The Reichsschulen and the Napolas’ Germanizing Mission in Eastern and Western Europe

Abstract

Heinrich Himmler, August Heißmeyer, and the NPEA Inspectorate were eager to create a transnational empire of Napolas and ‘Reichsschulen’ in all of the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. These schools both mirrored and contributed to broader National Socialist occupation and Germanization policies throughout Eastern and Western Europe. They were intended to create a cadre of ‘Germanic’ or ‘Germanizable’ leaders, loyal above all to the SS. The chapter begins by exploring the genesis of the Reichsschulen in the occupied Netherlands—Valkenburg and Heythuysen—which were adopted as a ‘Germanic’ prestige project by the Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyß-Inquart. The chapter then turns eastwards to consider the role of the Napolas which were established in the conquered Czech and Polish lands, focusing on NPEA Sudetenland in Ploschkowitz (Ploskowice), NPEA Wartheland in Reisen (Rydzyna), and NPEA Loben (Lubliniec). All in all, the Napola selection process in the occupied Eastern territories can be seen as the peak of all the ‘racial sieving’ processes which the Nazi state forced ‘ethnic Germans’ (Volksdeutsche), Czechs, and Poles to undergo, inextricably bound up with the Third Reich’s wider race, resettlement, and extermination policies. The ultimate aim of all of these schools was to mingle Reich German and ‘ethnic German’ or ‘Germanic’ pupils, educating the two groups alongside each other, in order to create a unified cohort of leaders for the future Nazi empire, and to reclaim valuable ‘Germanic blood’ for the Reich.