Heroism and Volksgemeinschaft (ethnic community) in National Socialist education 1933–1945

Abstract

This article pursues the question of what the significance was of the discursive construction of heroism for the National Socialist indoctrination of children in the context of communication processes at school. In particular, it is about ideological-educational intentions pursued in the context of teaching early readers as well as about topical foci and ways of communication. This is analysed by the example of reading primers. Based on the category-guided qualitative topical analysis of a representative body of 113 reading primers, the presentation of heroes as well as the constructs of heroic behaviour is worked out.