Hinton --- Education

To what extent did Hitler use education to support his regime.

I agree to a great extent that Hitler used education to support his regime. Education was a primary target for Hitler to spread his message of Nazism throughout the country. Because of Hitler’s belief that Nazi rule would survive over a long period of time, he wanted to make sure that the next generation of Germans would grow up with the Nazi ideology instilled in them. The first step he used in the revision was to place all power of education into the hands of the Reich Ministry. The Reich Ministry was an organization that controlled what the German youth were learning in their education. In addition to the Reich Ministry, Hitler also dismissed the disobedient educators who did not agree with what was wanted to be taught. This shows how Hitler used education to support his regime because he was completely re-organizing education within Germany. Dismissing disobedient teachers meant that teaching of opposition of the Nazi’s were not being taught to the youth and his message easily received. In addition, this mean that what the youth of Germany would be studying in school, would be in the hands of Hitler because of his influence within the educational system.

Hitler also changed the curriculum of what many kids were learning. He put major emphasis on PE, German, History and Biology courses. Specifically with the female students they were taught domestic and maternal skills and the males military like skills. The PE courses was of 15% emphasis because it improved the health of each German student. With Biology courses the students learned the basics of genetics and how it classified them from those who were considered the least superior. German literature classes put emphasis on German writing, because it gave the students a German mentality in conjunction of not exposing them to writers of the different cultural background. German history was also important because it was bias giving the German perspective of history in a positive matter. This shows that Hitler used education to support his regime because he was putting the youth’s standard education on hold to fulfill an ideology he felt was for the good of Germany. The classes that he instituted were used in support of the Nazi regime ideology. Those with the knowledge of genetics (Biology) could distinguish themselves as superior of the Jews (their enemy) which would lead to further hostility against the Jewish people. Hitler wanted to make the lives of the Jews as miserable as possible. The fittest of the students would survive because by the students leading a physical lifestyle would decrease their chances of becoming ill, which Hitler supported. Hitler wanted to rid Germany of the ill because in his eyes they were not seen as an asset to German society which would send Germany in a the reverse direction of which he was taking it. On the contrary by them being in good health gives them great potential of being successful in the military (specifically the males). By teaching the girls common maternal and domestic skill insured that following generation of Germans would be raise with great German mothers and possibly prevent the mixing of races.

Hitler used education to support his regime because it was used to shape his vision of a perfect Germany. By separating the roles of male and female citizens, their lifestyles and how they learn in school.