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From: martillo@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU (Yakim Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Air raid on Libya (German Opinion)
Message-ID: <351@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 27-Apr-86 22:41:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-tril.351
Posted: Sun Apr 27 22:41:28 1986
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From the Wall Street Journal, Wednesday April 9, 1986, p. 33
by Enno von Loewenstern editorial page editor of die Zeit.

Bonn -- "America's claim to world domination can also be recognized in
the political principles of the Potsdam agreement.  The United States
could agree only to a socio-political system that guaranteed it the
strongest political and economic influence."

This hypothesis was presented to the pupils of a Hamburg high school
with the request that they find proof for it in the text of the
Potsdam agreement itself.  One pupil who didn't recognize a claim to
world domination in this agreement received a low grade.  To the
charge that there might be a subtle campaign to defame the U.S. in
Hamburg's schools, the education minister for the state of Hamburg,
Joist Grolle, indignantly responded in the negative.

But the subtle campaign existed then, and it lives on.  Mr.  Grolle, a
member of the city-state's ruling Social Democratic Party, advised
Hamburg teachers in 1985 to call America's Strategic Defense
Initiative "a station on the way to a new war"  when they spoke of the
program in the classroom.  Although the opposition Christian
Democratic Party demanded his resignation for this recommendation, Mr.
Grolle was supported by the Social Democrats and kept his job.

And Hamburg is no isolated case.  Back in 1984, Chancellor Helmut Kohl
complained that West German schoolchildren learn far too little about
why the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded.  He condemned
the new-style "peace education" that equates democratic and
totalitarian states and "denies the indissoluble correlation of peace
with liberty."

Schools in West Germany's conservative-run states generally don't
indoctrinate students against the U.S.  But in Social Democratic-run
states like Hamburg or Bremen, peace education is promoted.

An English grammar book used in some states is a good example.  It
deals mainly with two subjects: violence in the U.S. and injustice to
the American Indians.  The cover of a world history book treating the
period since 1776 is adorned with a picture not of Bismarck or
Lincoln, but of a peace demonstration.  The same book devotes a
chapter to "Imperialism of the U.S.A," in the 19th century.  There is
no chapter on Russian imperialism.  Russia's conquests in Central Asia
and East Asia during the 19th century are hardly touched on.  The book
also condemns Hitler's crimes with commendable severity.  As for the
millions murdered in the Soviet Union, though, it merely says that
"numerous" people were jailed in Stalin's time and that "many" did not
survive.

Anti-Americanism and soft-pedaling Soviet infamies are but two
symptoms.  The slanting is also reflected in discussions of business.
Cracks about worker oppression and profit-grubbing bosses abound.  A
book for seven-year-olds teaches expropriation in a nursery rhyme.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful? 'Mine' and 'Yours' will be abolished!  Then
everyone will get what he needs..."

An investigation by a group of educators chaired by a professor at the
University of Cologne, Henning Guenther, in 1982 showed that about
half of all West German schoolbooks teaching the German language,
political science or religion criticize private property.  Some 80% of
German language books, 66% of books on social science, and 55% of
books on religion insist that West German society is a class society
with exploiters and "manipulators" and their victims.  The
descriptions given of labor's situation in West Germany are
frightening;  they speak of nine-hour work-days and hourly wages of
$1.20.  These are outdated by decades, but even the trade unions do
not protest although the books implicitly deny their achievements.

Law and justice are portrayed as protecting the rich and powerful.
Squatters' actions, for instance, are justified with horror stories
about exploitive landlords.  The family is a special object of
ridicule or defamation.  Stories of child abuse abound, and children
are advised to "resist," even to strike their parents.  Children are
taught that the family is a "field of conflict." Many religious books
attack the family and praise unmarried life in communes.  One book
proposes that children poll friends on the ideal parent and confront
their parents with the result.

Such books are the work of respected publishing houses whose spokesmen
admit they are distressed with some of their products but feel
compelled to publish them because activist bureaucrats in some culture
ministries recommend only books with such texts.  That alibi prompted
sociologist Helmut Schoeck to comment:  "Isn't that exactly the kind
of accommodation that these young pedagogues [who write these books]
charge was practiced by the schoolbook publishers of Hitler's time?"

Educators feel that the wave of "emancipatory" schoolbooks published
in the late 1960s has been receding since 1975.  But they admit that
most of the "class struggle" terminology is still present.  Most West
German children nevertheless grow up to become as sensible as adults
anywhere.  But there are those who claim that there is no use working
for a living because they are destined to die anyway as a result of
atomic bombs or environment poisoning.  And they feel that, even if
they do survive, work is sinnentleert, or empty of meaning, and they
will not submit to exploitation.  Many violently demonstrate in West
German streets, calling for a revolution, which may explain the
strategy behind those schoolbooks.