Education in the British Zone of Germany

Abstract

ijI THEN considering education in Germany since the war we can j/jf make a convenient distinction between the periods before and T T after the beginning of the year I947. This is particularly clear in the British and American zones, since at that time control of education in them was handed over to the German authorities in the various Lander, and the Military Governments confined their activities to a general supervision and the giving of advice and assistance. They retained, it is true, certain powers over appointments and the power to veto legislation, but in fact it has hardly ever been found necessary to use those powers and the veto was never used. In the French zone there is no such clear distinction between the two periods, but Military Government control, though always much firmer than in the other two western zones, certainly became less obtrusive as time went on. It is also possible to make a further division in the second period before and after the currency reform of June I948, and this applies as much to theFrench zone as to the other two. Before that date material problems of providing school equipment were more pressing than any others; after it they were largely solved with remarkable rapidity. This does not mean, however, that the economic difficulties in education ended with currency reform. In some ways they became more formidable. For one thing, before the currency reform education had been one of the very few things that money could buy and so, while the universities and schools suffered from almost every conceivable shortage, they did not experience a shortage of the essential raw material of education. There was no shortage of pupils. On the whole, currency reform did not have quite the devastating effects on the attendance at universities and schools that many expected, and I feel that the German Ministries of Education deserve a good deal of credit for the way in which they made emergency provisions to deal with the crisis. More serious was the fact that one result of currency reform was, paradoxically, to make it clear to the German Governments how poor they were. Education suffered severely in consequence, particularly in the poorer LDnder, such as Schleswig-Holstein and Nieder Sachsen in the British zone, which were not only economically weaker than the others but more oppressed by the influx of refugees. It may be hoped that the provision in the Bonn Constitution which allows the Federal Government to make subventions for education to the poorer Lander will enable something to be done to sol-ve 32