The Role of the Teacher in the Context of National Socialism – From the School Pedagogue of the Weimar Republic to the Ideal Teacher of National Socialism

Authors

• Jyrki Kaarttinen Turun kaupunki

Abstract

In the days of the empire, the German school system was a product of an authoritarian society of loyal subjects, dominated by the Prussian civil virtues such as strict discipline and the central position of the teacher. Before and after the war, a varied Reform Pedagogy movement had gained ground in Germany, demanding democratization of the school system and a new kind of teachership. The leaders of the Weimar Republic particularly wanted to exclude politics from the schools, at the same time that they wanted to reform the way the schools worked. However, the National Socialists' rise to power in January 1933 soon put an end to these reforms, as the new rulers determinedly started to mould the school system and the tasks of the teachers according to their own political views. In this article I will examine the nature of the National Socialist criticism of the pedagogics and teachers of the Weimar Era as well as the characteristics of the ideal teacher of the new rulers.