The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Education Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. […] It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one's inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one's mind and often misled it. (2.8.67)

Just in case Shirer's earlier points about miseducation through Nazi propaganda weren't clear enough, he admits that even he found it hard to be totally immune and impervious to its effects. That's a pretty courageous and honest admission. Fortunately, he was able to get his hand on foreign newspapers during his travels.

Quote #8

"When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side,'" he said in a speech on November 6, 1933, "I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in this new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.'" (2.8.70)

What Hitler is describing is social engineering through the miseducation of the young. Scary. He wants to create a new society with no memory of the old.

Quote #9

Every person in the teaching profession, from kindergarten through the universities, was compelled to join the Nationalist Socialist Teachers' League which, by law, was held "responsible for the execution of the ideological and political co-ordination of all teachers in accordance with the Nationalist Socialist doctrine." (2.8.72)

So much for academic freedom, or the free pursuit of knowledge and inquiry.