all the insights gained through theories of education and psychology pertaining to child development. In the first place, it was necessary to recognize that books for children had to have “childlike” qualities (without being childish or condescending in tone or simplistic in regard to the illustrations). This meant that it would have to recognize children’s needs while appealing to the child’s way of thinking and the child’s imagination. Such an approach to criticism found strong support among the members of the Children’s Literature Association, most of whom represented teachers who were informed about child development, and it is still widely accepted today.43
The second challenge came from the Socialist Party, the SPD, claiming that Wolgast, in his over-emphasis on aesthetic criteria, had not given enough attention to the needs of workers’ children. On the contrary, his sharp criticism of so-called “tendentious literature” had come into direct conflict with the promotional efforts of the SPD and its ideology and should be retracted or amended. During an official meeting of the National Children’s Literature Association, this criticism gained a hearing, but it was not recognized as valid. Upon a long discussion of the matter, the leader of the Socialist Party retracted his own letter of complaint while in principle acknowledging the validity of the Association’s concern with quality control based on Wolgast’s ideas.44 For Wolgast himself this was a real victory.
A third and more serious challenge came from Severin Rüttgers, an educator who had well established his reputation in children’s literature circles by his publications on the literary education of elementary school children. He attacked Wolgast, and with him the entire Art Education movement, for having been too “bookish” and too “aesthetic” in their evaluation of art and literature for children. In particular, he accused Wolgast of having labelled sound patriotism in children’s books as “chauvinistic trends.” Such an approach to criticism revealed nothing less than that Wolgast himself lacked warm feelings for the fatherland, possibly because he simply lacked patriotism. As early as 1913 Rüttgers had previously denounced some trends in German education as “unpatriotic” and “sterile” on a similar basis, while coming to the conclusion that aestheticism was derived from an unhealthy overemphasis on a humanistic-classical education. Rüttgers reasoned, then and now, that as an antidote to such a trend teachers should place a greater emphasis on German and Nordic Germanic folklore in their reading curricula at all levels, so as to build up in children a love of home and country. In fact, it was quite sufficient, he wrote, if elementary school children read nothing else but German and Nordic Germanic folktales, myths, and legends, in addition to some medieval chapbooks, and, perhaps, some regional ballads.45
Much of the discussion on this issue was carried on in various issues of the Jugendschriften-Warte, especially after World War I. The editors gave equal space to Wolgast and Rüttgers, but it appeared that Wolgast was in a defensive position throughout. Nevertheless, he stated quite clearly that, while he had never denied the value of a German and Nordic Germanic folklore emphasis, he had consistently rejected chauvinism in children’s books like any other type of didacticism, be it of a religious or secular nature. Children’s books should never be used as a means to another end, he concluded emphatically.46
During the following years it became evident that Rüttgers had won the argument as far as the majority of the teachers were concerned. Although opinions were still divided among them as a professional group, the Volkish-political orientation gradually took the upper hand, and with it also the nationalistic folklore trend. Many publishing houses by the mid-twenties were printing an abundance of German and Nordic Germanic folklore for children and youth, which, in turn, made this reading material more readily available to teachers. Rüttgers himself edited the series Blaue Bändchen (Little Blue Volumes) and Quellen (Sources) and also contributed to folklore publications creatively by rewriting a number of myths and legends of the Nordic Germanic tradition for children and youth. Among these, his Nordische Heldensagen (Nordic Hero Tales) was well received by the younger generation.47
By 1922 Rüttgers had underscored the significance of national literature and folklore at a national children’s literature convention, while calling them representative of “German blood and German fate.”48 The literary critics Josef Prestel49 and Irene Graebsch50 early during the Nazi period still commended him for his strong stand on behalf of a renewal of the German national identity from the sources of German and Nordic Germanic folklore. Graebsch at that time expressed her admiration for his deep faith in “the one and only future” (die ganze und einzige Zukunft). In her view, Severin Rüttgers’ publications, along with Leopold Weber’s children’s books on Norse mythology and the Nordic sagas, Theodor Seidenfaden’s Heldenbuch (Book of Heroes), Will Vesper’s version of the Nibelungenlied, but also the regional “Volkish” tales of Blunck, Matthiessen, and Watzlik, had well prepared the ground for the new orientation under National Socialism. As the National Socialists did not yet have their own writers, she explained, it was only “natural” that they should turn to those older works that corresponded to their line of thinking.51 Prestel and Graebsch were remarkably uncritical in their evaluation of National Socialism and its uses of folklore, while presenting the case as if the Nazis were merely continuing a well established “natural” and innocent trend.
A closer examination of trends in children’s literature during the twenties will reveal, however, that they were still characterized by variety rather than uniformity, and that in the educational policy of the Weimar Republic some reform movements were underway that might have paved the way to democracy and a true concept of freedom. The folklore emphasis in the twenties was characterized by nationalistic tendencies, yet it was not yet exclusive of other cultures and traditions. A number of works appeared for children that introduced them to other lands as well. Rüttgers himself did not only publish works on Norse mythology but also on the legends of the saints, for example. His Gottesfreunde (The Friends of God) certainly did not correspond to “Volkish thought” of Nazism, and neither did Weismantel’s Blumenlegende (Flower Legends) or Arntzen’s Vom Heiland und seinen Freunden (The Savior and His Friends). Further, there was a movement toward contemporary themes in children’s books. Erich Kästner’s Emil und die Detektive (Emil and the Detectives) focused on self-reliant street boys in Berlin who in superb coordination tried to solve their own case problems. The Children’s Literature Association in Hamburg recommended this book in 1930,52 along with others that were concerned with modern problems, such as Scharrelmann’s Piddl Hundertmark (Piddl One-Hundred-Marks), Newerow’s Taschkent, die brotreiche Stadt (Tashkent, the Corn-Rich City), Beumelberg’s Sperrfeuer um Deutschland (Fire Surrounding Germany) and Remarque’s Im Westen Nichts Neues (All’s Quiet on the Western Front). It is remarkable that the last book was still recommended at this date, for three years later it was one of the first ones to be thrown onto the public bonfires and—on account of its pacifist theme—to be banished from all school and public libraries.
Translations from other languages, too, enriched the field of children’s literature during the twenties. Particularly at this time, Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn met with a great success, and also Kipling’s books for young people were very popular. Quite a number of books were translated from the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, too, among them Marie Hamsun’s Langerrudkinder (The Langerrud Children), Westergaard’s Per von der Düne (Peter of the Dunes) and Floden’s Harald und Ingrid (Harald and Ingrid), although we may speculate that these works corresponded again to the Nordic orientation of the “Volkish” trend. Nevertheless, the trend was still well balanced by the classics from many lands available to children and youth in various editions. In spite of nationalistic tendencies there were no restrictions placed on international literature, as far as the public schools or libraries were concerned.53
Between 1924 and 1925 the Prussian Ministry of Education published curricular guidelines for elementary and high schools in Germany, which had been worked out in cooperation with representatives of the teaching profession. These guidelines were not mandatory, however, and left each school enough freedom to work
