ABSTRACT
Before and after the collapse of Germany ‘re-education’ expressed British policy. On 8 May 1945 The Times published a letter from Robert Birley, then Headmaster of Charterhouse, under the title ‘Re-educating Germany’. Insofar as a political aim underlay the terms ‘re-education’, ‘education’, and ‘educational reconstruction’, it was the regeneration of Germany. Re-education’ depends on the general Allied policy towards Germany. The emphasis was upon the re-education of individual Germans, and breaking up Germany into its component parts for the sake of permanent peace in the world. The political aim behind the policy of re-education or educational reconstruction could only be applied to Western Germany. ‘The Regeneration of Germany’ was the title of a memorandum by John Troutbeck, German Adviser in the Foreign Office, of December 1943. After hostilities, Germany was treated as an entirety according to the political and economic principles laid down in the Potsdam Agreement of August 1945.
