"For all their deficiencies, the Hitler Youth movement and the increasingly Nazified school system were driving a wedge between parents who still retained some loyalty to the beliefs and standards they had grown up in themselves, and their children who were being indoctrinated at every stage of their lives. As one such agent ruefully observed: ‘It is extremely difficult for parents who are opponents of the Nazis to exercise an influence on their children. Either they ask the child not to talk at school about what is said at home. Then the children get the feeling, aha, the parents have to hide what they think. The teacher permits himself to say everything out loud. So he’s bound to be right. - Or the parents express their opinion without giving the child a warning. Then it’s not long before they are arrested or at the very least called up before the teacher, who shouts at them and threatens to report them. - ‘Send your father to the school!’ That is the normal answer to suspicious doubts and questions on the part of the child. If the father is quiet after such a visit, then he gives the child the impression that he has been convinced by what the teacher has told him, and the effect is far worse than if nothing had ever been said.’"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Historians from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge facultyPeople from LondonAuthors from WalesUniversity of Oxford alumni
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 278-279
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_J._Evans
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Richard J. Evans
16 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Richard J. Evans →
Related Quotes
"Among those who were sent to receive political indoctrination in June 1919 was a 30-year-old corporal who had been in…"
"The National Socialist German Students’League… gained a reputation for provocative actions, and campaigned on issues …"
"Even though total membership of the Nazi Students’ League did not even reach 10 per cent of national fraternity membe…"
"Not just women, young people, students, and school pupils, but also many other sectors of German society were catered…"
"The widespread intimidation of the population provided the essential precondition for a process that was in train all…"
"Democracies that are under threat of destruction face the impossible dilemma of either yielding to that threat by ins…"
"There were even more disturbing reports of children whose membership in the Hitler Youth was disapproved of by their …"
"The overall effect of Hitler Youth membership, some Social Democratic observers complained, was a ‘coarsening’ of the…"
"Hitler insisted that political education was a matter for the Party and not for state-run institutions or state-appoi…"
"At every level, formal learning was given decreased emphasis… By 1939 employers were complaining that school graduate…"