GERMAN EDUCATION 1945-2014 Ann Abney, Master of Arts in History, 2016 Thes

139 Pages·2016·0.74 MB·English

by  Matthew Hill

ABSTRACT

Title of Thesis: SOMEONE ELSE’S TEXTBOOKS: GERMAN
EDUCATION 1945-2014

Ann Abney, Master of Arts in History, 2016

Thesis Directed By: Professor Piotr Kosicki, Department of History

In the 20th century, German education repeatedly transformed as the occupying
Americans, Soviets, and western-dominated reunification governments used their
control of the German secondary education system to create new definitions of what
it meant to be German. In each case, the dominant political force established the
paradigm for a new generation of Germans. The victors altered the German education
system to ensure that their versions of history would be the prevailing narrative. In
the American Occupation Zones from 1945-1949, this meant democratic initiatives;
for the Soviet Zone in those same years, Marxist-Leninist pedagogy; and for
the Bundesrepublik after reunification, integrated East and West German narratives.
In practice, this meant succeeding generations of German students learned very
different versions of history depending on the temporal and geographic space they
inhabited, as each new prevailing regime supplanted the previous version of
“Germanness” with its own.
SOMEONE ELSE’S TEXTBOOKS: GERMAN EDUCATION 1945-2014

by

Ann Abney

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Masters of Arts in History
2016

Advisory Committee:
Professor Piotr Kosicki, Chair
Professor Jeffrey Herf
Professor Marsha Rozenblit
Professor James H. Williams
© Copyright by
Ann Abney
2016
Dedication
Dedicated to

Dr. Hendrix and Maggie –

For believing that I could do this long before I did

ii
Acknowledgements
This thesis was a journey that began, naturally, with a book. But it ended with people,
and those are the ones that deserve all the thanks. Thanks first go to my advisor, Dr.
Piotr Kosicki, who shepherded this project from the bare bones idea to a full draft and
beyond. His comments and patience have helped me immensely both with this
project, and my own growth as a scholar.

To the staff at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and the
Bundesarchiv in Berlin-Litcherfelde, thank you for sharing your treasures with me.
To Andi Vlaicu at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, thank you for
sharing your desk and cart with me when I spent time researching with RG 260.
Infinite thanks for putting up with my endless prattle about the thesis process and the
newest discovery I made.

To my friends at NARA, Sara, Cliff, and Philip, thank you for listening to me when I
was ready to give up, and reminding me that there would be a light at the end of the
tunnel. And thanks for distracting me with talk of record groups, preservation
concerns, and anything other than my thesis.

To Merle and Saskia, for your patience in explaining the German education system
over and over again to me, for helping with tricky translations, and being a refreshing
break from my research trip in Summer 2015.

To Dr. Scott Hendrix – thank you for always encouraging me to reach. Thank you for
being there as a sounding board and a confidence booster. I would not be the scholar I
am today without your guidance. The world needs more professors like you.

Finally, to my sister, Maggie Roberts – thank you for going through this process first
and knowing when I needed Reese’s and when I needed a kick in the butt and
everything in between.
iii
Table of Contents

Dedication ..................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... iii
Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... iv
List of Tables ............................................................................................................... vi
List of Figures ............................................................................................................. vii
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Historiography .......................................................................................................... 5
Sources and Methods .............................................................................................. 10
An Overview by Chapter ........................................................................................ 12
Chapter 2: A Teachable Moment: American Reforms to German Education during the
Postwar Occupation .................................................................................................... 16
The Basics: Buildings, Books, and Teachers .......................................................... 18
Getting the Teachers: Fragebogen and New Recruits............................................. 23
Applying to Reopen Schools .................................................................................. 27
Keeping the Structure and Grounding the Changes ................................................ 29
A New Subject – Political Science and Civics ....................................................... 32
Rewriting the Textbooks ......................................................................................... 36
Education Service Centers ...................................................................................... 42
New Media: Radio and Film ................................................................................... 44
Overall Impact ........................................................................................................ 46
The Hamburg Agreement, 1964 ............................................................................. 48
Chapter 3: Anti-fascist Education in the Soviet Zone ................................................ 50
The First Few Months in the Classroom ................................................................. 52
Educating and Reeducating the Educators: Purges and Neulehrer ......................... 60
Getting Everyone on the Same Page – Curriculum ................................................ 64
Planning for Life after the Zone.............................................................................. 70
From the DDR to the Wende .................................................................................. 73
Chapter 4: Creating a “German” Past: A History Textbook Analysis, 1988-2014 .... 79
Educational Laws, East and West ........................................................................... 81
Defining East, West, and Reintegrated Germany ................................................... 84
Publishing Textbooks in the Two Germanys .......................................................... 88
East German Textbooks Prior to 1990 .................................................................... 89
West German Textbooks Prior to 1990 .................................................................. 90
Reunification in Terms of Education ...................................................................... 92
The First Decade of a United Germany in Textbooks, 1990-1999 ......................... 94
The Second Era of United Germany in Textbooks, 2000-2014 .............................. 97
Primary Sources in the Texts ................................................................................ 100
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 103
Chapter 5: Conclusion............................................................................................... 106
Implications for Further Research ........................................................................ 109
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 111
Primary Sources –Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Litcherfelde .......................................... 111
iv
Primary Sources – Georg Eckert Institut für Internationale Schulbuchforschung 111
Primary Sources – National Archives at College Park, MD ................................. 114
Primary Sources - Other........................................................................................ 115
Secondary Sources ................................................................................................ 116

v
List of Tables

Table 1.1 Post-Reunification Textbooks Used in Analysis …………………... 12

Table 4.1 Examples of East, West, and Combined East-West Headings …...... 86

Table 4.2 German Textbook Thematic Units in the First Era of Reunification,
1990-1999 ……………………………………………………….…. 95

Table 4.3 German Textbook Thematic Units in the Second Era of
Reunification, 2000-2014 ……………………………………....….. 99

vi
List of Figures

Figure 3.1 Educating and Reeducating the Educators: Purges
and Neulehrer ………………………………………………………. 60
vii
Chapter 1: Introduction

This thesis examines changes in German identity by examining education in
two different eras. It puts into conversation the transition out of World War II into a
divided, post-Hitlerite Germany, with the transition in 1990 from two Germanys into
a unified Bundesrepublik. The Americans, Soviets, and Bundesrepublik Germans
used their control of the German secondary education system to create a new model
of what being “German” meant. In all three cases, be it in two different halves of a
Germany divided after the Second World War, or a single, reunified Germany, the
dominant political force set the definitions of “Germanness” for a new generation of
school-age Germans.
In both the postwar and post-reunification periods, the victors replaced the
prior German education system to ensure that their version of history would become
the prevailing narrative. In the American Occupation Zone from 1945-1949, this
meant initiatives to encourage pluralism and liberal democracy; for the Soviet Zone in
those same years, Marxist-Leninist pedagogy; and for the Bundesrepublik after
reunification, integrating East and West German topics in history textbooks. In
practice, this meant that the postwar history learned by successive generations of high
schoolers differed depending on the temporal and geographic space they inhabited.
This thesis, then, illuminates the process of creating a national identity through
education.1

1 James H. Williams, “Nation, State, School, Textbook,” in (Re)Constructing Memory: School
Textbooks and the Imagination of the Nation, ed. James H. Williams, (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers,
2014), 1.
1