Heißmeyer: Nazi education architect. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mueller, Tim
• Is Part Of: History of education. Volume 50:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 50
• Page End: 66
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Nazi Germany -- education -- biography -- race -- denazification; Education -- History -- Periodicals; 370.9
• DOI: 10.1080/0046760X.2020.1825832
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0046-760X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: 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, and the continuing absence of a comprehensive biography, the politicised nature of Heißmeyer's educational experiments has not been explicitly stated or conclusively proven. This article seeks to remedy this oversight by adding Heißmeyer's portrait to the crowded gallery of Nazi perpetrators, and by documenting his manipulation of schools to advance Nazi racial ideology.