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German History: 4 Education - The FRG - Coggle Diagram
German History: 4 Education - The FRG
Red-education policies after the war and education in the FRG
Many schools and universities had been physically destroyed, teachers who had Nazi-era training had to be retrained and textbooks and curricula had to be rewritten
Postdam Conference July 1945
Allied Forces outlined occupation plan to denazify and democratise German
The allies aimed to eliminate Nazi militaristic doctrine from education and replace them with democratic principles
Implemented reeducation programmes
Goal was to foster democratic values like freedom of speech, press and religion
Concept of 'collective guilt'
Holding the whole German population responsible
A Psychological Warfare Division used newspapers, radio, broadcasts, posters and pamphlets to remind Germans of their moral responsibility
Included images of concentration camp victims with captions like 'YOU ARE GUILTY OF THIS!'
They were classified into categories based on level of involvement with Nazi regimes which involved thousands of arrests
Civilians were forced to tour concentration camps of exhume mass graves
Teaching
Teachers an lecturers were assessed using the Fragebogen questionnaire which determined their employability based on their Nazi involvement
Around 3/4 of all teachers lost their jobs
Teachers from the US and the UK came to retrain with democratic values
Allies believed the failure of the education system played a role in the establishment of the dictatorship
New books were donated from Allied countries to rebuild library stocks and provide resources to university students
Reinstatement
As Cold War tensions escalated the Allies saw a need to rebuild Germany to be a stronghold against communism
The Reinstatement Act
Enacted to restore political stability as it reintegrated former Nazis into the civil service (eg teaching) as long as they weren't major war criminals
Didn't signal return to Nazi ideology
Lack of acceptance
Some teachers avoided discussing topic like the downfall of the Weimar Republic, the rise of Nazism, WW2 and mainly focused on pre WW1 history
Young Germans had limited awareness of the country's brutal past and felt no responsibility
Textbooks highlighted the 'positive aspects of Nazism' (economic recovery and infrastructure projects)
Education in the FRG
The school system remained fragmented along class and regional lines
The School System
The Gymnasium remained an elite academic school, led higher education via the Abitur
Attempts to introduce comprehensive education in the 1970s but reforms were limited with only 16% of students attending by 1980
System remained highly selective, reinforcing class barriers with only 10% of students attending Gymnasium
Centralised control
System was fragmented along regional line as education was primarily controlled by German states resulting in a lack of uniformity when it came to the curriculum, teachers and policies
The 1955 Dusseldorf Agreement sought to coordinate education policies across Germany
West Germany had no central education ministry until the 1970s making it one of the few countries without national oversight
Concerns about education
Over the low academic achievement, underfunding and regional disparities especially among the working class, girls and rural students
Higher education faced overcrowding and only 8% of Germans attended university in 1969
Protests demanding education reform led Brandt to prioritise education
Reform
Brandt reformed education through a constitutional amendment in 1969 allowing federal involvement in educational planning and funding
The 1970s saw expansions in universities and vocational education
Laws introduced which supported working class access to higher education
The long standing social and economic barriers (eg the Gymnasium system) continued to limit the effectiveness of reforms
By 1981 women made up only 38% of university students highlighting ongoing inequalties