Indoctrination Of Youth

Michelle Thomas

ENG 3U1 – 05

Ms. Clark

February 5, 2018

The Indoctrination of Youth

In a speech in 1935, at the Reichsparteitag, Adolf Hitler declared “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future,” Hitler, like many other political leaders, saw the indoctrination of youth as of critical importance as when Hitler had succeeded in “owning” a complete generation of idealistic German youth with ideas concerning racial and national superiority that was key to Nazi ideology. Those youth were the ones who carried out without question the violence of the second word war. Manipulating youth from a young age was the key to the success of the country during the war. Nazi Germany’s political regime under Adolf Hitler greatly resembles the party in George

In both Nazi Germany and Airstrip One, the education received is what leads to the level of belief and acceptance of knowledge of youth. A Nazi curriculum was enforced in schools, but the information delivered depended on the teachers. However, as all teachers had to be appraised/vetted by local Nazi officials, any teacher that was deemed disloyal by officials were removed from the education system and not permitted to teach German youth. Many teachers attended classes throughout the year in which the new Nazi curriculum complete with new changes of information was taught. 97% of all teachers joined the Nazi Teachers’ Association, those who did not during the beginning of the movement were later forced to otherwise they would have there teaching license revoked. Teachers had to always be careful about what they said around youth as they were encouraged to inform the authorities if a teacher were to say something that did not come in line with Nazi curriculum/ideology. In schools, textbooks also underwent changes; biology and history were most affected. History now spoke of the glory of Germany their fatherland and the magnificent feats that the country had accomplished under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. Biology was changed the most, as it

Winston states “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed if all records told the same tale then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” (Orwell, 98?). This perfectly encompasses the severity of the censorship of information present in Airstrip One. Growing up constantly being thrown the ideology of the Party, youth would believe the ideas thrown at the for example if the party was to announce that two plus two equals four, all of the brainwashed Party-worshipping youth would believe the Party when they said that it equaled five despite there being no evidence to prove that this is an accurate statement. Winston claims that, “It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children… for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak— “child hero” …had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his/her parents to the Thought Police.” Both Nazi and 1984 youth both were trained to act like a police force in order to monitor the actions of the people in their lives. Both Nazis and the Party used the censorship of information as a way to manipulate the youth