ABSTRACT
THE NAZI SCHOOL LAWS HITLER and his followers claim to have founded a new era. They claim that this era will last for thousands of years. Naturally, with this in mind, their first endeavour must be to instil their new ideas into the minds of the children. The children must grow up feeling that the Jew is a thoroughly contemptible being, who must be hated and persecuted wherever he is encountered. The older generation which had come in contact with Jews and been friendly with them could never be entirely won over to the new creed, which emphatically denies that there can be anything like a decent Jew. It might prove easier to win over the youth, provided that it comes as little as possible into personal contact with members of the Jewish race. Thus the first task of the Nazis was as far as possible to separate the Jewish children from the Gentiles. Naturally this could not be done at one blow. As in other respects, the Nazis had at first to consider their Conservative allies and President Hindenburg. They were not powerful enough in 1933 to “go the whole hog” and separate the children once and for all on the basis of race. As a matter of fact, the first measures taken with regard to schools were if anything more moderate than the measures taken in other spheres, such as the Civil Service and the professions. The first Nazi school law was concerned only with the secondary and high schools. The elementary schools were for the time being left alone, and in the secondary and high schools too Jewish children were not entirely excluded. The law against the over-crowding of German schools and high schools, of the 25th April, 1933,1 provided that in all schools where the percentage of Jews was higher than 5 per cent, it was to be reduced to 5 per cent, while as regards new admissions the numerus clausus was per cent. Strangely enough this law practically anticipated the regulations later introduced by the Nuremberg Laws, by treating as “non-Aryans” only those children who had three or four Jewish grandparents, and leaving out of account the “cross-breeds” with only one or two Jewish grandparents. As the children of Jewish exservicemen were also left out of account, the numerus clausus applied only to those Jewish children whose fathers had not fought in the front line during the war. As, however, the majority of the fathers of the Jewish school children had been front fighters, the effect of this clause was felt only locally in places where the number of Jews was particularly high and in consequence the schools had an unusually high percentage of Jewish children. It is interesting to read in an article by an anti-Semitic teacher that in a certain municipal school in Nuremberg, 41 out of 42 Jewish girls were the children of front fighters.2 But the law against the overcrowding of schools and high schools was merely a beginning. The Minister of Education soon began to whittle down the comparatively fair percentage, by decreeing that in the case of overcrowding of schools headmasters were entitled, at their own discretion, to limit the number of new admissions. In this case “Aryan” children had
first claim to admission, even where the attendance of Jewish children was below the limit allowed by the law.3 A month later the Minister excluded “non-Aryans” from special types of schools, such as welfare schools, social pedagogic seminaries, etc.4 Soon the numerus clausus of the secondary schools was extended to commercial and domestic schools.5
