Conclusion

The conclusion succinctly summarizes the primary aims of the book as a whole, before considering how ‘effective’ the education provided by the Napolas was in comparison with the Third Reich’s other educational institutions. The NPEA appear to have been in the vanguard of many educational developments which the Reich Education Ministry subsequently intended to apply more broadly throughout the German school system. They also formed a prototype for the non-elite system of state boarding schools founded by August Heißmeyer at Hitler’s behest in 1941—the Deutsche Heimschulen. The programme of the Adolf-Hitler-Schools, rival elite schools founded in 1937 by Reich Organization Leader Robert Ley and Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, was also to a great extent deliberately copied from that of the Napolas; however, these Party elite schools were never able to realize their full potential and compete with the NPEA on equal terms. The Napolas were also more effective in their provision of a National Socialist ‘total education’ than ‘civilian’ schools and the Hitler Youth, as well as institutions such as the Reich Labour Service (RAD), the ‘Year on the Land’ (Landjahr), or the Order Castles (Ordensburgen). Taken on their own terms, then, the National Political Education Institutes can ultimately be seen as the Nazi dictatorship’s most effective educational experiment.