Napola Documentary Screenings in Germany

Since 2022, Helen has been working on a documentary project featuring a collection of video interviews with surviving former pupils of the National Political Education Institutes (Napolas), Nazi Germany’s leading elite schools.

The short documentary, which has been created in both English- and German-language versions, premiered in Potsdam in May, at the launch of Helen’s exhibition on the Napola in Potsdam at the Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

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Helen talks to audience members after the documentary premiere in Potsdam on 7 May 2025

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Subsequent screenings have now taken place in Nordhausen Town Hall, Reichenau Centre for Psychiatry, Illenau Culture-Forum, Neubeuern boarding-school (as part of the school’s 100th anniversary commemorations), and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

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Helen with staff member Reinhard Käsinger and former Napola-pupil Josef Taubeneder at Internatsschule Schloss Neubeuern, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year

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At Reichenau, a site where 508 psychiatric in-patients were murdered in 1942 as part of Hitler’s T4 “euthanasia” programme to clear the campus for the Napola, the event also formed part of the centre’s in-house psychiatrists’ further education programme, which explores issues of history of medicine and medical ethics.

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Helen and Professor Thomas Müller at the Zentrum für Psychiatrie, Reichenau, prior to the screening there on 16 July 2025

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The events have also been reported in the local press, including articles in Baden Online, the Acherner Rench-Zeitung and the Badische Neueste Nachrichten – Acher- und Bühler Bote (pictured below).

Newspaper report by Roland Spether on the event in Achern’s Cultural Forum, which took place on 18 July 2025

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All of the public events attracted at least 80 audience-members, with almost 150 visitors attending the event in Achern. Attendees included former pupils and their families, government officials, students, and interested members of the public.

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Helen at the Town Hall in Nordhausen with Town Archivist Dr. Wolfram Theilemann on 9 May 2025

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You can watch the trailer for the German version of the documentary on Vimeo here.