The Himmler's SS (28 page)

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Himmler realised only too well that it was essential that the best minds among the youth of Germany should be cultivated to ensure a continual pool of talent willing and able to fill the highest positions in the hierarchies of the SS and National Socialist state. University lecturers and school teachers were actively encouraged to join the Allgemeine-SS, and Fritz Wächtler, the head of the NS-Lehrerbund or Nazi Teachers' League, was given the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer. The ultimate aim was that the most selective schools and colleges should be dominated by the SS.

On 20 April 1933, Dr Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister for Science, Education and Culture, set up the first of a series of special residential schools to train the future Germanic élite. They were termed National Political Educational Institutes, or Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten, commonly abbreviated to NPEA or Napolas, although the latter term was unpopular because it sounded too Italian. Three were opened during the course of 1933, at Plön in Schleswig-Holstein, Potsdam in Berlin and Köslin in Pomerania. Five more (Spandau, Naumburg, Ilfeld, Stuhm and Oranienstein) followed in 1934, with a further eight (Bensburg, Ballenstedt, Backnang, Rottweil, Klotzsche, Neuzelle, Schulpforte and Wahlstatt) the next year. Favourite locations were old army cadet schools, requisitioned monasteries or refurbished castles.

The motto of the NPEA was ‘Mehr sein als scheinen', which is perhaps most meaningfully translated as ‘Be Modest, but Always Excel'. The end product of these schools was to be a political soldier who could be entrusted with the leadership of any type of public service activity. Each establishment received an average of 400 applications for admission annually, of which around 100 were successful. A comprehensive academic education encompassing history, geography, music, the arts, languages, politics, mathematics, biology, physics and chemistry was provided for boys between the ages of ten and eighteen years, and there was also a strong emphasis on physical training. Specialisation, both academic and sporting, was encouraged. Some Napolas aimed at producing scientists, others linguists, and a number of pupils were allowed to concentrate on developing their skills in rowing, boxing, fencing, riding, skiing, yachting, gliding, and so on. The boys came from all walks of life, and where parents could not afford payment of tuition the fees were usually waived.

One of the more original features of the NPEA was the importance placed on practical education. The younger boys had to spend six to eight weeks of each year working on a farm, while the older pupils served down mines or in factories. The idea was that they should discover the ‘nobility of manual labour' and avoid the temptations of class exclusiveness. The knowledge and experience gained found their practical application in spring and autumn paramilitary exercises, holiday hikes and organised travel abroad. The structure of each school was patterned after the military. Some establishments carried on the traditions of certain famous German army regiments, and the teachers lived in the schools with the pupils. NPEA boys were known as Jungmannen, and were divided into Hundertschaften, or companies, of one hundred. Each of these was subdivided into three Züge, or platoons, with about thirty boys. In turn, each Zug was split into three Gruppen of about ten boys apiece. The Hundertschaftsführer, Zugführer and Gruppenführer were pupils who fulfilled the combined functions of a school prefect and a military academy Cadet NCO. NPEA graduates were highly sought after by the Wehrmacht as potential officers, and those who went on to university could rely on the NSDAP to assist them financially.

From the outset, control of the NPEA schools was hotly contested by various party bodies. The original mentor of the NPEA system, Joachim Haupt, was an SA officer, and he fell from favour after the ‘Night of the Long Knives' in June 1934. Dr Robert Ley, head of the Labour Front, then tried openly to attract the Napolas into his own sphere of influence, but his project encountered such strong opposition from the Ministry of Education that he relented and set up the rival Adolf Hitler Schools with the support of Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth. As always, Heinrich Himmler acted unobtrusively but with the utmost skill. From the time of the first public festivities organised by the NPEA in 1934, he took pains to be invited along and presented to the staff as an honoured guest. In July of that year, the Reichsführung-SS volunteered to assume the responsibility of paying for Napola clothing and equipment, and also began to provide scholarships and tuition fees for ethnic German students. On 9 March 1936, SS commitment to the schools was rewarded with the appointment of SS-Obergruppenführer August Heissmeyer as Inspector-General of the NPEA. He set up his own HQ, the Hauptamt Dienststelle Heissmeyer, and subsequently required all NPEA personnel to enrol in the Allgemeine-SS. By 1940, the SS had completely taken over the Napolas, with full powers of decision in matters relating to curriculum and staff appointments. The selection of new Jungmannen was determined by RuSHA, and the NPEA commandants and teachers were subjected to SS discipline.

Two schoolboys from NPEA Naumburg taking pictures during the winter solstice celebrations in 1941. Note the SS-inspired Sig-Rune insignia worn on the left arm.

Proficiency Badge for ten-to fourteen-year-olds in the Deutsche Jungvolk, the junior branch of the Hitler Youth. The SS influence on the runic design of this award is unmistakable.

The rhythm of Napola life was thereafter based on that of the SS. Conventional religion was abolished from the curriculum and replaced by the study of pagan Germanic rites. The celebration of Julfest, the SS Christmas, brought the pupils together to worship the Child of the Sun, arisen from his ashes at the winter solstice. New school songs commemorated the struggle between day and night, and praised the eternal return of light. The night of 21 June became the Night of the Sun, when the boys mounted a ‘Joyous Guard' awaiting the sun's triumphal reappearance. Lectures were given on racial superiority and SS ideology, and emphasis was placed on duty, courage and personal obligation. The SS influence on the NPEA was also apparent in its dress, with the adoption of SS-style daggers and insignia. After 1940, a new scheme of ranks which was entirely SS in form was introduced for NPEA staff, as follows:

With the needs of Lebensborn and similar SS organisations in mind, the first all-girl NPEA school was opened in 1941 at Achern in Baden, to be followed shortly thereafter by two more. Some of the previously allmale schools subsequently admitted female pupils and staff. No less than twenty-seven new Napolas were founded between 1941 and 1942, and with the enormous expansion of the NPEA programme during the war SS influence became paramount. For example, VOMI ensured that the school at Rufach included a substantial number of young Volksdeutsche from Bessarabia and Bukovina in the student body. Three schools known as NPEA Reichsschulen were set up in the occupied western territories specifically to take in non-German Nordic pupils, the future leaders of the Germanic-SS. The Reichsschule Flandern at Kwatrecht in Flanders, opened in September 1943, was equipped to accom-modate some 800 boys, although it never managed to enrol more than 120, all under the age of fourteen. It was commanded by SS-Obersturmführer Paul Steck. The Reichsschule Niederlande für Jungen at Valkenburg in Holland took Dutch boys and was ‘twinned' with its nearest German counterpart, the NPEA Bensburg, with regular exchanges of students and staff between the two establishments. The closely associated all-female Reichsschule Niederlande für Mädchen was located at nearby Heithuijsen, and was run by a pro-Nazi Dutch baroness.

In December 1944, by virtue of his successes with the NPEA and Reichsschulen, and his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army, Himmler was appointed by Hitler to be supervisor of all schools from which future Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS officers could be recruited. In theory, that put him in charge of almost every educational establishment in the Third Reich and conquered countries!

Himmler's long-term plans made it desirable that the SS should control not only junior and secondary schools, but also the centres of higher learning. Nazi students' groups had been formed at some German universities as early as 1922, but these were simply gatherings of students who had enrolled in the NSDAP. It was not until February 1926 that a separate student organisation, the National Socialist German Students' League (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund or NSDSt.B), was established at Munich University under Baldur von Schirach. He organised the NSDSt.B into ten districts, each under a Kreisführer, and membership was extended to include students at Technical Colleges, Trade Schools and Business Colleges. Ultimately, the proportion of NSDSt.B members at university was lower than that of those attending the other centres of further education. They were encouraged to join the SA and take part in military sports, but less than half did so, many balking at the thought of associating with the party's rougher elements. By January 1933 the NSDSt.B still had only 6,300 male and 750 female members. Even after the Nazi assumption of power, enrolment in the organisation was not made obligatory for all students. On the contrary, membership was deliberately selective and restricted to 5 per cent of the student body. As the NPEA accepted only the cream of German school pupils, so the NSDSt.B would take on only the best and most reliable students in further education. Each university or institute of higher learning had an NSDSt.B Stamm-Mannschaft, or regular company, limited to not more than sixty individuals, all of whom had already to be members of the NSDAP, SA, SS, NSKK or HJ. They signed on for at least a year, and their task was to act as political leaders among their fellow students.

Both Himmler, who had a degree in agriculture, and the NSDAP Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess, a history graduate and SS-Obergruppenführer, took a keen interest in NSDSt.B matters. Hess spoke of it as ‘a sort of intellectual SS', and Himmler hoped that it would furnish the future élite of the party. They saw it as a natural extension of the NPEA system, which would continue to oversee those boys and girls from the Napolas who had proved themselves capable of further education. The two were instrumental in the setting up of a new office, the Reich Student Leadership (Reichsstudentenführung or RSF), in November 1936. It had ultimate control over both the NSDSt.B and the ordinary German Student Association (Deutsche Studentenschaft or DSt.) to which all German students automatically belonged. Command of the RSF was given to SS-Obergruppenführer Dr Gustav-Adolf Scheel, who was nominated Reichsstudentenführer. From that time on, student affairs began to be heavily influenced by the SS. NSDSt.B members were soon kitted out in a dark-blue uniform derived from the garb of the Allgemeine-SS and the Hitler Youth. Scheel set up the NS-Altherrenbund der Deutschen Studenten, a new Nazi alumni organisation, and forced the existing associations of former students to affiliate with it on pain of otherwise being barred from further participation in student affairs. Only the Catholic alumni bodies refused to capitulate, and they were subsequently outlawed by Himmler. As a result, all financial contributions and legacies from ‘old boys' had to be channelled through the Altherrenbund, and so were controlled by the RSF and, ultimately, the SS.