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The Third Reich's Elite Schools tells the story of the Napolas, Nazi Germany's most prominent training academies for the future elite. This deeply researched study gives an in-depth account of everyday life at the schools, while also shedding fresh light on the political, social, and cultural history of the Nazi dictatorship.
List of contents
- Introduction: The Napolas in Historical Context
- PART I: GENESIS
- 1: Foundation and Administration: The Napolas' Position within the Polycratic Nazi State
- 2: 'Selection', Teaching, and Everyday Life
- 3: 'Missions' and Extracurricular Activities
- PART II: VARIETY WITHIN UNITY
- 4: The Prussian Paradigm? Resurrecting Cadet-School Traditions at the Former Staatliche Bildungsanstalten
- 5: Centralism versus Particularism: Harnessing Regional Ambitions and Negotiating Federal Tensions at the NPEA in Saxony, Anhalt, and Württemberg
- 6: The Annihilation of Tradition? The 'Napolisation' of Humanistic and Religious Foundations
- 7: Ostmark: The Annexation of the Viennese Bundeserziehungsanstalten and Heißmeyer's 'Dissolution of the Monasteries'
- 8: The Reichsschulen and the Napolas' Germanizing Mission in Eastern and Western Europe
- 9: For Girls Only: The NPEA für Mädchen
- PART III: NEMESIS
- 10: The Demands of Total War
- 11: The Endkrieg and the Last of the Napolas
- 12: Epilogue: Post-war
- Conclusion
About the author
Helen Roche is Assistant Professor in Modern European Cultural History at Durham University, having previously held research fellowships at Cambridge and UCL. She has published extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century German history, including the history of education, National Socialism, and classical reception studies. Key publications include Sparta's German Children (2013), Brill's Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (ed., 2018), and Surviving "Stunde Null": Narrating the Fate of Nazi Elite-school Pupils during the Collapse of the Third Reich, which was awarded German History journal's 'Best Article Prize' in 2015. Recently, she co-founded 'Claiming the Classical', a global research network which maps twenty-first-century political appropriations of the ancient world. She is currently researching the history of everyday life under fascism in interwar Europe.
Summary
The Third Reich's Elite Schools tells the story of the Napolas, Nazi Germany's most prominent training academies for the future elite. This deeply researched study gives an in-depth account of everyday life at the schools, while also shedding fresh light on the political, social, and cultural history of the Nazi dictatorship.
Additional text
Helen Roche's impressive study [...] is deeply researched, carefully contextualized, and thoroughly engaging. This outstanding book merits the attention of those who seek to understand how National Socialism worked and how people became Nazis.