Anti-Semitism and Nazi Pride

Elements of Aryan Ideology and Apathy

Paulo Freire, on education:

“All education is political.”

-- GEORGE SCHONORERVIENNA PARLIAMENT, 1887

“Our anti-Semitism is not directed against the Jews’ religion. It is directed against

their racial characteristics . . .everywhere they are in league with the forces of

rebellion . . . Therefore every loyal son of his nation must see in anti-Semitism the

greatest national progress of this century.”

“I suddenly encountered an apparition in a black caftan and black sidelocks. ‘Is this a Jew?’ was my first thought. For, to be sure, they had not looked like that in Linz. I observed the man furtively and cautiously, but the longer I stared at this foreign face, scrutinizing feature for feature, the more my first question assumed a new form. ‘Was this a German?’”

--Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Nazi Propaganda

• Ostara, an anti-Semitic magazineRacial test: points for light skin, blue eyes, blond hair. Below 100: “mixed breed”; below zero: “apeling”

• Deutsche Volksblatt, an anti-Semitic newspaper• Handbook of the Jewish Question, by Theodor

Fritsch (1852-1934)

Hitler Youth

By 1939, membership was compulsory for boys age 6 and girls age 10. “It is on youth that the future of the German nation depends. Once it

is necessary to prepare the entire German youth for its coming duties . . . all of

Germany’s youth is to be educated physically, mentally and morally in the spirit of national Socialism, to serve the nation and the racial

community.”

Boys in the Nazi Era

Age 6 – 9 Pimpfen (Little Fellows)Age 10 – 13 Jungvolk (Young

Folk)Age 14 – 17 Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth)

Age 18 Military Service

Girls in the Nazi Era

Age 10 – 13 Jungmadel (Young Girls)Age 14 – 17 Bund Deutscher Machen

(the German Girls League)

Membership (Boys and Girls):1932 – 108,000 members

1936 – 5.5 million1939 – 8 million

Youth Membership • Comradeship, loyalty and honor• Sporting contests and camping• Map reading, shooting, signaling• Self-discipline• Physical endurance“The youth movement motto was ‘Youth must be led by Youth’,

but in practice it meant that bullies could torment those they disliked. Once indoctrinated with Aryan ideology they would be taught that it was their duty to ‘monitor’ their parents, their teachers and other adults…(and) report any incidents or remarks that could be considered acts of disloyalty to the state. The idea was that they were little Hitlers in the making.”-- Paul Roland, The Illustrated History of the Nazis

Women in the Nazi Era

• Ineligible for jury service (incapable of logical thinking or objective reasoning)

• Party slogan: “Children, Church, Cooking”• Interest-free marriage loans, reduced by a

quarter on the birth of each child• Birth control clinics banned; anti-abortion laws

strictly enforced

Growing up under Hitler

Horst Druger, who was 14 years old when Hitler became chancellor in 1933:

“My earliest memory of Hitler is jubilation. I’m sorry about that, because today’s historians know better – but I, at first, heard only jubilation…It was a cold night in January and there was a torchlight parade. …something about Germany’s reawakening, and always adding as a refrain that now everything, everything would be different and better.” -- from A Crack in the Wall

Myth of the Persecuted PeopleKruger, on his fellow Germans: “They changed from

law-abiding citizens to enthusiastic supporters of the regime. None of them could even claim that

they had been swept up in the euphoria of a mass rally or been carried along in the wake of a

procession. They had simply convinced themselves that life would be better under Hitler and they

hoped that the rumors of war were no more than malicious gossip…I am the typical child of those innocuous Germans who were never Nazis, and without whom the Nazis would never have been

able to do their work. That’s how it is.”

Brainwashing (definitions vary)

Brainwashing requires techniques that break down the psychic integrity of the individual with regard to information processing, with regard to information retained in the mind, and with regard to values. Chosen techniques included:

• * dehumanizing of individuals by keeping them in filth• * sleep deprivation• * partial sensory deprivation• * psychological harassment• * inculcation of guilt• * group social pressure