FREE ESSAY ON HITLER POLITICS

HITLER POLITICS

1. Hitler demanded that the nation produce a violently active, dominating, 
intrepid, brutal youth. What part did the schools play in carrying out that 
goal?
The schools taught the students to live a military lifestyle. Everything was 
very structured. Everything they did, they did mechanically. The games they 
played as children were war type games. They exercised and marched and 
drilled and saluted. 
2. Write a working definition of the word indoctrinate. How does it differ from 
the word educate? How did Hitler indoctrinate young Germans? Why did 
he focus his efforts on them rather than on their parents? 
To indoctrinate is to teach to accept a system of thought uncritically. To 
educate is to provide information, to inform. Indoctrinate differs from 
educate because when you indoctrinate, you don't allow room for debate or 
questioning, whereas when you educate you allow room for thinking and 
exploration. Hitler indoctrinated young Germans by limiting their 
knowledge of the past and of what was really going on in the present. There 
was no room for different thought in Hitler's schools. Hitler concentrated 
his efforts on children rather than adults because when people are young 
they can be molded easily. As a person gets more life experience, their 
mindset gets more concrete and inflexible. 
3. Describe the messages a child would hear in Nazi Germany. How would 
those messages affect the way he/she viewed the world? How does such an 
atmosphere turn hatred into a habit?
Children in Germany were bombarded with the fact that Hitler was the 
savior of Germany. Therefore, everything Hitler said had to be true, had to 
be right. Both the hate and the superiority messages combined made 
Germany magnificent and the rest of the world inferior. Children were 
taught to be extremely ethnocentric. That sort of atmosphere turns hatred 
into a habit because whenever those children see something that isn't like 
themselves they are automatically hostile to it.
4. Why is Peter Becker not sure of what he would have done if he had been 
assigned as a guard at a death camp? What do you think he would have 
done?
Peter Becker is not sure of what he would have done if he were assigned 
to a death camp because he is not sure if he would have had that internal 
strength to see that what was happening was wrong. But I think he would 
have followed the orders blindly, because first, that's what he's been doing 
his whole life, but second, because he always truly believed in Hitler and 
anything that he did.
Further Questions: 
1. How would you define the word obedience? What is Blind Obedience? 
What is the difference between obedience and conformity? 
Obedience is to obey a command. Blind obedience is when you obey a 
request or demand without even thinking about it. The difference between 
obedience and conformity is that when you conform you agree to do 
something or become similar to what you are conforming to. 
2. What encourages obedience?
I feel that it is all three; fear of punishment, a belief in authority, and a 
desire to please. But a think fear is the biggest reason for obedience. If a 
child is told to clean their room, are they going to do it out of a desire to 
please? Or that they think that their parents are telling them this for their 
own good? They clean it because they don't want to get hit and/or punished 
and have their privileges taken away.