‘Selection’, Teaching, and Everyday Life

This chapter begins with an experiential account of the selection process and everyday life at the Napolas, drawing on a mixture of contemporary accounts and eyewitness testimonies. It explores pupils’ and parents’ varied motivations for submitting to the schools’ gruelling week-long entrance exam (Aufnahmeprüfung), the nature of the examination itself, and the subsequent process of settling into school life, including pupils’ relationships with support staff and teaching staff. The chapter then goes on to explore the Napolas’ academic and physical education programme in detail, investigating both the content and indoctrinatory effects of teaching—especially the explicitly ideological lessons in ‘national-political instruction’—and the role of sport and pre-military training, which formed a core part of the NPEA curriculum. It also describes the school leaving exam and the ensuing graduation ceremony. In conclusion, the chapter compares the Napolas’ programme with that of other Nazi educational institutions such as the Reich Labour Service (RAD) and the Hitler Youth, analysing the extent to which the Napolas betrayed continuities with pre-National Socialist thinking in their adaptation of principles from reform pedagogy. Ultimately, educational practice at the schools reflected broader trends in Nazi political and pedagogical policy, but the NPEA were far more effective than most Nazi educational institutions in their ability to provide their pupils both with a broad academic curriculum, fully saturated with ideological indoctrination, and with a comprehensive and highly effective programme of physical and pre-military training.