Ten million children. The education of the youth in the Third Reich
Ten million children. The education of youth in the Third Reich by Erika Mann published in 1938 in the Querido Verlag , Amsterdam, as a "political textbook" about the true conditions in Adolf Hitler's "millennial kingdom". Under the title School for Barbarians. Education under the Nazis , Erika Mann's book had been published a few months earlier in the United States by Modern Age, New York, initially in English. After three months, 40,000 copies had already been sold.
After the war , a German edition was first published in 1986 in edition spangenberg by Ellermann Verlag.
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Her father Thomas Mann wrote in the introduction: “[...] It is strange enough how fruitful the special topic of the book, the educational point of view, proves to be for the overall knowledge of the national-socialist kind of senses. There is nothing surprising that a woman chose him; but it is surprising how comprehensive and completely instructive the character of the Hitler state comes about with this thematic restriction [...]. "
In three large chapters - family, school, state youth - Erika Mann examines how children and young people in Nazi Germany were committed to their role in the dictatorship . It dispenses with theoretical presentations in order to analyze concrete examples from speeches, administrative decrees, articles, newspapers and school books and supplements these with personal experiences.
History of origin
In an afterword to the new edition from 1997 by Rowohlt Verlag, Erika Mann biographer Irmela von der Lühe reports on the background to the creation. Today the book is considered a classic document of contemporary history and a moving piece of exile literature .
Literature and Sources
- Ten million children. The education of the youth in the Third Reich . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1997, ISBN 3-499-22169-1 .
Web links
- Contemporary review in the Paris daily newspaper from 1939, facsimile
- Willy Hochkeppel : Drill für die Barbarei , Die Zeit, February 6, 1987 (accessed September 1, 2019)
- Viola Roggenkamp : The Magician's Daughter tells , Die Welt, February 28, 2004 (accessed on September 1, 2019)