- published: 19 Jul 2015
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Dr. Bernhard Rust (30 September 1883 — 8 May 1945) was Minister of Science, Education and National Culture (Reichserziehungsminister) in Nazi Germany. A combination of school administrator and zealous Nazi, he issued decrees, often bizarre, at every level of the German educational system to immerse German youth in the National Socialist philosophy.
Rust was born in Hannover, and obtained a doctorate in German philology and philosophy. After passing the state teaching examination in 1908 he became a high school teacher at Hannover's Ratsgymnasium, then served in the army during World War I. He reached the rank of lieutenant and was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery.
Rust joined the NSDAP in 1922, and became the district leader for Hannover and Brunswick. In 1930, he was elected to the Reichstag. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Rust was appointed as the Prussian Minister for Cultural Affairs. On 1 June 1934, he was selected as Minister of Science, Education and National Culture (Reichsminister für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung), and set about to reshape the German educational system to conform to his ideals of National Socialism. Considered by many to be mentally unstable, Rust would spuriously create new regulations and then repeal them just as quickly. One noted example was in 1935, when he changed the traditional six-day school week to five days, with Saturday to be "Reich's Youth Day" when children in the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls would be out of school for study and testing. He then ordered the creation of a "rolling week", with six days for study, followed by the "youth day" and a rest day, in 8-day periods. Thus, a rolling week starting on Monday would end with rest on the following Monday; the next rolling week would start on Tuesday and end 8 days later on the next Tuesday. When the 8-day week proved unworkable, Rust went back to the former system.
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.