October 26, 2006--Dear Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for correcting me on the year Hitler took power. Yes, of course it was in 1933--I was probably thinking of the invasion of the Rhineland when I wrote 1936, or really not thinking about it too much at all, since the main points were a) that Hitler came into power legally, and b) that compulsory school attendance was never universally enforced in Germany until 1938. (I've taken the liberty of correcting the date in my blog entry, as well as erasing one of the duplicate messages you posted.)

It's also worth noting that there WAS no "German" compulsory school attendance law before 1938, as education (Schulrecht) was the responsibility of the individual Länder (the states)--and Hitler, of course, did away with the Länder.

I'm curious, also, why you said that the first compulsory school attendance law in Germany was in 1763, and which part of modern Germany you meant? Or were you just quoting the Wikipedia article, a questionable (to my mind) source? (Although the article admittedly DOES support my point: that until 1938, "compulsory school attendance" actually meant "compulsory education" and was not enforced.) That seems a somewhat arbitrary date, as the Weimarische Schulordnung of 1619 already did say that children could be forced to attend school if necessary, and there were other laws both before and after that implying the same thing, although not (that I could find) so forcefully. As for "all over Germany since 1882", I was only able to find something about a law in Prussia in 1872 (perhaps one or the other is a typo) which removed the responsibility to oversee education from the church and gave it to the state. Interestingly, despite these supposed school attendance laws from the 1700s, 1600s, or perhaps even earlier, in 1816 only 60% of school-aged children in all of Prussia were attending school; in some parts only 20-40% were attending school. Yet in 1871, Germany was considered to have the highest education standards in the world, so the government saw no reason to force school attendance. Until Hitler, though, although it was CALLED "school attendance", it was treated as compulsory education, so many children were still taught at home by educated people, either their parents or hired tutors. Until the Reichsschulpflichtgesetz of 1938, there were also many private schools in Germany, which Hitler also made illegal.

It would be nice if you would tell me who you are. I appreciate constructive criticism, but have the impression that you are more interested in contesting what I say than in actually assisting me. I'd be more than happy to have a reason to change that impression! I assume that you speak German, since you did quote an article in German, so perhaps you would be interested in reading Prof. Dr. Peter Kraft's report about the development of compulsory school attendance in Germany? The title is "Bericht an das Seminar über einige drängende Fragen betreffs die Entstehung der Schulpflicht sowie meine Erforschung derselben in ausgewählten Schriften", presentend in 1991, printed from the internet by us in 2001. The website unfortunately no longer exists, and when I googled, I found Professor Kraft's website which he has officially closed down as of only 11 days ago (October 15th of this year), and a limited amount of information at www.homeschooling.de. If you find the report, I'd be happy to have a link, and if not, if you're willing to reveal your address, I'd be happy to send you a photocopy of the report.