Work
'Herrschaft durch Schulung: The Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten im Osten and the Third Reich's Germanising mission'in Europa. Ideologie, Machtausbau, Beharrung (Regionen des östlichen Europas im 20. Jahrhundert Bd. 3), ed. Burkhard Olschowsky, Ingo Loose, Berlin (De Gruyter) 2016, pp. 128-51.
From their very inception in 1933, the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (Napolas) were conceived by their founders not only as the principal training schools for the future elite of the Third Reich, but as being of crucial benefit to the Nazi regime’s mission to Germanise the Eastern territories.Read more...
'"Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta oder nach Stalingrad?" Ancient ideals of self-sacrifice and German military propaganda'in Making Sacrifices: Visions of Sacrifice in European and American Cultures
, ed. Nicholas Brooks, Gregor Thuswaldner, Vienna (New Academic Press) 2016, pp. 66-86.
Since antiquity, the heroic fight to the last of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans against the overwhelming might of the Persian Empire has often been considered the ultimate expression of sacrificial patriotism. This article considers the juxtaposition of supposedly ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ notions of patriotic self-sacrifice in German military propaganda during the 20th century.Read more...
'Xenophon and the Nazis: A case study in the politicisation of Greek thought through educational propaganda'Classical Receptions Journal 8 (1), 2016 (special issue on The Legacy of Greek Political Thought, edited by Barbara Goff and Miriam Leonard), pp. 71-89.
During the Third Reich, radical reinterpretations of Classical texts were always on the agenda. The Reich Education Ministry decreed that only those ancient texts which were deemed of value for the Nazi regime’s new ‘national-political’ education should be taught in schools. This sometimes led to the pre-eminence of texts which had previously been considered less worthy – the writings of Xenophon being a case in point.Read more...
Presented at the Anna Bidder Research Evening, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, 17 February 2016.Read more...
Presented at the Modern European History Research Seminar, University of Cambridge, 26 January 2016.Read more...
'Surviving Stunde Null: Narrating the fate of Nazi elite-school pupils during the collapse of the Third Reich'German History 33 (4), 2015, pp. 570-87. Winner of German History journal's "Best Article of 2015" prize.
This paper considers the experiences of one particular, rarely-discussed group of 'war children': former pupils of the Napolas – the most prominent type of Nazi elite-school. Drawing upon a variety of original testimonies, the paper explores the hardships and dilemmas which Napola-pupils faced as World War II drew to a close, and the ways in which former pupils have constructed this aspect of their past.Read more...
Second Book Project: The Third Reich's Elite Schools – A History of the NapolasThe Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (National-Political Education Institutes), known as Napolas for short, were the most prominent type of elite school in Nazi Germany. Founded in 1933 as a birthday present for Hitler, these boarding-schools, which educated pupils from the age of 10 upwards, were intended to train the future elite of the Third Reich in all walks of life.
A monograph based on this research project, entitled The Third Reich's Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas, has now been published by Oxford University Press.Read more...
PhD Research Project: Personal and Political Appropriations of Sparta in German Elite Education during the 19th and 20th CenturiesAncient Sparta was particularly prized as a paradigm for Prusso-German military elite-education during the 19th and 20th centuries. Analysis of two case-studies, the Royal Prussian Cadet-Corps and the Napolas, has demonstrated that generations of future German officers and putative Nazi leaders were trained to see a 'Spartan' way of life as their ultimate aspiration.
A monograph based on this research project, entitled Sparta's German Children. The ideal of ancient Sparta in the Royal Prussian Cadet-Corps, 1818-1920, and in National Socialist elite schools (the Napolas), 1933-1945, was published in 2013 by the Classical Press of Wales.Read more...
Lunchtime Lecture at the Cambridge Rotary ClubOn 7 July 2015, Helen gave a lunchtime lecture to the Rotary Club of Cambridge, entitled 'Nazis at the Leys: British public school exchange programmes with the Third Reich'. The lecture explored the exchanges which took place between the National Political Education Institutes (Napolas) and a number of British public schools during the 1930s, including The Leys School in Cambridge.
The talk was one in a series of general-interest lectures hosted by the Club throughout the year, and was well attended by local Rotarians.Read more...
Guest lecture, presented to the Rotary Club of Cambridge, 7 July 2015.Read more...