Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Communist East Germany: Youth Indoctrination

In East Germany, as well as most other communist countires, the philosophy of naturalistic materialism was implanted to try and replace Christianity and other Western thought. The youth, of course, were the target in the GDR (German Democratic Republic, or DDR in German). I want to point out some of the methods used to break the spirit of the youth and indoctrinate them into this atheistc philosophy.

The GDR implemented a concept called Jugendweihe (literally "youth consecration"), a rite of passage for 14 year olds. This source describes Jugendweihe :

Building on a socialist tradition, the GDR worked hard to establish the Jugendweihe, something of a rite of passage for 14-year-olds. It was intended, among other things, to replace the Christian ceremony of Confirmation, and inspire the youth with a love of socialism and the German Democratic Republic. By 1989, over 5,000 committees involving 150,000 volunteers organized the ceremonies. Leading up to the ceremony itself was a series of meetings to prepare participants for the event, and remind them of the glories of socialism. This is material for leaders of one such session in 1960. It is interesting that Stalin's works are still recommended reading...

[From primary material]

...The youth should recognize:

1. We need the scientific worldview of the working class if we are to really understand the social transformations and the great events of our day and are to contribute consciously to building socialism, the future of humanity.

2. The worldview of the working class is not just any "faith" in the progress of humanity, but rather a scientifically-based understanding of the world and its laws, whose truth and correctness are constantly proven by new scientific-technical achievements.

3. With the help of a scientific worldview we can not only explain everything in nature and society, but also become capable of changing the world in ways that put it in the service of human progress. It is therefore a weapon of the working class.

4. The socialist worldview gives people the strength to fight bravely for the best ideals of humanity...

...With the example of two contradictory characters from the book or the film, we can make clear that there are differing worldviews, progressive and reactionary, which despite differences in detail lead back to two fundamental worldviews: the materialist scientific, and the idealistic unscientific.

The boys and girls should understand why we speak of the materialist worldview of the working class as the scientific worldview. (We do not discuss religious views of the world, and do not want to discuss other idealistic worldviews.)

The working class depends on the discoveries of astronomy, physics and chemistry, and bases its worldview on the discoveries of natural sciences as well as on the knowledge of the laws that govern the life of society,...


One book used to "guide" the youth through this process is called Der Sozialismus- Deine Welt (Socialism- your world. Note that the form of "you" used is very personal and intimate, as opposed to the formal "Ihre").




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(Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin, 1975 )


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(To the memory of the Jugendweihe dedicated by the Central committee for Jugendweihe in the German Democratic Republic)

In this book, there are some clear elements of removing hope from the youth and teaching them that there only choice is to join the socialist cause. First the youth are taught that man is a descendant of apes.

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Next the youth are shown how man had to struggle for hundreds of thousands of years (after "evolving" for millions) to get to the technological point they now have established.




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Then the youth are told that the earth travels around the sun; and basically they are told that we are nothing but an averaged sized planet, travelling around an averaged sized sun, in an average sized galaxy,...




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Next God (and thus Christianity / Judaism) is mocked:




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How could a society which teaches their youth these things expect to survive?

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow, so I guess we were thinking the same thing today. Good blog/research.

-Catholic Dude
(Catholic Answers Forums)

Tuesday, November 21, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Then the youth are told that the earth travels around the sun; and basically they are told that we are nothing but an averaged sized planet, travelling around an averaged sized sun, in an average sized galaxy,..."

They lie! It's a geocentric universe...don't they know anything?

Can I have a banana now?

-Agnostic "Dude"
Subjective Answers Forums

Sunday, November 26, 2006  
Blogger 🐰 said...

Seine is not formal; it's the third person masculine; Ihre is the formal second person possessive pronoun. As the book is written by adults for children, Deine does seem like the only reasonable choice, at least to me, though I'm certainly not fluent in German.

Saturday, January 20, 2007  
Blogger kenner116 said...

It is indoctrination, but it doesn't seem any worse than the Catholic equivalent. Mocking other religions is definitely wrong though. But there is nothing wrong with teaching evolution, as it basically a scientific fact. It is sad that this was mandatory, but I wouldn't see a problem with it if it was voluntary.

Monday, February 26, 2007  
Blogger Kobayashi Maru said...

Just ran across your post here doing some research for a novel I'm writing. Invaluable. Thank you. The parallels with today's secular-humanist indoctrination in public education are truly frightening.

Friday, June 29, 2007  
Blogger Steve said...

The youth in the GDR suffered a lot of indoctrination, no argue about that. But the examples you picked are ludicrous and mock the real problems that were a result of the indoctrination.
When I read stuff like your posts one could think that some individuals on earth have been forgotten by evolution, or "the intelligent designer", if you prefer.

Thursday, January 03, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Catholics still have a problem with heliocentrism? That's the impression I got from reading your blog, congrats.

This whole stupid indocrination thing was based on Confirmation, an equally worthless experience I was also subjected to. So thanks for inspiring the Commies I guess?

Tuesday, June 19, 2012  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does happiness even exist anymore

Thursday, November 15, 2012  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice knowledge gaining article. This post is really the best on this valuable topic. indoctrination

Sunday, May 05, 2019  

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