Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Education of princes – Germany – History'

This thesis focuses on the basics of education in Nazi Germany. A state, which necessitated the need for indoctrination into radical thinking used the schools as a way to promote National Socialism to the country's youth. Consequently, Nazi Party leaders went to great lengths to secure the loyalty of the nation's youth, using education as their main platform.

This thesis examines the National Socialists' ultimate designs for Germany's youth, conveniently organized within the Hitlerjugend. Prevailing scholarship portrays the Hitler Youth as a place for ideological indoctrination and activities akin to the modern Boy Scouts. Furthermore, it often implies that the Hitler Youth was paramilitary but always lacks support for this claim. These claims are not incorrect, but in regard to the paramilitary nature of the organization, they do not delve nearly deeply enough. The National Socialists ultimately desired to consolidate their control over the nation and to prepare the nation for a future war. Therefore, they needed to simultaneously indoctrinate German youth, securing the future existence of National Socialism but also ensuring that German youth carry out their orders and defend Germany, and train the youth in premilitary skills, deliberately attempting to increase the quality of the Wehrmacht and furnish it with a massive, trained reserve in case of war. This paper relies on published training manuals, translated propaganda, memoirs of former Hitler Youth members and secondary literature to examine the form and extent of the ideological indoctrination and premilitary training--which included the general Hitler Youth, special Hitler Youth subdivisions, military preparedness camps akin to boot camp, and elaborate war games which tested the youths' military knowledge. This thesis clearly demonstrates that the National Socialists desired to train the youth in skills that assisted them later in the Wehrmacht and reveals the process implemented by the National Socialists to instill these abilities in Germany's impressionable youth.

The study programme of forest sciences was established at the University of Freiburg in 1920 - the main reason named for the choice of Freiburg was the diversity of forests around the city, which would serve for leaming in the forests as well as for research. These forests today mostly belong to the City of Freiburg and the State of Baden-Württemberg. The forests closest to the university may be accessed on foot, by bicycle or tram. The forests around Freiburg are suitable for leaming experiences in virtually all subjects of the forest related study programmes and have been extensively used all the time. Good relationships have been maintained between the staff of the forest management and the teaching personnel of the university. lt is concluded that for in-forest leaming it does not necessarily need university owned forests. Examples for personal experience of the author as student and as teacher are presented, including courses from the fields of forest utilization, forest work science and forest road construction as well as the ESPRO (First-Semester-Project).

Women’s perception of university education and professional life during the period 1900 to 1945 is the focus of this study. In order to examine these perceptions, the thesis undertakes a close textual analysis of autobiographical writings by two medical doctors, Rahel Straus (1880-1963) and Charlotte Wolff (1897-1986) and the aviator Elly Beinhorn (1907-2007). The images employed in these texts indicate the intricate ways that individual women in the professions define their sense of who they are in relation to their surroundings and how that sense may shift in different settings and at different times, or may ostensibly not shift at all. I have developed a differentiated language for the purposes of articulating the fluidity. This language allows me to take apart narrative levels and to examine the importance that is attached to gender in relation to religion, race, nationality, sexuality and professional identities. Through differentiating between narrative levels I am able to juxtapose life experiences that at first glance seem unconnected and to show this can be done without imposing binary classifications such as ‘emancipated’ or ‘un-emancipated’, as ‘political’ or ‘apolitical’ or ‘victim’ or ‘perpetrator’. The language that I have developed enables me to explore the articulation of self where it cannot be classified and where self should not be judged.

Martin Luther supported the development of the early German educational system on the basis of both religious and social ideals. His impact endured in the emphasis on obedience and duty to the state evident in the north German educational system throughout the early modern period and the nineteenth century. Luther taught that the state was a gift from God and that service to the state was a personal vocation. This thesis explores the extent to which a select group of nineteenth century German philosophers and historians reflect Luther's teachings. Chapters II and III provide historiography on this topic, survey Luther's view of the state and education, and demonstrate the adherence of nineteenth century German intellectuals to these goals. Chapters IV through VII examine the works respectively of Johann Gottfried Herder, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Leopold von Ranke, and Wilhelm Dilthey, with focus on the interest each had in the reformer's work for its religious, and social content. The common themes found in these authors' works were: the analysis of the membership of the individual in the group, the stress on the uniqueness of individual persons and cultures, the belief that familial authority, as established in the Fourth Commandment, provided the basis for state authority, the view that the state was a necessary and benevolent institution, and, finally, the rejection of revolution as a means of instigating social change. This work explains the relationship between Luther's view of the state and its interpretation by later German scholars, providing specific examples of the way in which Herder, Hegel, Ranke, and Dilthey incorporated in their writings the reformer's theory of the state. It also argues for the continued importance of Luther to later German intellectuals in the area of social and political theory.

The hypothesis at the heart of this thesis is that long-term economic growth depends on the discovery and development of new ideas and technologies which enable innovation resulting in increased productivity. As technological innovation generally results from research processes instigated and performed by those with higher levels of education, it becomes important to analyse higher education as an economic actor as well as a symbolic institution of cultural and elite reproduction. The thesis compares the development of higher levels of human capital in East and West Germany over the period 1945 – 1990: states with two very different and competing myths of democratic legitimacy and radically opposed social, political and economic systems but both convinced that human capital development held the key to reconstruction and economic growth. In highlighting the imperatives for reform and outlining the main changes which took place in higher education within the strictures imposed by competing ideologies, the thesis assesses the effectiveness of human capital investment in terms of the success of the economic objectives identified by both countries. The thesis finds that the initial hypothesis is proven, albeit that its effectiveness was mitigated by a number of external economic shocks and internal social and political factors which, in the end, led to the demise of the East German regime.

This thesis systematically explores how far and in what ways, public (official, state-sanctioned) and private (non-official, individual) views of the "ancient past" inform and or are influenced by prevalent world views, present needs and conditions and, particularly, by notions of national identity. It identifies the mechanisms by which the past is made relevant to the present and investigates to what degree these mechanisms are generic or dependent on particular contexts. The project focuses on post-war West and East Germany (specifically on Bavaria and the (il)R post-unification Saxony) as a case study. The thesis proposes a theoretical framework for the relationship between historical consciousness and national identity, which is used as a basis for the development of methodologies and data-analysis. Two main sets of data are used to explore different aspects of the theoretical model: 1. 'Middle School' educational media as a source for public historical consciousness and national identity: The analysis of history schoolbooks and curricula investigates how public historical narratives about the "ancient past" fit into and are affected by the wider socio-political processes which generate and define public notions of historical consciousness and national identity. 2. Former students as a source for private notions of historical consciousness and national identity: Interviews with individual members of society explore the nature and level of people's knowledge of the past, their views of (and feelings towards) history and investigate how this is may be related to their sense of national identity. The final part of the thesis draws the results together and discusses the relationship between the public and the private sphere.

„Alle Kinder müssen zu wertvollen Menschen erzogen werden“, forderte Margot Honecker, Erziehungsminister der DDR von 1963 bis 1989. Während liberale Jugendsoziologen die Jugendphase als Moratorium begreifen und damit Heranwachsenden Freiräume zubilligen, geltende soziale Normen infrage zu stellen und selbstbestimmte Lebensentwürfe zu erproben, ohne ihr Handeln in gleicher Weise verantworten zu müssen wie Erwachsene, wurden Jugendliche in der DDR danach beurteilt, inwieweit sie dem Ideal der „allseitig gebildeten sozialistischen Persönlichkeit“ entsprachen. Nach Honeckers Ansicht wäre die freie Entfaltung des Individuums erst im Kommunismus möglich. Individuelle Entfaltung besaß für sie keinen eigenen Wert. Der politische Erziehungsanspruch erstreckte sich grundsätzlich auf alle Lebenswelten von Jugendlichen. Freiräume zur Selbstentfaltung waren in der DDR sowohl materiell als auch ideell eng umgrenzt, ein Umstand den der bundesdeutsche Bildungssoziologe Jürgen Zinnecker als „Jugendmoratorium in kasernierter Form“ bezeichnete. Dem politischen Anpassungsdruck waren Kinder und Jugendliche in besonders starkem Maße ausgesetzt. Zwar richtete sich der Erziehungsanspruch der SED grundsätzlich auf alle Bürger, doch anders als Erwachsene hatten Kinder und Jugendliche noch keine eigenständige Stellung innerhalb des sozialen und gesellschaftlichen Gefüges gefunden und deshalb weniger Möglichkeiten, sich der politischen Einwirkung zu entziehen. Mit dem Jugendgesetz von 1974 wurde die sozialistische Persönlichkeit als Erziehungsziel festgelegt, dem auch die Eltern zu folgen hatten. Bildungschancen wurden schon frühzeitig von der Anpassung an vorgegebene Normen abhängig gemacht, abweichendes Verhalten konnte rigide bestraft werden und gravierende Folgen für den weiteren Lebensweg haben. Auch wenn die meisten Jugendlichen die Forderungen des Staates zu erfüllen schienen und ihre Verbundenheit mit der Politik der SED wann immer gefordert bezeugten, standen sie dieser Politik tatsächlich mindestens gleichgültig gegenüber. Der „Widerspruch zwischen Wort und Tat“ war eines der gravierenden Probleme der Herrschenden im Umgang mit Heranwachsenden. Es gab aber auch Jugendliche, die bewusst Einschränkungen in Kauf nahmen, um ihre Vorstellungen eines selbstbestimmten Lebens verwirklichen zu können. Schon bei geringfügiger Abweichung von ausdrücklichen oder unausgesprochenen Vorgaben mussten sie mit erheblichen staatlichen Eingriffen in ihr persönliches Dasein rechnen. Die äußerste Form der Abweichung waren Ausreiseersuchen und Fluchtversuche. Jugendliche waren unter Antragstellern und „Republikflüchtigen“ überproportional vertreten. Die Dissertation beleuchtet das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen staatlich vorgegebenen Lebenswegen und eigen-sinniger Gestaltung verschiedener Lebensbereiche von Kindern und Jugendlichen für die Jahre der Honecker-Herrschaft zwischen 1971 bis 1989 im Bezirk Schwerin.
“All children must be educated to become worthwhile people“, GDR Minister of Education from 1963 to 1989 Margot Honecker claimed. Liberal youth sociologists interpret adolescence as moratorium, indicating that youth need latitude to challenge current social, political, and moral norms, and to test autonomous life choices, without being responsible for their actions in the same way as adults. In the GDR adolescents were judged based on how closely they matched the ideal of the “generally cultured socialist personality”. According to Honecker, the proper development of the individual would only be possible in communism. Maturation of the individual was not a value for her. Political compliance was demanded in all adolescent life worlds and latitudes for self-development were delineated materially as well as ideally. With respect to this, West German educational sociologist Jürgen Zinnecker spoke of a “barracked moratorium”. Children and adolescents were particularly exposed to the political pressure to adapt. Admittedly, the educational aspirations of the SED targeted all citizens, but unlike adults, adolescents had not yet found their position in society and had thus less chances to evade political education. The law on youth, enacted in 1974, stipulated the “socialist personality” as a general educational goal to which parents had to aspire. Yet early age educational opportunities were conditional to the compliance to given norms, and deviant behavior could be punished rigidly and have grave consequences for the future. Although the majority ostensibly seemed to fulfill the claims by the state, and testified their loyalty with the politics of the SED whenever demanded, they regarded her policy at least indifferently. “Contradiction between word and deed” was one of the major obstacles of the ruling dealing with teenagers. But there were adolescents willing to endure restrictions, to realize self-determined actions. Minor deviance from implicit and explicit standards could cause grave consequences for one’s existence. Attempts at flight and applications for exit permit were the utmost form of non-compliance. The number of adolescents among fugitives and petitioners was disproportional. The dissertation focuses on conflicts emerging from the tension between given life designs and autonomous organization of different spheres by adolescents for the years of Erich Honecker’s reign from 1971 to 1989 in the district of Schwerin.

Au fil des bouleversements politiques qui marquent l'espace germanophone et la France entre 1760 et 1800, la transmission du savoir historique voit ses missions, ses contenus et ses modalités profondément transformés. Répertoire d'exemples préparant les futurs souverains à l'exercice du pouvoir, l'enseignement de l'histoire s'insère dans le cadre d'États-nations qui réforment leurs systèmes éducatifs et intègrent une part grandissante de leur population dans la sphère politique. De fortes relations intertextuelles se tissent alors entre les livres d'histoire pour la jeunesse allemande et française – réécritures, traductions, compilations, synthèses, extensions, reprises de textes anciens ou étrangers re-contextualisés dans de nouvelles situations pédagogiques et politiques, qui contribuent à inventer le citoyen/Staatsbürger moderne. Deux formes de représentation sont examinées : les recueils d'histoires exemplaires, et à travers eux les recompositions des rapports entre morale et politique, et les tableaux synoptiques, outils pédagogiques qui mettent en lien les modèles politiques avec des modes d'ordonnancement des faits. Entre émancipation et discipline, ces deux formes induisent différents usages pédagogiques et modes de lecture par l'éducateur et par l'élève. Ces pratiques du texte peuvent à leur tour être modifiées selon les fonctions attribuées à la transmission de l'histoire voulues par le contexte politique : formation de futurs fonctionnaires, éveil de l'enthousiasme chez le citoyen-soldat ou encore complément à la lecture de la presse pour le jeune adulte – fonctions qui impliquent des définitions plus ou moins inclusives de la citoyenneté
In a time of political upheaval in the Germanies and France, the transmission of historical knowledge underwent a profound transformation that affected its aims, its contents as well as its methods. In earlier periods, history was a collection of examples written as a guide for future sovereigns in order to compensate for their lack of experience. Between 1760 and 1800, an increasing proportion of the population was integrated into the political sphere, especially through gradual reforms in education in the emerging nation states. German and French authors copied, rewrote, synthesized, compiled and expanded upon one another's handbooks or children's books. They also reused and updated older teaching material, thus helping to redefine citizenship. Two forms of historical representation are analyzed: firstly, collections of exemplary stories – and through them the changing relationships between morality and politics. Secondly, such educational tools as timelines and more elaborated forms of historical overviews highlight the links between political models and the presentation of historical facts. Between emancipation and discipline, both forms induced different uses and reading modes from educator and pupil respectively. These uses could be modified according to the functions assigned to the transmission of history in the various political contexts: the training of future officials, the awakening of patriotic enthusiasm in the citizen-soldier or the introduction to a critical reading of the press for young adults – functions that implied a wide range of inclusive or exclusive definitions of citizenship

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the establishment and development of lectureships in the Swedish language in German universities during the first half of the 20th century. Building on earlier research about the role of language teaching abroad for public diplomacy, the study sees the lecturer as a part of both the the academic and political fields in Germany and Sweden. The establishment of and changes in the system of lectureships in Swedish 1906–1945 are explained through an analysis of the actors involved and of the assets allowing the actors to control both the establishment of lectureships and the appointment of lecturers in Germany. During the Weimar Republic a number of actors were involved in the establishment of the lectureships. They included academics with a scholarly interest in Scandinavian languages and old Norse,, the German state, which worked to promote the study of foreign countries and interna­tional academic mobility as a way of breaking German isolation after World War I, and the Swedish organization for the preservation of Swedishness abroad for which the teaching of Swed­ish abroad was a way of increasing the academic status of the language. After the National Social­ist takeover in 1933 the NSDAP and the Swedish foreign ministry also took an interest in the Swedish lectureships in Germany for propaganda purposes. The dissertation shows how a system for the appointment of Swedish lecturers to Germany was established through interaction between the actors. Central in this process were the control over economic assets, a social network which made recommendations of lecturers possible, and the control over communication between both the lecturers and universites and between the German and Swedish states. The study also shows that the uneven distribution of assets between German and Swedish actors resulted in an inferior position for the German state and organizations in relationship to their Swedish counterparts.

L'oeuvre de Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué que notre thèse permet de découvrir offre une vision double, française et allemande, sur la société coloniale à Bourbon au début des années1840. Après une reconstitution détaillée de la biographie d'Oelsner-Monmerqué, l'étude met l'accent sur son pragmatisme abolitionniste dans l'exercice de ses fonctions de rédacteur en chef de la Feuille hebdomadaire de l'île Bourbon et de professeur de philosophie et de proviseur du Collège royal de Bourbon. En Allemagne, il poursuit son militantisme abolitionniste activement par voie littéraire à travers un roman, des articles de presse, des communications et une conférence. En publiant Schwarze und Weiße. Skizzen aus Bourbon (Noirs et Blancs. Esquisses de Bourbon) dans un pays qui ne possède pas d'esclaves, l'écrivain tente de contribuer à une émancipation plus rapide et complète. Son éclairage sur les conditions de la traite clandestine et sur la vie des esclaves dans la société bourbonnaise se distingue par son réalisme qui doit son expressivité au genre littéraire novateur de l'esquisse. Au-delà des frontières, cet ouvrage peut être considéré comme le premier roman abolitionniste bourbonnais
Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué's work unearthed by us and presented in our doctoral thesis offers a double – French and German – vision of colonial society in Bourbon (now Reunion) Island in the early 1840s. This study begins with a detailed reconstitution of Oelsner-Monmerqué's life, then focuses on his abolitionist stance and actions as editor of the Feuille hebdomadaire de l'Ile Bourbon [Bourbon Island Weekly] and philosophy teacher at and principal of the Collège royal de Bourbon high school. Oelsner-Monmerqué pursued his abolitionist activism in Germany through literary channels: a novel, press articles andconferences. By publishing Schwarze und Weiße. Skizzen aus Bourbon [Blacks and Whites. Sketches of Bourbon] in a country which had no slaves, the author meant to contribute to their quicker and more complete emancipation. His descriptions of illegal slave trade and slave life in Bourbon Island's society have a realistic, expressive touch made possible by the use of an innovative literary genre, the sketch. A cross-boundary testimony, this work can be regardedas Bourbon Island's first abolitionist novel

Defence date: 10 February 2006
Examining Board: Prof. Tim Blanning, University of Cambridge ; Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, European University Institute ; Prof. Regina Schulte, European University Institute (1st Supervisor) ; Prof. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Universität Münster (2nd supervisor)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

In the aftermath of a violent war waged in the name of fascist utopian visions, German museum educators nonetheless explained the political benefits of technology. They did so in view of the new demands for democracy, but as divided Cold War adversaries as well. Educators in four museums uniquely tailored their national and geopolitical lessons to the publics of Munich, Schwerin, Dresden, and West Berlin. However, the democratic technological societies depicted by the museums all contained similar tensions that did not overcome the problems of fascist politics. By wedding democracy, technology, and education unambiguously together, the aims and exhibitions of technology museums ultimately epitomized the persistent allure of utopia in politics well beyond 1945. To begin with, portraying a straightforward connection between technology and democracy was problematic. When museum exhibitions illustrated the tremendous promise of science and technology for creating the "good life," they focused on the powerful and vast extension of human tool-making capacity. However, modern technological systems were also profoundly destabilizing and de-centering for individual subjects, because they created the possibility of 1984-like political repression, environmental degradation, class division, and, most frighteningly, human annihilation. Also, issues in education posed difficulties for a democracy, since the authority of educators themselves was particularly contested in the aftermath of Nazism and the protests of 1968. Yet technology museums minimized social tensions and maintained the advantages of technology for peaceful, equal relations among liberated peoples, thus deferring the resolution of contradictions to the utopias they depicted. In the end, education in Cold War German technology museums continued to resonate with the utopian impulses of National Socialist politics. However, ideology was not the only thing that made the museums utopian, since technology and education themselves had powerful implications for the relationship among individuals, society, and the world.

Defence date: 29 January 1993
Examining board: Prof. Dr. Pierre Ayçoberry (Université Strasbourg) ; Prof. Dr. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (EUI) ; Prof. Dr. Peter Hertner (EUI, supervisor) ; Prof. Dr. Manfred Heinemann (Universität Hannover) ; Prof. Dr. Alfred Wahl (Université Metz)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 5 May 2006
Examining Board: Prof. Peter Becker (EUI) ; Prof. Gabriella Hauch (Universität Linz) ; Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (Supervisor, EUI / Universität Bielefeld) ; Prof. Peter Hertner (Co-supervisor, Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg)
First made available online 21 August 2018

Defence Date: 29/06/2009
Examining Board: Bartolomé Yun Casalilla EUI- Supervisor; Giovanni Levi ( U Ca’Foscari); Antonella Romano (EUI)); Irving Alexander Anthony Thompson (U Keele)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
No abstract available

The diploma thesis deals with the tertiary education of Weimar Republic, specifically with the Czechoslovak students of German nationality who studied in Germany between years 1919 and 1933. The main goals of the text are to evaluate to what extent the tertiary education served propaganda and cultural diplomacy, which methods were used to influence the students during their studies and how the students were introduced to the positive image of Germany, which found itself in international isolation after the First World War. The thesis is based on primary sources from German and Czech archives and on foreign and Czech secondary sources and literature.