Abstract (eng)
This master's thesis presents the role and situation of teachers as well as the changes in teacher training during the Nazi dictatorship. The focus is the pressure of the Nazi system on teachers in their everyday working lives and the measures that were taken at Teacher Training colleges to form ideologically convinced and loyal future teachers. Furthermore, this work explores the curriculum reform of 1941 and its effects on the Teacher Training institutions, in particular on the training of female teachers in Krems and that of teachers in St. Pölten. Methodologically, this thesis is based on a combination of an analysis of different written sources (legal texts, decrees and ordinances, chronicles, newspaper and magazine texts, Goebbels Diaries, etc.) from different locations (archives, main and specialist libraries of the University of Vienna, digital historical platforms) and a comparative study of the specialist literature regarding the research questions. In addition, some interviews conducted by the author themself and several biographies of contemporary witnesses from the “Austrian Mediathek” are used to gain further knowledge. Despite their aversion to and distrust of teachers, the leading Nazis soon realized that they needed teachers to convey their ideology and indoctrinate young people. Therefore, in addition to the superiors, the National Socialist Teachers' Association exerted massive pressure on the teachers through its direct influence on staffing, the colleagues who were loyal to the system and the HJ leaders among the students. The focus of Teacher Training differed according to gender: while at the teacher training colleges, such as in St. Pölten, sport and physical training were the top priorities among the prospective teachers, manual labor and housekeeping were promoted in Krems. The introduction of new subjects (biology and "racial studies", "racial studies working group", folklore, etc.) was intended to ensure the goal of the five-year training course: to form a junior National Socialist teacher who was obedient to the authorities. The “new” teachers first had to be National Socialists, physically trained and resilient, and then just teachers.