Education and fascism

Can we learn from history? More specifically, have we learned from the social history of Nazi Germany and its effects on people living today?

In seeking answers to these questions the articles in this collection are concerned with unravelling and analysing the social framework of Nazism. Key to understanding that framework is the relationship between identity-formation, political culture and pedagogic activities.

In this context, the question of the causes of Nazism and of its instigators, of its political and pedagogic traditions, orientations, classes and social milieu, takes on a special meaning in relation to the expansion and maintenance of Nazi domination. Of particular importance is the mediation between terrorist domination and an everyday life suggestive of normality. The authors suggest that the formative capture of all members of this society succeeded essentially through an 'education toward folk community'.

When the ideology of folk community encourages processes of social integration and exclusion; when it is a matter of 'human selection'; when it concerns culprits, victims and accomplices, the decisive question becomes: How can an ideology mediated by pedagogic practices operate so effectively that it apparently provided many in Nazi Germany with a 'functioning' identity?