This article examines the ways in which the University of Birmingham assisted refugee academics and students from Nazi Germany and other Nazi occupied countries across Europe between 1933 and 1945. It draws on the university's rich but underused archives to explore institutional policy and to assess the influence of individual staff members in…

August Heißmeyer was a high-ranking SS officer, a member of Heinrich Himmler's inner circle, husband to Reich women's leader Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, and the driving force behind the pan-European expansion of Nazi elite schools during the Third Reich. In light of Heißmeyer's official pardon by Württemberg state president Dr Gebhard Müller in 1951,…

Given Peenemünde's ambivalent military and technological history, from rocket development during the Nazi period to East German naval and air bases during the Cold War, its musealization was considered both a chance and challenge during the region's deindustrialization in the 1990s. Local residents' support of veteran engineers promoting an…

For Ukraine, the beginning of Nazi occupation meant a change from one totalitarian regime to another. In Soviet times and during occupation alike, all spheres of public life, including the education system, were permeated with politics and ideology. There could be no talk about democratic principles in education. Schools were supposed to raise the…

This study explores the integration of military themes and Nazi ideology within the "Mathematisches Arbeits- Und Lehrbuch" textbook series, which was a prominent tool in Nazi Germany for embedding National Socialist principles in mathematics education. Authored by Otto Zoll, a Nazi Party member, these textbooks were strategically…

The present study addressed the effects of becoming aware of being at an authentic historic place both on affective reactions and acquisition of information about the relevant historic events. The study was conducted in a research institute located in a former National Socialist (NS) clinic, thus holding an authentic historic dimension, while at…

A readily applicable procedure is discussed that allows evaluation of the discrepancy between the popular coefficient alpha and the reliability coefficient of a scale with second-order factorial structure that is frequently of relevance in empirical educational and psychological research. The approach is developed within the framework of the…

The article will discuss some central relations between political authoritarianism and right-wing education in the interwar period. Then it is asked why these concepts and powers are renewed in today' s politics and education. And in the end it shows what research gaps exist and how the articles of this special issue could fill them.

During the Nazi occupation of Norway from 1940 to 1945, Norwegian society was exposed to comprehensive Nazification measures. Considered racially equal, it was intended that the "Germanic" Norwegians would be transformed into a National Socialist people's community. With the establishment of the so-called new order on 25 September 1940,…

Innovation and invention drive the world forward and thrive off a free market that rewards individuals and companies that can tap into supply and demand. During tragedy, especially wartime, this can take a dark turn when the triumph of invention and profit is gained from human tragedy. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) saw warfare…

Since the 1980s, right-wing extremism, radicalism, and populism have emerged as transformative forces in European politics. This unexpected resurgence has triggered an interdisciplinary scholarly effort to refine our understanding of the far right. Educationalists, however, have largely been absent from this endeavour, leaving us unable to…

The National Socialist regime was, generally speaking, not interested in an outright levelling of social differentiation patterns, as they were present within the German society around 1933. On the contrary: old hierarchies were to be fought and new ones were to be established--both according to the Nazi administration's social ideology and,…

National socialist education policies put into practice between 1933-1945 in Germany, has been under the influence of romanticism, which is one of the important currents in the history of German thought that began in the middle of the 19th century. Such "being under the influence" does not refer to a passive situation, but it rather…

Engaging historiography and interpreting secondary sources represent essential elements of historians' work that have been largely ignored in favor of primary source reading in high school history classrooms in the United States. To understand whether and how students apply their historical reasoning skills to secondary sources, we asked…

This historical study explores how educators in the United States responded to the rise of fascism between the World Wars. By considering and then ultimately rejecting the fascist approach to education and philosophy, American educators defined democratic education in contrast to fascist/totalitarian approaches to education by rejecting…