Hitler Replaces Education with Ideology for German Youth

Hitler changed German education to instill Nazi ideology in youth. He taught them to relish hatred rather than think. The so-called reforms began in the early 1930s and grew after Hitler came to power in 1933.

First, there was a change in what to teach students. The Nazis rewrote history to glorify German nationalism, militarism, and the Nazi Party. Biology emphasized racial theory, eugenics, and the supposed superiority of the Aryan race. Physical education came before intellectual growth to prepare boys for military service. Nazi ideology, including loyalty to Hitler and the state, replaced civics and ethics.

To be a teacher, membership in the National Socialist Teachers League was compulsory. If teachers did not teach Nazi ideology, were Jewish, or were disloyal to Hitler, the authorities fired them. Wayward teachers could receive a visit from the Gestapo, imprisonment, or worse. Classrooms often had Hitler’s portrait for students to salute. Jews could not go to public schools and universities.

While boys trained for leadership, military service, and loyalty to the Führer, girls learned domestic skills, motherhood, and racial purity. Boys took math and science, while girls studied home economics and child care.

The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls reinforced naziism, loyalty, and paramilitary training. It became mandatory in the late 1930s. A government agency—the Reich Youth Leadership—ran both organizations. They divided the boys into two groups by age: 10-14 and 14-18, and also into military units. They received uniforms and bayonets, and at 19, joined the Reich Labor Service for six months. After that, fewer than ten percent went to university; the others joined the army. Girls learned to be the ideal Nazi woman—obedient, self-sacrificing, dutiful, and physically fit. They were to hate Jews and become mothers of superior Aryan children.

Hitler purged the universities of Jewish and anti-Nazi professors and suppressed academic freedom. The government directed research toward military, racial, and ideological goals.