on
reeducation as the school system had strayed so far from its duty of academic preparation
of the young. After World War Two, the occupying allied forces established reeducation
programmes for teachers who had been subjected to intensive Nazi training camps and the
education system in Germany had to be completely reconfigured.
A second transformation education in Germany experienced in the years 1918 to 1989 is
fluctuation in organisation of the education system. Under the Weimar Republic the school
system suffered a distinct lack of uniformity; the constitution was based on a federal system
which granted individual states a high level of control over schooling rather than there being
a great central control over schools which could ensure basic educational requirements were
comprehensively met. This resulted in states having a mixture of different types of schools,
some fee paying, some publicly funded, some selective, some non-selective, some
vocational and some highly academic. Moreover, schools were largely influenced by the
Church and by the end of the Weimar period most schools taught either Catholic or
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