Post‐War Education in Germany

Abstract

The end of the war left the whole educational system in Germany in chaos and its rebuilding has had to start from scratch. This is obvious as far as external conditions were concerned; buildings were ruined, teaching material destroyed, teachers dispersed and in part forbidden to follow their profession. The children themselves were involved in the maelstrom of evacuation and in the disorderly flight from the bombed west to the east, and from the Eussian invader in the east the return again to the west. All this is clearly appreciated by now. Equally one understands the loss of a sane religious background that followed the breakdown of Germany’s former educational system and the scepticism shown by both teachers and pupils against any alternative system (and even against the re-introduction of pre-war arrangements), whether it was inspired by German teachers themselves, by the Church, the German authorities or the inter-allied military government. These problems are appreciated, in paid at least, everywhere. Their solution is seen to lie only in a very gradual and by no means as yet wholly satisfactory rehabilitation. This is the natural result of the various factors involved in the present situation in Germany, but more recently two new and somewhat unexpected elements have emerged to influence post-war development in a disturbing manner.The division of Germany into four zones has had an immense bearing on the political and social life of the country, but no less has it had its repercussions in the educational field. This is most marked of course in the division between east and west; but it is true also of the division of government within the west itself.