Paper Says Bonn ‘forces’ Schools to Teach Facts of Nazi Era

“Reluctant educational authorities” throughout West Germany are being “forced” by officials of the Federal Republic al Bonn to educate Germany’s school children about the facts regarding the Nazi era, according to The Sunday Times here.

The newspaper printed today a survey of educational practices and plans in West Germany, coming to the conclusion that adult Germans–those who lived through the Hitler regime–remember Hitler with considerable favor and nostalgia. Most of the school children tarn from their parents, according to the survey, on that Hitler “was the man who built the autobahnen, and rid the country of unemployment and crime.”

The newspaper reports that three of the German states–Bavaria, Hesse and Baden-Wurttemberg–have announced plans for training a special corps of younger teachers, obtaining these teachers from age groups whose members had been too young to have direct association with the Hitler regime. It will be the task of these young, newly-trained teachers to give the children an unbiased view of the Hitler regime, without arousing the anger of the parents “who have emotional links with the Nazi past, and who protest strongly against anti-Nazi teachings.”

An education ministry official in Bonn told the Sunday Times correspondent that too many German teachers “take the easy way out, by leaving the Nasi period out of the curriculum altogether.” The newspaper reports that a survey carried out by a German television network showed that “few children have any idea of what happened under Hitter.”