4 - Writing about German Literature: Examination and Text Forms in the French Occupation Zone, 1945–1949

Summary

Abstract

This chapter shows what new insights into mother-tongue teaching and its history can be gained by looking at the practice of testing. A particular historical case is used, namely, the introduction of the Zentralabitur after World War II by the French occupation forces in southwestern Germany. The chapter outlines how the French implemented a form of directly competitive examination anchored in their country and how teachers of German literature classes reacted to the new examination system. Using student essays written as part of a competition and judged by teachers, the author traces how German literary culture and ideas about individual-authentic writing on literature come to the fore anew despite the adoption of testing practices from France.

Keywords: History of German language teaching; literature teaching; student essays; examinations; Zentralabitur; school policy; occupation policy; transnational history of education; Franco-German relations; school history of Baden-Württemberg

School, (Re-)education and Teaching German in post-World War II Germany

On October 1, 1945, schools were reopened in the French occupation zone. The pupils came without books, without notebooks, without writing materials, with hungry stomachs. The windows in the classrooms were broken. Heating was not possible. There were no clothes to buy. There were no curricula or teaching instructions.

The situation in German schools after the Second World War was difficult, especially in the immediate post-war period between 1945 and 1949. The population suffered from housing shortages and often from malnutrition. Not only were many school buildings destroyed, there was a lack of (politically unencumbered) teachers, there were no new curricula at first, and no new teaching materials for a long time. Mentally, the people in Germany suffered greatly as well: liberated and yet burdened after the long war, they were confronted with the crimes of National Socialism and had to deal with possible personal guilt. The efforts of the Allies, which—in different ways—aimed at a democratization of schools and teaching in Germany, were therefore faced with the great challenge of a necessary ‘rethinking’, a necessary change of mind.

Because of its “mood-forming power”, teaching German in schools was attributed a special role in counteracting the “brutalization and flattening through education and life in the last decade and strengthening inwardness and reverence”.