The Demands of Total War

Abstract

The quality of school life at the NPEA gradually deteriorated during wartime—chronic shortages of everything from steel to salt, from teaching staff to stable-hands, increasingly impinged on the schools’ day-to-day functioning. This chapter begins by considering the great expectations placed on the Napolas by the Inspectorate and the armed forces, in their capacity as de facto officer training schools. Secondly, it describes daily life at the NPEA, including the ‘war missions’ (Kriegseinsätze) which pupils were expected to undertake as leaders on the children’s evacuation programme (KLV) or as anti-aircraft auxiliaries (Flakhelfer). It also explores the all-important connections between the Napola home-front and former pupils at the battle front, as exemplified by the school newsletters or Altkameradenbriefe, which were expressly designed to foster a transgenerational sense of comradeship among all who belonged to the Napolas’ ‘extended family’. Finally, the chapter briefly examines the ways in which the NPEA system profited from or abetted the wartime crimes of the Nazi regime, including the expropriation of asylums and Jewish property, and the use of forced labour (not least that of concentration-camp inmates). The conclusion then situates the experience of the Napolas within the context of existing scholarship on the state of German education and society during this turbulent period of total war. Ultimately, the NPEA were better able to withstand the privations of war than most ‘civilian’ schools during this period, due not least to their centralized administration, and their supposedly vital contribution to the war effort.