The Disappearing Middle Ages

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI “FEDERICO II” DIPARTIMENTO DI STUDI UMANISTICI SCUOLA DI DOTTORATO IN SCIENZE STORICHE, ARCHEOLOGICHE E STORICO-ARTISTICHE CORSO DI DOTTORATO IN STORIA INDIRIZZO “STORIA DELLA SOCIETÀ EUROPEA” (XXV CICLO) THE DISAPPEARING MIDDLE AGES MEDIEVAL HISTORY IN NATIONAL SOCIALIST VOLKSSCHULEN TEXTBOOKS 1933 – 1945 DOTTORANDO TUTOR PASQUALE DE CAPRIO PROF. ROBERTO DELLE DONNE a.a. 2011 - 2012 Acknowledgments The Ph.D., either you want to call it “Dottorato” or “Promotion”, is the first serious task a young scholar has to accomplish during his or her academic life. Researching, studying, writing, presenting your project, attending classes and conferences, applying for calls for proposals, discussing with colleagues and professors while, if possible, still enjoying what you are doing: those are all equally important activities of this task. But it is impossible to accomplish all that if the young scholar is left alone. For this reason the role of the Ph.D. advisor, either you want to call it “Relatore” or “Doktorvater”, is fundamental both from a scientific and from a human point of view. Therefore, I would like to thank professor Roberto Delle Donne for his support, help and advice. Since the Ph.D. student needs to confront himself or herself with other colleagues and scholars, from my point of view it is one of the most important parts of the task to exchange ideas and perspectives Thus, taking part at the founding conference of SISCALT at the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rome in September 2012 and discussing my work with the other conference participants was particularly helpful and rewarding. I thank all the participants for their constructive criticism, suggestions and for the interest in my research they have shown. As well, the time I spent at the international textbook-center Georg Eckert Institut in Braunschweig had been fundamental for my research. If writing a Ph.D. thesis was not complicated enough, I decided to do it in a foreign language, namely: in English. Despite we may have the illusion that English is “not so complicated” – because it has become a part of our daily life – learning the Anglo-Saxon methodology and structure of the academic writing and composition was one of the most significant accomplishments within the last 3 years. Therefore, I would like to thank Mr. Gary Rasnick and Ms. Meli Solomon for their support. In particular, I thank Meli for her effort, reliability and precision in correcting, proof-reading and lecturing my Ph.D. thesis. Finally, I thank my friends, my family and my patchwork-family. Berlin, March 2013 2 Contents Aknowledgments ............................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 Part I – State of the Research and New Findings ......................................................... 12 Chapter 1: Studies on the German Historiography of the National Socialist Regime ............................................................................................................................ 12 I.1.1 Studies on National Socialist historiography between 1990 and 2000. Three examples: Johannes Fried, Willi Oberkrome and Ingo Haar. ............................................ 12 I.1.2 Studies and research on National Socialist historiography during and after the 1998 Historikertag ..................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2: History and the Middle Ages in National Socialist Volksschulen. ................... 23 I.2.1 German Volksschulen under the National Socialist Regime. .................................... 23 I.2.2 National Socialist History Textbooks and Directives for the Volksschulen ............... 31 I.2.3 History in the Volksschulen. .................................................................................... 37 I.2.4 The Middle Ages in the Volksschulen ...................................................................... 43 Part I Summary ............................................................................................................... 47 Part II - The Similarities, Trends in Medieval History in the National Socialist Volksschulen .................................................................................................... 51 Chapter 1: General Characteristics of the Volksschulen historiography ............................ 51 II.1.1 History teaching in the National Socialist Volksschulen .......................................... 51 II.1.2 Creating a more Germanic interpretation of history ................................................ 52 II.1.3 ‘As in the eleventh century’ – Past and present comparison in National Socialist Volksschulen ..................................................................................................... 68 II.1.4 Vorgeschichte in National Socialist Volksschule – Kossinna’s effect ...................... 73 Chapter 2: Trends in Volksschulen Medieval History ....................................................... 79 II.2.1 Common topics in Volksschulen medieval history between 1933 and 1945 and overall view of Middle Ages history in German Volksschulen during the Weimar Republic............................................................................................................. 79 3 II.2.2 The New Periodization ........................................................................................... 85 II.2.3 The 1936 Ulm Conference ..................................................................................... 87 II.2.4 Trends in Volksschulen Historiography under the Nazi Regime .............................. 91 Part II Summary ............................................................................................................ 139 Part III - The Differences, Local Powers and National Socialist Volksschulen historiography .............................................................................................................. 141 Chapter 1: The city, education and history teaching in the Volksschulen ........................ 141 III.1.1 Whose fault? ....................................................................................................... 141 III.1.2 From the Centre to the Periphery ........................................................................ 159 III. 1. 3 Summary .......................................................................................................... 176 Chapter 2: The Land, education in the Land and Dorfschulen ........................................ 178 III.2.1 History in the Landschulen and Dorsfschulen ..................................................... 178 III.2.2 The Landschulen as historiographic problem ...................................................... 182 Part III Summary ........................................................................................................... 183 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 184 Illustrations ................................................................................................................... 190 Tables ........................................................................................................................... 205 Archival sources ............................................................................................................ 206 Chronological Bibliography of Volksschulen Textbooks (1933 – 1945) ......................... 207 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 213 4 Introduction Waking up in the morning, getting out of the cozy bed, getting ready for school and packing the textbook into the backpack. Then, leaving home and going to school. Sitting at your place in your classroom and opening your textbook while the teacher starts the lesson. We all know exactly what that feels like. The school, the classroom, the teachers, the lessons and the textbooks are parts of our everyday life, at least until we are through with being students. Ever since education and schooling became two irreplaceable columns of the ‘civil life’, the school has embodied the place where the youngest citizens have met the state for the first time: «Die Schule ist die Staatsschule, in welcher die jungen Menschen zu Staatsmenschen und also zu nichts anderem als zu Staatshandlangern gemacht werden. Ging ich in die Schule, ging ich in den Staat.»1 In the 20th century, both in democratic and in non-democratic societies, the school played a key role in the educational process. School was and remains the staple of the ‘civil’ education that each state, independent from its political orientation, provides its citizens. If we consider the role of the elementary school in a more specific context, i.e. the Volksschulen in 1930s National Socialist Germany, we have to admit that controlling these schools would have meant reaching more than the 90% of German children between 1933 and 1945 almost every day. No other school form or other youth organization created by the Regime could claim such numbers or had such visibility. Thus, it is not surprising that the Nazi Regime, with its totalitarian aims, attempted to control the educational process of the Germans by re-organizing the German school system in a more

Load more