Mapping a space of biography: Karl Triebold and the Waldschule of Senne I-Bielefeld ( c .1923–1939) (original) (raw)
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European Review of History / revue européenne d'histoire, 2013
This paper explores the tensions which arose when Schulpforta, Germany's leading humanistic boarding school, was forcibly turned into a Nazi elite school (a Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt, or Napola). The time-honoured traditions of Christianity and enlightened humanism previously cultivated at the erstwhile Landesschule zur Pforta (alma mater of Fichte, Ranke and Nietzsche) were swiftly subordinated to the demands of National Socialist ideology. Schulpforta, a former monastic foundation, was radically dechristianised, and the school's Classical curriculum soon served only to emphasise those aspects of Greco-Roman Antiquity which could ‘help the Third Reich achieve its destiny’, portraying the Greeks and Romans as proto-National Socialists, pure Aryan ancestors of the modern German race. The Napola curriculum focused on sport and pre-military training over academic excellence, and contemporary documentary evidence, memoirs and newly obtained eyewitness testimony all suggest that the Napola administration wished to assimilate Pforta with any other Napola. This idea is borne out by comparing the case of Napola Ilfeld, a former Klosterschule (monastery school) with a similar history. By the mid-1940s, Ilfeld had lost almost all connection with its humanistic past. Ultimately, we can see the erosion and Nazification of these schools' Christian and humanistic traditions as exemplifying in microcosm tendencies which were prevalent throughout the Third Reich.
Anthroposophical Curative Education in the Third Reich: The Advantages of an Outsider
Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 2005
Anthroposophical curative education originates from the philosophical and pedagogical ideas of Rudolf Steiner. Born in Germany in 1924, in the heyday of racial hygiene, and with a phase of establishment parallel to the growth of National Socialism, this reform movement for children with special needs faced some crucial challenges. By shedding light on the conditions and strategies of the Steiner institutions under the Third Reich, this article explores some of the reasons why the co-workers in these institutions in several cases avoided collaboration with the Nazi regime and their lethal politics towards disabled children. One assumption is that anthroposophical curative education was in an outsider position in Germany, allowing the professionals involved the benefit of operating outside the direct jurisdiction of the agency of the Third Reich. With their 70 years of experience as an alternative pedagogical movement, Steiner Waldorf educational services for people with disabilities are unique in Scandinavia. Curative education, as it is called, arose from the Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner's (1861Á/1925) anthroposophy launched in Germany and Switzerland in 1924. Before World War II curative education had spread to the majority of Central European countries. The first homes for children with special needs in Scandinavia, based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, were started in 1930, in Finland and Iceland. The Scandinavian children's homes all had in common tha t they were established and run by co-workers who had been on long work and study visits to corresponding institutions in Germany and Switzerland. In Scandinavia the war represented a breach of contact with the European ''Bildungs'' tradition in professions such as education and psychology, and a turn westwards towards a more Anglo-American influence (Stafseng 1996). This, however, was not the case for the anthroposophical pedagogical movement, which represents an unbroken continental (meaning Germanspeaking) orientation in Scandinavia since the 1920s. In the case of the treatment of people with disabilities in Hitler's Germany, one can ask how was it possible that anthroposophical curative education was not corrupted
The Biopolitics of Education in the Third Reich's ‘Special Schools’ and ‘Elite Schools’
The Historical Journal
While discussion of eugenics and biopolitics during the Third Reich has largely focused upon the regime's most destructive and genocidal policies, this article concentrates on Nazi ‘special schools’ and ‘elite schools’ as a crucial sphere of quasi-eugenic thought and praxis, drawing attention to education as a previously under-researched category of intervention in the history of modern biopolitics. The article also sheds new light on the racialized nature of the Nazi ‘national community’ (the Volksgemeinschaft), and contributes to recent debates on the Third Reich's status as a ‘racial state’ which suggest that the National Socialist regime was driven less by fanatical adherence to racial ideology, and more by a mixture of anthropological and eugenic racism, combined with productivist pragmatism. The two case-studies draw attention to less familiar corners of the National Socialist pedagogical landscape, covering both extremes of the spectrum of biological selection in educ...
This paper explores the origins of the German public education system. This part of the work provides an analysis of the formation process of the German primary education system between the 15th and 18th centuries. Also, this paper explores the use of philosophical approaches in German education, and examines the impact of Protestantism on the process of creation of the German primary education system. The study is grounded on a body of related research and special literature. In effect, its methodological basis is based on the principles of historicism, research objectivity, and systemicity, which are traditional in historiography. The authors employed the following key methods: (1) problem-chronological, which helped explore certain facts in the evolution of the German system of public education in the context of the then-existing historical situation; (2) historical-comparative, which helped compare the objectives for introducing a network of schools in the Protestant and Catholic zones of the German empire. The authors conclude by noting that during the period between the 15 th and 18 th centuries German pedagogy had its ups and downs. A setback to the fledging effort to establish a system of public education, first undertaken back in the 15 th century, was the Thirty Years' War. German regions were divided based on religion-paradoxical as it may sound, it is this division that actually gave rise to competition for congregation. Ultimately, this acted as a key driver in the process of creating an extensive network of primary schools.
Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public …, 2011
Nature, Architecture, National Regeneration: The Airing Out of French Youth in Open-Air Schools 1918-1939 This paper examines the history of French écoles de plein air as they developed in the early twentieth century, paying particular attention to the interwar years of 1918-1939, the period of their greatest architectural innovation. A curious hybrid of school and sanatorium, open-air schools provided children deemed ‗pre-tubercular' with the same fresh-air and heliotherapy cure offered in tuberculosis sanatoria along with improved nutrition, medical supervision, and training in modern hygienic practices. Écoles de plein air were promoted during this period with an unabashedly utopian zeal by French politicians, hygienists, educators, and architects who believed such schools could help reverse negative demographic trends in France and ensure healthy, vigorous generations of children imbued with -the joy of living, the strength to work and, later, to fight." 1 A window into the enthusiasm for these schools is provided by a 1912 lecture given at an international conference on demography and hygiene. There, Parisian architect Augustin Rey, a member of the Musée Social, a powerful network of hygienists, architects and statisticians in France, delivered a talk on -L'école de l'avenir,‖ or the school of the future. 2 Beginning with a reference to
The journal «Bildungsgeschichte / International Journal for the Historiography of Education» is a bilingual forum (German and English) that aims to provide for, strengthen, and further develop both meta-theoretical and specific-topic discussions. At the metatheoretical level, the journal promotes the de-nationalization of research and its central research questions, calls into question both «great theories» of history and epochalizations, and pursues the combination of historical and comparative research approaches in the field of education. At the specific content level, it focuses on the rise and development of the school system; nationalization and internationalization of education policy; history of science, history of education, and history of theory since the Renaissance; and issues in historiography.