to the nation’s security? Given the tight security measures within the totalitarian state, as well as the Party’s dogmatic opposition to free speech and the individual’s right to an appeal, it turned out that such a vague guideline lent itself to arbitrary censorship actions. The same was true for the apparently universal selection criteria referring to the removal of books that were “out-dated” in their contents and “worn and unsightly” in their physical appearance, for even today librarians everywhere use common sense judgement in “weeding out” books that they consider to belong under these categories. Within the context of the Nazis’ Volkish censorship, however, the Party leadership reserved the right for itself to determine what books were to be earmarked as “out-dated,” and these criteria, too, easily gave the authorities an excuse to remove unwanted books from the library shelves. Many valuable works of German and world literature were now labelled this way, merely because they no longer served a particular purpose within the Nazis’ folk education program.9
Some of the guidelines referred to the removal of books representing “sentimental clichés and moralistic tales.” Such criteria appeared to resemble those used by Wolgast and the members of the former Children’s Literature Association around 1900,10 and for this reason were received sympathetically by educators. The difference was, however, that unlike the former critics, the Nazis really cared very little about aesthetic principles and quality control in children’s literature, but mainly opposed books of this type because they had nothing to offer in terms of promoting the new didacticism of the National Socialist ideology. From their point of view, neither old fashioned moralistic tales nor sentimental and religious tales had a bearing upon promoting the heroic ethics needed for the “young team” of the future.
The new concept of Volkish literature as a “positive” instrument in promoting German folk education was as complex and ambiguous as the National Socialist ideology from which it derived its direction. Since the new concept of volkhafte Literatur (Volkish literature) sounded very much like volkstümliche Literatur (regional literature and folk literature, including folklore), and since, in addition, the Nazis often used them interchangeably, without necessarily referring to the more politically flavored concept of völkische Literatur, it came to be associated in many circles with the revival of idyllic literature dating back to the turn of the century.11 Such an ambiguity not only led to confusions regarding the true meaning of the concept, but initially also contributed, at least partially, to the wholehearted support which some educators and former members of pre-Nazi Volkish groups gave to the National Socialist cultural policy. In many respects, the Nazis’ emphasis on volkhafte Literatur for young children reminded them of what Severin Rüttgers and various Volkish groups in the Weimar Republic had tried to accomplish by strengthening the role of native folklore and German folk literature in the reading curriculum. It took them some time before they realized that the Nazis’ ideological goals were aimed far beyond a mere “revival” of former Volkish trends.
Plate 10
“The Ancestor”
The question then arises as to what exactly children’s books were expected to accomplish within the new context of German folk education. During the early stages of the Nazi Regime, it was Hans Maurer, editor of one of the first bibliographical guides to Volkish literature for children and youth, who also gave one of the first definitions of its tasks. On behalf of the Hitler Youth Organization and the Reich Youth Library in Berlin, he defined the new goals of Volkish literature as follows:
We Expect of Good Books That They Will:
1. Arouse among children an enthusiasm for the heroes of sagas, legends and history, for the soldiers of the great wars, the Führer and the New Germany, so as to strengthen their love of the fatherland and give them new ideals to live by.
2. Show the beauty of the German landscape.
3. Focus on the fate of children of German ethnic groups living abroad and emphasize their yearning for the Reich.
4. Deal with the love of nature and promote nature crafts.
5. Relate old German myths, folktales and legends, in a language reflecting the original folk tradition as closely as possible.
6. Give practical advice and help to the Hitler Youth, both in relation to recreational programs and camp activities.12
Maurer’s concern with the themes of nature and the German landscape, with German and Nordic Germanic folklore, and patriotic elements shows a clear correspondence with the themes emphasized in pre-Nazi times by the German Youth movement and in children’s literature by Severin Rüttgers. Even the emphasis on the Führer, the “New Reich,” Germandom abroad, and the Hitler Youth in part could still have been understood as a continuation of Volkish-political thought that prevailed during the twenties. In particular Maurer’s attempt to revive the old folk traditions presented a skillful link between older popular trends and new directions in children’s literature. Whereas the book selections in Maurer’s Guides readily betrayed the exclusive concern with German themes, past and present, and a strong racial bias, the criteria as listed did not yet sufficiently alert those who had begun to look suspiciously upon the Nazis’ literary policies.
When a few years later the National Socialist Teachers Association stated the criteria and requirements of Volkish literature as pertaining to children and youth, the guidelines clearly revealed not only a racial bias but also the crucial role to be played by children’s literature in National Socialist folk education. It was now evident that the values derived from a new interpretation of the Nordic Germanic past were to be utilized for the purpose of an ideological indoctrination. Whereas Maurer had referred to folktales, myths, and sagas only in relation to traditional language patterns, the National Socialist Teachers Association emphasized the Nordic hero’s “attitude toward fate” and his “inner victory in spite of a possible defeat,” by associating both with the developing war ethics of the German folk community of the present time. All children’s books would have to do justice to the German people, they wrote, namely by promoting a spirit of service and sacrifice for the German folk community, as well as by expressing confidence in the nation’s victory. They should also convey to the young reader the need to accept one’s fate with an attitude of confidence, an “inner victory,” regardless of the outcome of a given battle. In this spirit writers should convincingly portray tragic and heroic characters, so as to appeal to young people. They concluded that such an attitude could be portrayed only by writers of German blood “and of racially related origin.”13
GREAT HEROES OF GERMAN HISTORY
(From a Hitler Youth Yearbook)
Plate 11
King Henry “believed in the eastward expansion of the German Reich . . .”
Plate 12
Ulrich von Hutten “fought for the people’s rights.”
The major emphasis in this definition of the role of children’s literature lies in its needed support of the German “fighting spirit.” In that sense, children’s books, like all literature, represented an ideological “weapon” for the Nazis to establish the principle that the present was a direct continuation of the past, and that National Socialism demanded the same type of heroism as the Nordic
