The Jotter of Rotter

Dear colleagues, I would be interested to learn to what extent National Socialism and the Holocaust play a role in your high school German classroom (Landeskunde)?  I teach at a university in the United States both German (Beginners to Advanced) and German (literarture and cultural history ) . Our German program includes the teaching of literature on the Holocaust (eg. Paul Celan ) as well as theoretical approaches to Memorial Culture . In addition, I also teach an interdisciplinary course on Memorial Culture in English for first-year students.

The decision to include National Socialism (NS) is not very old and is due to experiences I had made with students who have a strange fascination with the Nazi. Many male students can recite the names of generals , military units, weapons and battles with admiration in great detail, but have no idea of ​​the Holocaust. If I let the students write an essay on a famous German person in an intermediate class , I always some who want to expand the list of people in the worksheet with Nazi personalities.

I think that students here learn little about NS in their history/social studies classes in the high schools and therefore arrive at their conclusions through undirected self-study, disinterested or semi -knowing parents and questionable programs on television (History Channel ). Our small university has only two classes that could remotely cover the Holocaust, one is in the History Department and is taught by a military historian; the other is about genocide in the 20th Century and covers everything from Armenia to Rwanda. I therefore saw the need to expand the university’s curriculum.

I am fully aware that as a professor I have the advantage of helping to determine the types of courses offered. That certainly does not happen at high schools. However, teachers on the secondary level have certain freedoms within their classrooms.

From my high school colleagues here, I often hear that the issue of the NS was too cruel, only reinforcing the image of the ugly German, and therefore negatively influencing enrollment numbers for the courses. I understand that. However, I think it is also difficult to discuss current issues without the background knowledge of the Holocaust. The latest example (widely published in U.S. newspapers) is the sale of the former synagogue in Koblenz to an investor who wishes to set up a restaurant, and apartments.

My questions to my colleagues worldwide are:

1. Does the Holocaust and the NS play a role in your German classroom? Why do you teach it? Why not?
2. If you teach it, what do you do with your students?
3. If you don’t teach it, would you like to teach the subject, but see obstacles that stand in the way? What are these obstacles?
4. Do students approach you as a German teacher with questions about the NS? How do you react?
5. Does geography play a role? Is the subject taught more / less / not at all in countries that have suffered during the Second World War under the Germans?

I am grateful for all the respectful comments. There will be no correct answer here. Our teaching and learning situations are often very different. I want to understand what motivates teachers worldwide to teach this topic or not.