In The Presence of Mine Enemies - Setting - Society - Education

Education

School is the tool with which the German Reich indoctrinates and controls the citizenry, starting in their youth. Corporal punishment is practiced in schools; it punishes actions such as disrespecting a superior, not doing one's school work, and for not knowing the correct answers to teachers' questions in the classroom. The school year occupies most of the calendar year, with the only major holidays being the end-of-the-year, two-week holiday between Christmas and the New Year, and the week-long break after Easter Sunday. The remainder of the year is school work, though one-day holidays occur infrequently.

The Hitler Jugend and Bund Deutscher Mädel are compulsory for children in the German Reich; the Nazi gender roles having changed little since their foundation. At the story's end, the Hitler Jugend implements changes towards preparing boys into becoming responsible, adult citizens rather than army conscripts.

The Reich education system is only for Germany; allied states and occupied territories control their own education systems. In the U.S., American children have long summer holidays from school, a fact German teachers emphasize as one of the reasons the German Reich defeated America.

German academics have key roles in the processes of racial discrimination and genocide. The German Institute for Racial Studies, part of Friedrich Wilhelm University, is charged with defining which peoples and ethnic groups of the "Germanic Empire" are subhuman and so marked for genocide or slavery. At its side, as the smiling face of the Reich, is the German Institute for Foreigners (founded 1922), charged with instructing those foreigners who fortunately were classed as "Aryans", such as Iranians and Indians, in the German language and culture.

Academic life is male-dominated. Although it is possible for a woman to have an academic career, only a few do, and they face great difficulties and must engage in daily, petty struggles to gain privileges that are granted to men. Under Reich sexism, an assertive woman might be accused that she is "not a proper National Socialist woman"; however, such attitudes are regarded as old-fashioned and are challenged by the younger people.