The German textbook in the U. S. zone of Germany∗

Abstract

HEN GERMANY surrendered in the spring of 1945, all schools, from the kindergarten to the university, were closed. Yet it was recognized that fundamentally, the task of reorientating Germany so that she could someday re-enter the family of nations as a full member, was one of redirecting German education. It is well-known historical fact that during the rise of the German Empire, Bismarck, the Iron Prince, used the schools as the best medium for accomplishing his militaristic regime. The Nazis also saw in the schools an opportunity to spread nationalistic propaganda. Their very subtle program, initiated thru school books, quickly engulfed the whole German school system. The approach was clever, and, in the beginning, barely perceptible. Later it was brazenly open. German school texts of the pre-Nazi period included many excellent publications, particularly primers, with striking illustrations, as well as readers with well-chosen selections, and some very good geography texts. On the other hand, texts in the language field tended to be somewhat dry and formal. One of the limitations of even the better readers, however, was the material stressing nationalism and glorification of German progress in war. Many selections treated Germany as different from other nations, with the implication that Germans were a superior people. Militarism was a marked feature in readers, histories and Latin texts, while the territories robbed through the treaty of Versailles (1919) were strongly emphasized in many geographies. But on the whole the school texts of the Weimar period were good examples of their kind. Few changes were made in textbooks immediately after the advent