In May, 1934, the newly organized and “purged” body of teachers began to give lessons in “National Socialist Meanings.” There were new fundamental maxims, and new textbooks. The scale of values, in order of importance, is set by the Führer:
Hereditary tendencies; general racial picture.
The character (degree of adherence to National Socialism).
The physical makeup or “body” (degree of usefulness in the event of a future war).
(And, last) Knowledge. (Here, the knowledge of objective reality, regarded as a last offshoot of liberalism, is often punishable where it is not merely regarded as absurd and reprehensible.)
But what could the knowledge of objective reality mean? Where would its place be, in a system which reduces all sciences to a single new science called Wehrwissenschaft (the science of defense, although the connection between the German “Wehr” and the English “war” is no coincidence). Education in relation to weapons, then, takes the place of education as we know it. The whole concept is peculiar to Hitler’s Germany. It has been most directly put by a high school principal, Hans Willy Ziegler, in the N.S.L.B. periodical Die Deutsche Schule (June-July, 1935): “Education in relation to weapons, then, is no special branch of general education; rather, it is, in point of fact, the very core of our entire education.”
The “core” grows, penetrates into the political branches, history, “geo-politics,” etc., and even into those which seem to be unpolitical, like mathematics and language. The textbooks demonstrate this growth.
The large, heavy schoolbooks we knew as children, one for each year, Fourth Grade Geography, First Grade History, have not entirely vanished. But they have lost most of their importance, and are replaced by the decisive little pamphlet that supplements the textbook — the propaganda pamphlet.
Three explanations rise for the changed emphasis:
First, “knowledge” is listed all the way down, far below “hereditary tendencies,” “character,” and “the body.” The old textbook, with its ballast of objective knowledge, might stand in the way of physical training in the use of weapons.
Second, development of character in the Nazi sense calls for little instruction in objective truth — that has been acknowledged — but rather for expedient falsifications, propaganda to fit the moment. If the Führer wishes to stress, in his “propaganda for Germanhood abroad,” the sad straits of Germans living in America, a pamphlet will appear, and will disappear as quickly if it seems necessary (to facilitate student exchange, for example) to play up friendly relations. The little pamphlets can be manipulated according to the news; the fat readers could not have been juggled this way.
The third explanation, and the most inclusive, has to do with the “politics of the bad conscience.” Anyone who visited the German Pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 1937 noticed that special care was taken to avoid all Hitler, Nazi or war propaganda. Nothing suggested that you were seeing an exposition presented by, and representative of, the most war-willed dictatorship in the world. There was not one picture of Hitler, not one anti-Jewish poster, not one model of a bombing plane. Hitler, as showman, did not seem convinced that a display of objectives would be popular among visitors from outside of Germany.
As dictator of education, Hitler entertains the same doubts of popular approval in the outer world. And so, following his habit, he advances “diplomatically,” wrapped in mystery, and the official textbooks are confined within acceptable limits; the new Reich Reader is no more honest than the German Pavilion. The Reader is full of patriotic mediocrity, cant about “Earth” and “Blood,” and a few remarks by the Führer and his officials. There are none of the riches that might have been included — nothing by Goethe or Lessing, and of course nothing by Heine.
The Reich Reader would frighten no one. It is not an open scandal; it smells of barrenness, cheerlessness, and bad taste — just as the Pavilion did — but not of danger.
But the little leaflets!
The unofficial, or semi-official, propaganda pamphlets, scattered throughout the curriculum by the Nazi Teachers’ Union or related organizations as though by chance — they are the real Reader….
The Führer offers the world a protective series of texts, only slightly offensive, while the essential pamphlets are covered by the curtains of the official libraries.
The first book that the child out of kindergarten sees is the Primer; and this, at the express wish of the Führer, has been revised to suit the times. Various primers go to different regions, but they all deal, in word and picture, with camp life, marching, martial drums, boys growing up to be soldiers, and girls to take care of soldiers.
Rhineland Children, a primer written by Richard Seewald and Ewald Tiesburger, is the most effective introduction to the military life. Children learned to read, in the past, through words more peaceful than:
Hört, wir trommeln, bum, bumbum —
Hört, wir blasen, tä terä tä tä!
Nun, das Lager räumen!
Listen to the drums, boom, boom, boom —
Listen to the trumpets, tateratata!
Come on, clear the camp!
The supplement to this primer was published by the Stürmer Verlag, is highly recommended officially, and, although it is an expensive book, has already reached a sale of more than seventy thousand copies. By Elvira Bauer, it has a title astonishing both in length and content: Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid! Uud keinem Jud bei seinem Eid! (Trust no fox on green heath! And no Jew on his oath!) On the bright red cover are two pictures with the title. One is of the fox, peering around a corner maliciously eager for his prey; and the other, a typical Nazi caricature of the Jew, beneath a star of David — huge nose, thick lips and bleary eyes, swearing his false oath with fat fingers raised. The book is printed in a luxurious edition, with many colored illustrations, and with two-color text. That is, those words which the authors wish to impress upon their readers are printed in red — “Devil,” “Jews,” “thick-lips,” “gangster.” It is impossible to describe the level of sadistic cruelty, the dishonesty and barbarism of this book, the core of all future training,