Office of the Historian

802.00 P.R./197

Extract From Political Report of the Chargé in Germany (Mayer)63

undated

3. Education, (a) Private Schools Discouraged. Minister of Education Rust on April 4 issued a decree to the effect that, starting with the 1936 school year, school beginners may no longer be admitted to the lower grades of private schools, stating that every healthy German child of elementary school age must attend the public schools which fostered National Socialist education. The maintenance of private elementary schools was thus contrary to Nazi principles of education. School beginners already registered to enter private schools after Easter are to be withdrawn and entered in a public school. Measures are envisaged to indemnify the proprietors of private schools for the ensuing loss. The decree, naturally, does not apply to Jewish private elementary schools.

(b) As an indication of the general disposition of the Government and Party to take educational “short cuts”, Minister of Education Rust has decreed that under certain conditions school boys promoted at Easter to the Oberprima (the last high school class) may be entered immediately in college engineering classes, thus taking out one whole year of regular schooling in cases where such boys desire to specialize in aeronautics and ship building.

  1. Transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in Germany in his despatch No. 2760, April 14; received April 22.↩