Come on now, be a Shmarty: Nazi Germany's educational system

[Faeelin]

I started reading the new series on the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans. A Fascinating look at the Reich.

My God, what a stupid, stupid people.By thend of the 1930s, thousands of teachers were leaving their jobs because they couldn't handle it any more; by 1938, there were only 2500 teachers graduating a year, to replace the 8,000 new teachers needed. Class sizes increased to 43 students per teacher, compared to 37 in 1927, less than1/14 of all secondary schoolteachers were under the age of 40.

As you'd expect in a state where the leader stated that "the training of mental abilities is only secondary [to the breeding of healthy bodies]", by 1939 emplyers "were complaining that graduates' standards of knowledge of language and arithmetic were poor and that the level of school knowledge of the examinees has been sinking for some time".

The Theird Reich, in 1939, had 41,000 students in universities, from 104,000 in 1931.In Technical uniersities, numbers fell from 22,000 in 1931 to 12,000 in 1939. Amongst the smaller student body, the percentage of students going into the sciences had declined, going from 12% to 8% of the student body. Meidicine, oddly enough, was the real winner, going from 1/3 of the student body in 1932 to nearly half in 1939. Meanwhile, the number of females in higher education fell from 17,000 in 1932 to under 6,000 in 1939; hardly an encouraging sign.

So, rather than landing Aryan supermen on the moon, the Nazis, it seems, are going to face severe problems keeping up with the US and any other liberal democracies in terms of science and technology.

And you people thought the Soviets were bad...

[Deflare]

And this, of course, isn't taking into account state-mandated alterations to history, genetics, and some forms of medicine to conform with Nazi racial policies. Stalin raised a few generations of incompetent geneticists by banning the teaching of Mendelian genetics; Nazi Germany would have been so, so much worse.If this is any indication, it looks like Germany was heading for a situation like that of North Korea; as old researchers died or emmigrated, Germany would grow decreasingly advanced technologically, and more and more focused on multi-million men armies.
Assuming your source is correct, it looks like Germany was heading for complete intellectual collapse.

[Straha]

That is true but the reich will do better than the USSR by virtue of being a fascist economy instead of a communist one...

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Straha

That is true but the reich will do better than the USSR by virtue of being a fascist economy instead of a communist one...

So, as successful as Argentina, Spain.... you can see why I'm skeptical that they'll do well.

In fact, even during the war, when the Germans were occupying vast swathes of Russia's industrial heartland, the Russians were outproducing them. (Compare the USSR producing 24,446 tanks to 9200 for Germany in 9,200, or 25,436 aircraft to Germany's 15,409).

[Straha]

That is true but the reich will do better than the USSR by virtue of being a fascist economy instead of a communist one...

[MrP]

Barring their hilariously bad war-economy spending, o'course

[Leo Caesius]

Originally Posted by Straha

That is true but the reich will do better than the USSR by virtue of being a fascist economy instead of a communist one...

It's six of one and half a dozen of the other, isn't it? I mean, in the end, aren't both of them centrally controlled?

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Leo Caesius

It's six of one and half a dozen of the other, isn't it? I mean, in the end, aren't both of them centrally controlled?

Ah, but the Germans are also busy pursuing economically productive strategies like engaging in the resettlement of the Ukraine, to produce, umm, grain, that rare strategic commodity.

[Leo Caesius]

So, essentially, what you're saying is that a triumphant Nazi Germany would be something like the late German Democratic Republic, only bigger, more inept, and genocidal? Sounds like a winner to me.

[Deflare]

Originally Posted by Leo Caesius

It's six of one and half a dozen of the other, isn't it? I mean, in the end, aren't both of them centrally controlled?

Sorta yes, sorta no. In fascist economies, the government gives lots of power to particular corporations and plays their rivalries off of each other- like feudalism with companies instead of nobles. Under communism, all corporations are owned directly by the state and have no power at all.

[NapoleonXIV]

Originally Posted by Deflare

Sorta yes, sorta no. In fascist economies, the government gives lots of power to particular corporations and plays their rivalries off of each other- like feudalism with companies instead of nobles.

Now... where is that familiar from?

[PaleHorseRiding]

The reason they were having the problems they had was because they were a centrally planed government so they decided what they wanted they wanted biology to be big to that is what was if they decided something else was then it would be. U can do biology medicine with thier racial theories