The work of the Brothers Grimm during the National Socialist era

On 22 June 2018 from 10 am to 2 pm, students from the Institute of German Studies at the University of Kassel will present the research results of a seminar led by Holger Ehrhardt on the reception and instrumentalization of the work of the Brothers Grimm in the period from 1933 to 1945 at a public event at the Breitenau Memorial. The students will present their findings in lectures divided into three thematic blocks: journalism, pedagogy and philology.

In the thematic block of journalism, the presentation of the life and work of the two scientists in daily newspapers is examined. For this purpose, over 50 articles from newspapers of the Third Reich were analyzed. The journalistic and feuilletonistic portrayal is traced with regard to the increasing conformity in the course of the twelve years of the Third Reich. The journalistic work of the Grimm researcher Wilhelm Schoof is of particular interest.

The examination of Grimm's work as an object of National Socialist pedagogy spans the period from 1934, from a comparatively harmless instrumentalization of the Children's and Household Tales by the Reich administrator of the National Socialist Teachers' Association, to 1942 and later, when the fairy tales were increasingly ruthlessly placed in the service of National Socialist ideology by Nazi pedagogues and finally instrumentalized as justification for the war.

In the Philology Department, three examples are used to show how scholars increasingly came into conflict because they were ideologically appropriated. On the one hand, the proximity of the Cologne Germanist Friedrich von der Leyen to the National Socialists is shown, while on the other, the role of women in fairy tales is examined and how so-called "cultural strata" in the KHM are investigated in a Viennese dissertation from 1943.

Scheduled lectures:

10:00 to 10:15 a.m.
Holger Ehrhardt:
Introduction The Brothers Grimm and the Third Reich or: The material limits of appropriation

10:15 to 11:15 a.m.
The Brothers Grimm in Nazi journalism. Between anniversary commemoration, culture of remembrance and popular science

Jana Marie von Stockhausen:
Grimm anniversary commemoration in the Third Reich

Nina Rüddenklau/Corinna Lang:
The changing perception of the Brothers Grimm in daily newspapers and periodicals

Louisa Friedrich:
Wilhelm Schoof between science and National Socialist ideology

11:15 to 12:15
The National Socialist instrumentalization of the "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" in pedagogy (Hitler/Schemm, Prestel)

Fabienne Oertel:
The National Socialist implementation of Hitler's educational program by the chairman of the National Socialist Teachers' Association Hans Schemm

Sabrina Kuhaupt:
The didactic implementation of the National Socialist educational program using the example of selected KHMs

Fabienne Huy:
The didactic paradigm shift in the final phase of the Third Reich using the example of the KHM

12:15 to 13:15
Grimm philology under the influence of National Socialist ideology

Rosalie van Boxtel and Floor van Beekveld:
The proximity of German studies to National Socialist ideology using the example of the Cologne Germanist Friedrich von der Leyen

Anna-Katharina Schmuck:
The National Socialist interpretation of "cultural layers" in the KHM of the Brothers Grimm using the example of a Viennese dissertation from 1943

Lisa Scherf:
The National Socialist view of women in fairy tales

Location: Breitenau Memorial, Brückenstraße 12, 34302 Guxhagen