I myself was taught about the regime in a german school, but please know that the following is solely based on my own personal experiences and it is very well possible that the method of teaching varies from state to state. I would also like to add that none of the following is written to criticize my teacher but rather to talk and to comment on the methods of teaching this subject that the teachers in my state are obligated to follow.
So, how did we start?
For my class the first chapter of this grim period was how Hitler came to power. We talked about this for the better half of the first semester in tenth grade. To add, World War one and what followed was briefly taught in ninth grade.
While talking about Hitlers rise to power we talked a lot about stylistic devices used by Hitler and the way with which the German population was influenced. This was extremely interesting to most of us, because many of my classmates did not know about the picture that was painted by Hitler and his associates in order to influence the german population in such a manipulative way. We also talked about about the political system in the Weimar Republic which allowed Hitler to eventually gain full power. We worked with a lot of caricatures as well and were taught a lot about the propaganda used.
After writing the first exam which dealt with the previously mentioned aspects, so the beginning of the Nazi regime, we started to talk about the gruesome things done to the jewish population. This was extremely hard because we were informed about the situation in concentration camps and the sheer brutality used. We talked about different forms of resistance against the regime which tried to oust Hitler from power as well. I dealt with an extremely interesting attempt, the assassination attempt from the 20th July 1944, which I wrote an essay about later that year.
The second exam then dealt with a very hard subject, especially for all of the german students in my class. We dealt with the participation and the guilt of the german population regarding the Holocaust (I know that people have very strong opinions about this issue which is why I will not state my opinion in this entry). We were supposed to basically argue for the guilt or for the german population not being guilty. We were not told any “right” opinion but shown quite frightening video materials about the german troops in the east. For the argumentation regarding the guilt we were also supposed to use evidence from the psychological experiments during the Nuremberg Trials. Many of us really enjoyed that as well because it was extremely fascinating to see. Then we had very little time left, so we only talked about the start and the end of World War two very briefly which many students and I myself were very disappointed with.
Now, here’s my opinion:
I believe that the way in which I was taught this dark period of history was definitely not the perfect way. I know that the topic can’t really be taught in a completely neutral way but it was clear from the start that the goal of the class was not complete comprehension but rather learn to recognize patterns of manipulation to prevent something like this from happening again. Nothing wrong with that.
But I do think that the goal should rather be the comprehension of the topic. On the one hand it is still pretty understandable that Germany feels obligated to prevent this sort of thing from happening again but I believe that that should be shown in a transparent way rather than wrapping the true intention of the class in the blanket of education and comprehension. I think it’s incredibly sad that I never really learned about World War two and that the focus was so heavily put on Germany. I would have loved to have learned more about other countries over the course of history, especially because that was the last year in which I was able to take a history class.
So to conclude, I think that the way in which this time was taught in Germany was fine but it was clear that the comprehension of the students was not the focus of the class. I think that either comprehension should come before prevention or it should be made clear that it is about prevention and not about comprehension.
Anyways, that’s just my opinion, let me know what you think!
