GERMAN TRAINING METHODS

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 62, 15 March 1938, Page 10

GERMAN TRAINING METHODS

The Fuhrer Schools

German Government has decided to have four “Fuhrer” schools where young men are to he trained to be the political leaders in the country, said Mr. William Teeling In a 8.8. C. address. There are a thousand young men in each school, who stay one year. They go from one to the other, which means that the course lasts four years and there are four thousand men training at a time. After these young men have finished their training, they are to go out into all the key positions of the country, and to teach the other German people the ideas of what is called the Nazi Weltanschauung, which means World Outlook.

The boys will first go to the school In Pomerania, about four hours north of Berlin. The school there is built entirely of local wood. After they have finished a year in that school they go across Germany to the second one, near the Belgian border. Here the school is built entirely of local stone. And then they do down for a third year to the school near Lake Constance, in Bavaria. Finally, they spend the fourth year at Marienburg on the Eastern border, and that has a special significance which 1 will mention later.

Just at the moment, the young men are chosen from the ordinary Party organisations. The plan for the future is as follows: small boys of the very best type will be taken at the age of ten and sent to special schools until they are eighteen years old. Then they go into the Labour Camps for six months, then into the Army for two years, and after that into a profession for another year. During this last year they are supposed to get married, and then, just before they are twenty-four years old, the pick of the country are to be sent to these Fuhrer schools. Up till now,

these young men have been known as Junkers, which literally means, young

gentlemen. You may remember it as the name representing that Prussian element so much in the public eye before the last war. In the last few months they have decided to call the young men Prospective Leaders. These boys must all be of a certain height and of a certain chest measurement, and their Aryan ancestry must be proved right back to before 1800; they must be good Nordics. In each of the schools they must show

themselves to be physically brave. Not only must they box and fence and play every kind of rough sport, but they are taken up in aeroplanes to a great height, are then given parachutes and told “Now jump out and see if you can land.” It was explained to me that if the young men are not willing to jump out they need not, but when they come down they are asked to leave the school and will have to face their wives when they come home. By the w T ay, I was told that hotels will soon be built by the “Stl ength through Joy” Movement near these four schools, where the wives can come and spend a few days with their husbands. And each year the men are allowed home for some months, so that they shall not lose touch with the everyday people of the country. In the first school on Pomerania, these young men are taught only the history of the Stone Age and the Iron Age; so that they can learn what is considered in Germany to be the real origin of mankind. And they also study race and biological questions, trying out experiments, not so much on men as on flies. In the second year, near Belgium, they learn a new version of history, and the general criticisms of what is called “Political Christianity,” which I understand is a criticism of the Protestant religions as well as the Catholic. In the Bavarian school they study Nazi politics and race problems again. And when they go to the Polish border they are taught propaganda and the development of the Nazi Eastern policy, as outlined by Hitler in Mein Kampf. The buildings have been built on a lavish scale, regardless of expense, the gift of the Labour Organisation to Hitler. Their massive beauty is impressive; they are simple and severe and have a Wagnerian atmosphere as you look out over mountains and forests. Each has its own band to play martial music every day. Bomb-

proof shelters from enemy aircraft have not been forgotten in the plans. The schools are deliberately built in the four different parts of Germany, to accustom the young men to the nation’s different mentalities. Their libraries are stocked with books on Belshevism, the East and Colonial problems. The young men are told that they form a Nordic Crusading Order like that of the Knights Templar of old.