Сorporeality and bodily practices in educational projects of the pre-war USSR and Nazi Germany

Abstract

This article examines the practices associated with corporeality and movement, which were an important part of the upbringing of the young generations in the USSR and the Third Reich. A comparative analysis of both educational projects shows that the Soviet one provided more opportunity for schoolchildren to model their corporeality than the Nazi one. The Soviet teachers tried to channel the hyperactivity of students into extracurricular study groups (kruzhki, studii, sektsii), into some kinds of social responsibility, competitions, performances, proms, and other events that allowed them to master different cognitive and motor skills. The pre-war Soviet schools provided greater sensory-motor experience and neural plasticity, which led to the high learning ability of young Soviet conscripts and the variability of their actions in the war compared to the Nazis. If the Soviet project of creating a new person was addressed to individuality, soul and will, the Nazi one was based on the barbaric romanticization of the right of the strongest and was predominantly biotechnological. It was initially aimed at raising a person with an iron will in a magnificent body and was against intellectualism—which could weaken conviction and the desire for power. For this reason the main educational functions were delegated to the Hitler Youth. Built on paramilitary activity (sports and drills, hiking, campfires and songs, and participation in Nazi party celebrations), the HY practice could provide limited and only monotonous military training which was insufficient in the space of total war.