There was an interview between a Deutsche Welle journalist and the President of the German Teachers Association.....over Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and it's reprinting (set for January).
In the midst of the interview.....the teacher representative suggested that it'd be an wise idea to take portions of "Mein Kampf" (sixty to eighty pages) and develop a student package.....to be introduced to kids around the 8th grade of school.
Most people would be standing there and shaking their head over this suggestion. The fail-safe mechanism that the teaching representative suggested was that German schools would have professional teachers with a deep background in teaching politics, history, and ethics. They would take the material and persuade the student about the natural failures of National Socialism.
The problem I see.....out of a thousand such teachers who get this assignment and attempt to teach the lecture.....at least half will screw up and cause more trouble than the intended goal.
When you go back and look at the political platform of the Nationalist Socialists of the fall of 1932.....the twenty-five-odd items are clearly defined and attractive to a large segment of society. You could take those same platforms today....and at least a quarter of German or American societies would support them.
In a perfect world.....there might be ways of introducing the controversial topic and having a four-star teacher standing there to deliver a simple 90-minute lecture. In a imperfect world....there are ways of introducing a complicated topic like this with a two-star teacher....and jump-starting a dozen 13-year-old kids into some thug political agenda. I might question the wisdom of any introduction.
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