Education for Death
Encyclopedia
Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi is an animated
short film produced by Walt Disney
and released on January 15, 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the anti-Nazi propaganda book by Gregor Ziemer
, directed by Clyde Geronimi
and principally animated by Ward Kimball
. The short is based on the non-fiction book of the same name (ISBN 0-374-98905-2) by American author Gregor Ziemer
.
, who is bred to become a merciless soldier.
At the beginning of the film, a German couple prove to a Nazi supreme judge that they are
of pure Aryan
blood and agree to give their son, whom they name Hans at the approval of the judge, into the service of Adolf Hitler
and the Nazi Party. They are given a copy of Mein Kampf
by the judge as a reward for their service to Hitler. There then follows the only extended comical section of the cartoon, the tone of which is very light compared to the rest of the film. The audience is told that as Hans grows up, he hears a distorted version of Sleeping Beauty
depicting Hitler as the knight in shining armor rescuing Sleeping Beauty, an obese Valkyrie
representing Germany
, from a wicked witch, representing democracy
. Thanks to this kind of distorted children's story, Hans becomes fascinated with Hitler as he and the rest of the younger members of the Hitler Youth
give a portrait of him dressed as a knight the Hitler salute
.
In the following segment the audience sees Hans sick and bedridden. His mother prays for him, knowing it will only be a matter of time before the authorities come and take him away to serve Hitler, a Nazi officer bangs on the door to take Hans away, but his mother says he is sick and needs care. The officer orders her to heal her son quickly and have him ready to leave, implying if Hans does not get well, he will be euthanized
. He orders her not to do anything more to him that will cause him to lose heart and be weak, explaining that a soldier must show no emotion, mercy or feelings whatsoever. Hans eventually recovers and resumes his "education" in a school classroom, where Hans and the rest of his classmates all in Hitlerjugend uniforms, after giving portraits of Hitler, Hermann Göring
and Joseph Goebbels
the Hitler salute
, watch as the teacher draws a cartoon on the blackboard of a rabbit being eaten by a fox, prompting Hans to feel sorry for the rabbit. The teacher, furious over the remark, orders Hans to sit in the corner wearing a dunce cap
. As Hans sits in the corner as punishment, he hears the rest of the classmates "correctly" interpret the cartoon as "weakness has no place in a soldier" and "the strong shall rule the weak". This sparks Hans to recant his remark, and agrees that the weak must be destroyed.
Hans then takes part in a book-burning crusade, burning any books that oppose Hitler, replacing the Bible
with Mein Kampf and the crucifix
with a Nazi sword, and burning a Catholic Church. Hans then spends the next several years "Marching and heiling, heiling and marching!" until he reaches his teens (wearing a uniform similar to that of the Sturmabteilung
) still "marching and heiling" until he becomes an adult or "Good Nazi" (now in Wehrmacht
uniform) embroiled in hatred towards anyone else who opposes Hitler, "seeing nothing but what the party wants him to see, saying nothing but what the party wants him to say, and doing no more than the party wants him to do."
In the end, Hans and the rest of the Nazi soldiers march off to war only to fade into rows of identical graves, with nothing on them except a swastika and a helmet perched on top. Thus Hans's education is complete. "The education... for death."
(1940) which produced very little in the box office. Nearing bankruptcy
and faced with a strike that left less than half of his employees on the payroll, Walt Disney was forced to look for a solution to upturn the production of the studio. Physical proximity to the military aircraft manufacturer, Lockheed
, made it convenient for the U.S. government to offer Disney a contract for 32 short propaganda films at $4,500 each which would create work for his employees and in turn save the studio.
The dialogue of the characters is in German
, neither subtitled nor directly translated by Art Smith's lone English language
narration. A voice track of Adolf Hitler in full demagogic rant is used in a torchlight rally scene. A sequence follows in which Hans becomes a Nazi soldier along with other Hitler Youth.
Intended as anti-Nazi propaganda
during World War II
, the film is rarely shown today, but it is featured on the DVD
Walt Disney Treasures: On the Front Lines, a compilation of Disney's wartime shorts released on May 18, 2004.
The narrative story focuses around a group of youth that under the guidance of a Nazi storm trooper, Franzen, take a hiking trip into the woods. As night falls, Franzen "lectures the troop on their duty to preserve the purity of the human race, and proposes they symbolize this task with a solemn ritual to 'impress on us all that fire and destruction will be the end of those who do not think as we do.'" Franzen then hands out six books: the Talmud
, the Koran, the works of Shakespeare, the Treaty of Versailles
, a biography of Joseph Stalin
, and the Bible
. The books are passed around the circle and each boy spits on the books, hands them back to Franzen who doses them with kerosene and lights them on fire. The troop then sings the Deutschlandlied and the Horst Wessel
anthem around the fire.
The book inspired two different adaptations; Education for Death and Hitler's Children
. The former took Ziemer's conclusions very seriously, as it showed the education of Hans from an innocent, kind youth into a chained and muzzled Nazi drone. The scene of the storm trooper and the hiking trip is transplanted to a classroom where the teacher instructs the students about nature's laws about the strong fox having the right to kill the weak rabbit. When Hans does not agree with the teacher, he is punished until he falls in line. The scene involving the book burning is part of the ending compilation of Nazi transformation and destruction. It shows a torch-bearing crowd setting fire to a pile of books of John Milton
, Baruch Spinoza
, Albert Einstein
, Voltaire
, and Thomas Mann
. It then shows a burning of Felix Mendelssohn
's wedding march, an allusion to the Nazi race laws
, and burning of a pile of art.
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
short film produced by Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
and released on January 15, 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the anti-Nazi propaganda book by Gregor Ziemer
Gregor Ziemer
Gregor Athalwin Ziemer was an American educator, writer, and correspondent who lived in Germany from 1928 to 1939, during which time he served as the headmaster of the "American School in Berlin." After fleeing Germany, Ziemer returned to his wife Edna's hometown of Lake City, Minnesota...
, directed by Clyde Geronimi
Clyde Geronimi
Clyde "Gerry" Geronimi was an Italian-American animation director. He is best known for his work at Walt Disney Productions....
and principally animated by Ward Kimball
Ward Kimball
Ward Walrath Kimball was an animator for the Walt Disney Studios. He was one of Walt Disney's team of animators known as Disney's Nine Old Men.-Career:...
. The short is based on the non-fiction book of the same name (ISBN 0-374-98905-2) by American author Gregor Ziemer
Gregor Ziemer
Gregor Athalwin Ziemer was an American educator, writer, and correspondent who lived in Germany from 1928 to 1939, during which time he served as the headmaster of the "American School in Berlin." After fleeing Germany, Ziemer returned to his wife Edna's hometown of Lake City, Minnesota...
.
Plot
The film features the story of little Hans, a boy born and raised in Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, who is bred to become a merciless soldier.
At the beginning of the film, a German couple prove to a Nazi supreme judge that they are
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
of pure Aryan
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
blood and agree to give their son, whom they name Hans at the approval of the judge, into the service of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and the Nazi Party. They are given a copy of Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
by the judge as a reward for their service to Hitler. There then follows the only extended comical section of the cartoon, the tone of which is very light compared to the rest of the film. The audience is told that as Hans grows up, he hears a distorted version of Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...
depicting Hitler as the knight in shining armor rescuing Sleeping Beauty, an obese Valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
representing Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, from a wicked witch, representing democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
. Thanks to this kind of distorted children's story, Hans becomes fascinated with Hitler as he and the rest of the younger members of the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
give a portrait of him dressed as a knight the Hitler salute
Hitler salute
The Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
.
In the following segment the audience sees Hans sick and bedridden. His mother prays for him, knowing it will only be a matter of time before the authorities come and take him away to serve Hitler, a Nazi officer bangs on the door to take Hans away, but his mother says he is sick and needs care. The officer orders her to heal her son quickly and have him ready to leave, implying if Hans does not get well, he will be euthanized
Action T4
Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...
. He orders her not to do anything more to him that will cause him to lose heart and be weak, explaining that a soldier must show no emotion, mercy or feelings whatsoever. Hans eventually recovers and resumes his "education" in a school classroom, where Hans and the rest of his classmates all in Hitlerjugend uniforms, after giving portraits of Hitler, Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
and Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
the Hitler salute
Hitler salute
The Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
, watch as the teacher draws a cartoon on the blackboard of a rabbit being eaten by a fox, prompting Hans to feel sorry for the rabbit. The teacher, furious over the remark, orders Hans to sit in the corner wearing a dunce cap
Dunce cap
A dunce cap, also variously known as a dunce hat, dunce's cap, or dunce's hat, is a pointed hat. In popular culture, it is typically made of paper and often marked with a D or the word "dunce", and given to schoolchildren to wear as punishment by public humiliation for misbehavior and, as the name...
. As Hans sits in the corner as punishment, he hears the rest of the classmates "correctly" interpret the cartoon as "weakness has no place in a soldier" and "the strong shall rule the weak". This sparks Hans to recant his remark, and agrees that the weak must be destroyed.
Hans then takes part in a book-burning crusade, burning any books that oppose Hitler, replacing the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
with Mein Kampf and the crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
with a Nazi sword, and burning a Catholic Church. Hans then spends the next several years "Marching and heiling, heiling and marching!" until he reaches his teens (wearing a uniform similar to that of the Sturmabteilung
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
) still "marching and heiling" until he becomes an adult or "Good Nazi" (now in Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
uniform) embroiled in hatred towards anyone else who opposes Hitler, "seeing nothing but what the party wants him to see, saying nothing but what the party wants him to say, and doing no more than the party wants him to do."
In the end, Hans and the rest of the Nazi soldiers march off to war only to fade into rows of identical graves, with nothing on them except a swastika and a helmet perched on top. Thus Hans's education is complete. "The education... for death."
Production
Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi was released when Disney was under government contract to produce 32 animated shorts from 1941-1945. This was due to the fact that in 1940 Walt Disney spent four times his budget on the feature film FantasiaFantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
(1940) which produced very little in the box office. Nearing bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
and faced with a strike that left less than half of his employees on the payroll, Walt Disney was forced to look for a solution to upturn the production of the studio. Physical proximity to the military aircraft manufacturer, Lockheed
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
, made it convenient for the U.S. government to offer Disney a contract for 32 short propaganda films at $4,500 each which would create work for his employees and in turn save the studio.
The dialogue of the characters is in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, neither subtitled nor directly translated by Art Smith's lone English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
narration. A voice track of Adolf Hitler in full demagogic rant is used in a torchlight rally scene. A sequence follows in which Hans becomes a Nazi soldier along with other Hitler Youth.
Intended as anti-Nazi propaganda
Nazi propaganda
Propaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the NSDAP in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the film is rarely shown today, but it is featured on the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
Walt Disney Treasures: On the Front Lines, a compilation of Disney's wartime shorts released on May 18, 2004.
Relationship to the Ziemer book
Gregor Ziemer, an American author and educator who lived in Germany from 1928-1939, wrote the book Education for Death after fleeing Germany on the eve of World War II. The book highlights what was going on in the Nazi schooling of the German youth.The narrative story focuses around a group of youth that under the guidance of a Nazi storm trooper, Franzen, take a hiking trip into the woods. As night falls, Franzen "lectures the troop on their duty to preserve the purity of the human race, and proposes they symbolize this task with a solemn ritual to 'impress on us all that fire and destruction will be the end of those who do not think as we do.'" Franzen then hands out six books: the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
, the Koran, the works of Shakespeare, the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, a biography of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, and the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. The books are passed around the circle and each boy spits on the books, hands them back to Franzen who doses them with kerosene and lights them on fire. The troop then sings the Deutschlandlied and the Horst Wessel
Horst Wessel
Horst Ludwig Wessel was a German Nazi activist who was made a posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930...
anthem around the fire.
The book inspired two different adaptations; Education for Death and Hitler's Children
Hitler's Children (film)
Hitler's Children is a 1943 American black-and-white propaganda film made by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk and Irving Reis from an adaptation by Emmet Lavery of Gregor Ziemer's book Education For Death....
. The former took Ziemer's conclusions very seriously, as it showed the education of Hans from an innocent, kind youth into a chained and muzzled Nazi drone. The scene of the storm trooper and the hiking trip is transplanted to a classroom where the teacher instructs the students about nature's laws about the strong fox having the right to kill the weak rabbit. When Hans does not agree with the teacher, he is punished until he falls in line. The scene involving the book burning is part of the ending compilation of Nazi transformation and destruction. It shows a torch-bearing crowd setting fire to a pile of books of John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
, Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, and Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
. It then shows a burning of Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
's wedding march, an allusion to the Nazi race laws
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
, and burning of a pile of art.
See also
- Walt Disney's World War II propaganda productionWalt Disney's World War II propaganda productionBetween 1942 and 1945, during World War II, Walt Disney was involved in the production of propaganda films for the US government. The widespread familiarity of Walt Disney's productions benefited the US government in producing pro-American war propaganda in an effort to increase support for the...
- American propaganda during World War IIAmerican propaganda during World War IIDuring World War II, American propaganda was used to increase support for the war and commitment to an Allied victory. Using a wide variety of media, propagandists fomented hatred for the enemy and support for America's allies, urged greater public effort for war production and victory gardens,...
- Der Fuehrer's FaceDer Fuehrer's FaceDer Fuehrer's Face is a 1943 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon, which features Donald Duck in a nightmare setting working at a factory in Nazi Germany, was made in an effort to sell war bonds and is an example of...
- List of World War II short films