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"Education in the Third Reich 

By Bernhard Rust

Reich and Prussian Minister of Science, Education and Popular Enlightenment.

The nineteenth century witnessed so much educational progress in the domain of intellectual refinement that it may be justly described as the century of education. Germany took a leading part in this development, and her educational system was universally acknowledged to be particularly efficient. Many foreigners therefore availed themselves of the educational facilities Germany had to offer. If we now see that, despite these splendid achievements, the Third Reich has seen fit to make a radical change in the system of education, we may feel sure that it has been done for very good reasons.

There is, indeed, twofold evidence to show that something was wrong with education. In the first place, the high level of popular enlightenment had failed to protect the German people against the poisonous effects of Marxist teaching and other false doctrines. Large masses of people had fallen victims to them, whilst other sections – more especially those of higher education – had been unable to take up an effective stand against the spread of the poison. If they had, the events of 1918 and the succeeding period of national disintegration and deterioration would have been prevented.

In the second place, a careful study of the situation shows that the German people are sound to the core and are gifted with just as much national sentiment as any other. Hence, the temporary lowering of their previous high standards could not have been the result of any innate inferiority, but the reason must be sought in a faulty system of education, which – notwithstanding its high intellectual achievements – tended to impair the healthy spirit of the nation, men’s energies and their soundness of judgment, and to produce selfishness and a deficient sense of national solidarity. Besides, it was obvious that certain elements intending to secure private advantages for themselves by injuring the healthy forces of the nation had succeeded in achieving undue prominence in public life.

National Socialism was therefore compelled to ascertain and remove the causes that had brought about so unsatisfactory a condition, and to open up new resources capable of being used for a regeneration, the Führer, in his book” Mein Kampf,” having clearly indicated the road that had to be followed.

Two main causes had contributed towards the unsatisfactory results.

1. Although the intellectual capacities of young persons had been excellently trained and although they were thoroughly qualified for their vocations in adult-life, the importance of knowledge for knowledge’s sake had been over-estimated, whilst physical education and the training of the character and the will had been neglected. Metaphorically speaking, youth had been offered crystal-clear water to drink, but the health-giving mineral constituents contained in it had first been carefully removed. This interference was bound to do much harm to popular health.
2. Excessive importance had been attached to the individual as such, whilst it was almost forgotten that each individual is at the same time a member of a racial and ethnic community, that it is only in that capacity that he can perfect his powers to their fullest extent, and that it is his duty to work for the good of that community. Such natural forms of the racial and ethnic community as the family, the clan, the tribe, and the nation either failed to receive the attention to which they are entitled, or they were disintegrated by an exaggerated individualism or superseded by artificial and super-national sham communities. Such a mental attitude enabled Jews and others animated by selfish motives or by international and anti-racial ideas to obtain a prominent influence upon all spheres of national life and access to high offices of State and to poison the healthy feelings of the nation by means of their educational policy.

It is the purpose of all education to prepare the rising generation for its functions in adult-life as the true representatives of the Nation and the State - which is therefore a Nation-State and not occupied state(zog) - , both in a political and a cultural sense. Their training, therefore, must proceed along the lines just indicated. In conformity with the teaching of history and the laws of biological and racial science, it is necessary to train the faculties of the body, the character and the will just as much as the intellectual ones. The lost equilibrium must be restored; or rather, the harmonious co-existence of all these faculties must be maintained and developed instead of being destroyed.

The attainment of high intellectual standards will certainly continue to be urged upon the young people; but they will be taught at the same time that their achievements must be of benefit to the national community to which they belong.

The young people are made aware of their duty to maintain their racial purity and to bequeath it to succeeding generations. As the mere teaching of these principles is not enough, it is constantly supplemented, in the National Socialist State, by opportunities for what may be called” community life.” By this term we mean school journeys, school camps, school” homes” in rural neighbourhoods, and similar applications of the corporate principle to the life of schools and scholars.

History insists that every biological race deterioration coincides with the growth of big towns, that these latter exercise a paralysing effect upon community life, and that a nation’s strength is rooted in its rural elements. Our National Socialist system of education pays due regard to these important considerations, and makes every effort to take the young people from the towns to the country, whilst impressing upon them the inseparable connection between racial strength and a healthy open-air life."

-NS Europa