Anti-Semitism and Schooling Under the Third Reich (Studies in the History of Education) [Paperback]

Gregory Wegner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0815339437 | ISBN-13: 978-0815339434 | Publication Date: October 6, 2002

This book investigates the anti-Semitic foundations of Nazi curricula for elementary schools, with a focus on the subjects of biology, history, and literature. Gregory Paul Wegner argues that any study of Nazi society and its values must probe the education provided by the regime. Schools, according to Wegner, play a major role in advancing ideological justifications for mass murder, and in legitimizing a culture of ethnic and racial hatred. Using a variety of primary sources, Wegner provides a vivid account of the development of Nazi education.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Within Hitler's Germany, education played a pivotal role in disseminating virulent Antisemitism among the German youth. It underscored Hitler's long-term objective of eliminating all forms of Jewish influence in European culture and furthered the public acceptance of events leading to the Holocaust. Within this difficult and complicated subject, Wegner offers readers an in-depth look at the ideology of National Socialism, its history, and its disturbing success, in influencing the course of German education during Hitler's twelve-year rule. -- David A. Meier, Professor of History, Dickinson State University
Professor Wegner's study of the role played by anti-Semitism in the schools of the Third Reich fills a huge and long-neglected gap in the historiography of Nazi Germany. He portrays the frightening efficiency with which Nazi educators infused anti-Semitism into every aspect of the school curriculum -- racial hygiene, biology, history, geography, and literature. In today's parlance we might speak of anti-Semitism across the curriculum. This study is firmly rooted in primary source material and becomes a major contribution to our understanding of how education can be misused to promote hatred and prejudice. -- Karl A. Schleunes, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Gregory Paul Wegner's study of the role played by anti-Semitism in the schools of the Third Reich fills a huge and long-neglected gap in the historiography of Nazi Germany. He portrays the frightening efficiency with which Nazi educators infused anti-Semitism into every aspect of the school curriculum. This study forms a major contribution to our understanding of how education can be misused to promote hatred and prejudice. -- Karl A. Schleunes, author of The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy toward German Jews, 1933-1939
By illuminating how education can become a tool for hate, Gregory Paul Wegner has done a great service not just for historians and educators, but for all concerned for the future of our society. -- Mark Weitzman, Director, Task Force Against Hate, Simon Wiesenthal Center
Gregory Paul Wegner's extensive research and excellent analysis illuminates the linkages between educational thought and eugenicist ideology. He insightfully shows that curricular policy in the Third Reich was a bold attempt to rewrite history and religion, and that there was enthusiasm for the project from writers and educators. -- Stephen Feinstein, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota
Gregory Wegner has performed the valuable service of compiling and analyzing the publications and proposals of a distressingly large group of Nazi education reformers who ranged from the overtly vicious and genocidal to the self-proclaimed objective and dispassionate. Differing in tone and style, they agreed upon the goal of establishing antisemitism across the curriculum. The disciplinary boundaries of biology, history, anthropology, literature, foreign languages, even physical education were tobe transcended through the integrating theme of race hygiene. -- Christopher R. Browning, Frank Porter Graham Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Gregory Paul Wegner's study of the role played by anti-Semitism in the schools of the Third Reich fills a huge and long-neglected gap in the historiography of Nazi Germany. He portrays the frightening efficiency with which Nazi educators infused anti-Semitism into every aspect of the school curriculum. This study forms a major contribution to our understanding of how education can be misused to promote hatred and prejudice. -- Karl A. Schleunes, author of The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy toward German Jews, 1933-1939
By illuminating how education can become a tool for hate, Gregory Paul Wegner has done a great service not just for historians and educators, but for all concerned for the future of our society. -- Mark Weitzman, Director, Task Force Against Hate, Simon Wiesenthal Center
Wegner's book isa useful addition to our understanding of education in the Third Reich. -- American Historical Review

About the Author

Gregory Wegner is Professor of Foundations of Educational Policy at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (October 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815339437
• ISBN-13: 978-0815339434
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,028,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A scholarly examination of the Hatred, August 21, 2009

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S. A DUNN (Chehalis, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anti-Semitism and Schooling Under the Third Reich (Studies in the History of Education) (Paperback)

Although I have not yet purchased this book, from what I have read about it on the web, and the quotations referring to this book from scholars, this book is definitely on my want list and my wish list.

Modern history and scholars have examined over and over the "How" of the Holocaust. Many also have discovered the "Why" of the Holocaust. For those who still question the "Why, I recommend that they read Adolf Hitler's Last Will and Testament, written by him before he blew his brains out. In it he said nothing new or outstanding. It is replete with all the garbage that he made a whole nation believe during his "1000 year" reign. And either his minions were too stupid or too scared to challenge the madness or they also had been deceived by thousands of years of Anti Semitic propaganda.

This book pulls apart the writings of the Nazis and especially the dissemination's of Julius Striecher and his editor, Ernst Heimer. Many ask how a nation could be corrupted to hostility and indifference to what happened to their own neighbors. This book shows how the old Anti Semitic pogroms and attitudes of thousands of years were amplified and vigorously taught to the children of Germany during the Hitler regime.

During the Nuremberg War Trials, both the British and the Soviet prosecution leaned heavily on Julius Streicher and his filth. Especislly distressing was the revealed knowledge of the "Childrens Books" produced by the Sturmer Verlag. The two books, "The Poison Mushroom" and "Trust No Fox" were enough to earn Streicher the hangman's noose. Yet at the time none of the Nuremberg prosecution had knowledge of the worst book produced by Streicher's Vellag: "Der Pudelmopsdackelpinscher."


Wegner in his research details what Heimer wrote to the children of Germany in that terrible book. He details how carefully that regime built up their power by exploiting their underling's suspicion and superstition from centuries of Anti Semitic propaganda. It is a fascinating and truly an enlightening study. It took courage to research and write it and it takes courage to read it, then do a self-examination of our own prejudices and bigotries after examining the way that prejudice became a State Industry under the Nazis.