Ambition und Enttäuschung – Grenzen „totalitärer“ Elitenerziehung im Nationalsozialismus und in der frühen DDR
TD: volume 12, issue 2015, 2, page 289–317
Abstract / Full text
Es folgt die Zusammenfassung in englischer Sprache following the article short description
Education has long been considered a key element of totalitarian regimes in order to restructure the society and stabilize power. Indeed both, NSDAP as well as SED found very own ways of implementing special schooling institutions where the coming elite of the two dictatorships schould be selected and formed. Whereas schools like the Nationalpolitical Institutes of Education, the Adolf- Hitler Schools in Nazi Germany or Cadett Schools in the GDR were presented as outstanding and privileged places for the future generation in propaganda, the institutes often failed to meet these expectations. Thus, an analysis of these schools looks promising for uncovering the contradictions and limitations inherent in totalitarian concepts of education. Drawing from administration sources and ego documents from school graduates, this article shows how the educational claims of the states often confl icted with reality inside the institutions and to what degree – if so – the two regimes nevertheless managed to affect the graduates.