What do German schools teach about Hitler?

Question

I met some people from Germany who say he is only briefly covered and not much is taught about him or he is not covered in school at all. Is this true? Just wondering...

Answer 1

I'm German and it's worrying for me to hear that there are people from Germany who seem to not have learned about history at school properly. It is part of the curriculum here that the kids have to learn about the Nazi history and I think that it is something very important. But I know that there are teachers who don't do their job properly. I think that at my time at school the subject was covered too superficially, but that is my opinion as I'm very much interested in the topic, there are others who complain that they have to hear to much about it. At my time at school we did learn about how Hitler could come to power and I remember we saw documentary films about him, but I'd say most of what we studied about Nazi history was not about Hitler as a person but rather about all what was done by the many people who supported him. It was not Hitler alone who commited all these crimes. I've studied a lot about history on my own initiative and I still do, and I'm less interested in Hitler himself but rather in how it could happen that so many people followed him, why so many participated in these crimes or ignored them and what people suffered because of this.

Answer 2

I'm German, so I'll just say what my experience is.

I think the fact that the Germans have been defeated would definitely not be the reason for not talking about this topic. The only reason would probably that Germans still feel guilty in some way. There is always lots of controversy going on in Germany, when some Germans make a movie about WW2 or make fun of it in comedy programmes.
Although there are already many series or shows with sketches about WW2 from other countries (e.g. who doesn't know Fawlty Towers' "Don't mention the war"?) German people are still sceptical whther Germans are allowed to make fun of it. So I think it's still a very sensitive(can you say that?) topic here.

In my opinion history classes in germany cover the topic very, very detailled. (That's what I experienced in my school). There are also lots of documentaries and movies about it in our television all the time. I think about five movies (for the cinema) were made in Germany just in the last couple of years, like The Downfall, Napola or Sophie Scholl and they were very successful.
(If you're interested I would really recommend the movie "Sophie Scholl - The Final Days" to you.)
http://www.amazon.com/Sophie-Scholl-Final-Julia-Jentsch/dp/B000H5V8H2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8348522-2651801?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1173633906&sr=1-1

So in my opinion this is absolutely not true. There are so many movies, documentaries, books ans museums, so that the topic is really present all the time. Just recently an old lady who used to be a friend of Sophie Scholl (young member of the resistance movement "the white rose") held a speech in front of our whole school about WW2 and all of us were really interested.

Sorry for answering so detailled, but whoever told you this was really wrong ;) Or just visited a special school or something.

Answer 3

You probably should know that the german school system splits up in three branches after 4th grade.
If I remember correctly, we were taught about WWII about three times in all those school years, each time for acouple of weeks/months, altogether a little more than half a year perhaps.It certainly is different for the two lower branches,though.

Answer 4

Probably not as much because they were defeated. There would be some facts but the "whole story" probably wouldn t be told. The same way Americans don t focus on the War of 1812 or Vietnam War. Its not considered lying.

Answer 5

well your family back then would have more than likely have been supporters of hitler and the nazi party the same as most germans how does that make you feel

Answer 6

I'd imagine it isn't talked about much, because it was a major national defeat for the Germans. Same reason American schools won't talk much about the vietnam war, more than they will about the war of independance or WW2(American victories). There are still historians that believe America has never lost a war, and especially on our own soil. Why did our capital building burn then? Americans have no idea. Look it up.