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Education under Radical Change: Education Policy and the Youth Program of the United States in Postwar Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Karl-Heinz Fuessl  and
Gregory Paul Wegner
Karl-Heinz Fuessl
Affiliation:
American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University
Gregory Paul Wegner
Affiliation:
Foundations of Educational Policy at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
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Extract

The American introduction of a youth program in postwar Germany was exceptional in German history. Youth experts in the American Military Government introduced public youth work that was unprecedented in both form and degree. The program was only loosely executed by public administrators and excluded only those youth who had held responsible positions in Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. The American intention to place German youth work in the hands of the youth themselves—a feature of American youth policy that was unique to the German experience—compares favorably with present-day standards. The Americans developed a youth policy and implemented it through a program which, in the long run, achieved notable success.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , Spring 1996 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1. This essay originated in a research project supported by the Federal Secretary of the Interior and the Foundation Preussische Seehandlung conducted through the Department of History and Communications Sciences at the Technical University in Berlin; Boehnisch, Lothar, Jugendarbeit in der Diskussion: Paedagogische und politische Perspektiven (Munich, 1973).Google Scholar

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