Elementary School Teachers and the Struggle against Social Democracy in Wilhelmine Germany

Abstract

Even before the Reichstag defeated the renewal of the law banning the Social Democratic party in January 1890, Emperor William II was ready to discard Bismarck's policy of repression and to use pedagogy as a weapon against socialism. In an order sent to the Prussian State Ministry on 1 May 1889, the king of Prussia and German emperor demanded that the schools make a greater effort to refute socialist theories and to impart to the pupils a "healthy" view of society and the state. He proposed that the instruction of history cover more closely the modern era and especially the social policies of the Hohenzollern dynasty, from the abolition of serfdom to the sickness and old age insurance legislation of the 1880s, "in order to show that the rulers of Prussia have always considered it their duty to improve the living conditions of the laboring classes" and that "in the future workers can expect justice and security only under the protection and care of the king at the head of the state." The emperor wanted the teachers to describe the menace of revolutionary socialism in such dark colors that the pupils would be "filled with revulsion and fear."! This essay will examine the antisocialist pedagogical strategy of Emperor William in practice and, in particular, the responses of the elementary school teachers themselves to the Cabinet Order. The emperor's words and the directive for the implementation of the Cabinet Order issued by the Prussian Minister of Education on 18 October 1890 do Marjorie Lamberti is the Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Middlebury College in Vermont. The author expresses her gratitude to the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst for a generous stipend to do research in the Federal Republic of Germany in the fall of 1988.

A Nietzschean Feminist Rejoinder to the Mädchenbuch Controversy

“…18 18 For an overview of the ideological and pedagogical debates regarding the Märchen see also Ulrike Bastian’s groundbreaking work (Bastian 1981, 45–100). On the efforts of Social Democrats to influence the national school system see Lamberti 1992; Olson 1977. …”