Pub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198726128.003.0011
Helen Roche
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.
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Pub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198726128.003.0003
Helen Roche
This chapter begins with an experiential account of the selection process and everyday life at the Napolas, drawing on a mixture of contemporary accounts and eyewitness testimonies. It explores pupils’ and parents’ varied motivations for submitting to the schools’ gruelling week-long entrance exam (Aufnahmeprüfung), the nature of the examination itself, and the subsequent process of settling into school life, including pupils’ relationships with support staff and teaching staff. The chapter then goes on to explore the Napolas’ academic and physical education programme in detail, investigating both the content and indoctrinatory effects of teaching—especially the explicitly ideological lessons in ‘national-political instruction’—and the role of sport and pre-military training, which formed a core part of the NPEA curriculum. It also describes the school leaving exam and the ensuing graduation ceremony. In conclusion, the chapter compares the Napolas’ programme with that of other Nazi educational institutions such as the Reich Labour Service (RAD) and the Hitler Youth, analysing the extent to which the Napolas betrayed continuities with pre-National Socialist thinking in their adaptation of principles from reform pedagogy. Ultimately, educational practice at the schools reflected broader trends in Nazi political and pedagogical policy, but the NPEA were far more effective than most Nazi educational institutions in their ability to provide their pupils both with a broad academic curriculum, fully saturated with ideological indoctrination, and with a comprehensive and highly effective programme of physical and pre-military training.
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