Against the Transformation of Preschools

In 1934, there were 2,773 Protestant preschools with room for 178,798 children and staffed by 4,003 employees. By 1936, the number of facilities had grown to 2,812.

The representatives of preschool work laid great hopes in the Nazi’s assumption of power. They were thoroughly disappointed. The Nazi state’s frontal assault on every domain of upbringing and education affected preschools, too.

Protestant institutions had initially still banked on successful cooperation with the National Socialist People’s Welfare (NSV) but it aspired to claim total power in every issue of the people’s welfare and care (Adolf Hitler) – even in the preschools – as of 1935 at the latest.

Connected with the demand for the “de-confessionalization of public life” and the assertion of the NSDAP’s right to “leadership” propagated since 1935, the NSV sought to push through its claim with growing pressure and increasing radicalness. Preschools were deprived of their permits through official channels and therefore in a legal procedure, i.e. they were closed in order to be taken over and reopened by the NSV immediately.

Attempts were made in 1936 and 1937 in particular to coerce “voluntary” transfers of childcare facilities. Approximately 500 facilities were lost to the NSV in this way by 1941. Nevertheless, new openings, which were still possible, nearly compensated for the loss of Protestant preschools to the NSV at first.

The Protestant church resolutely protested against these measures, except in firmly German Christian regional churches where the NSV appeared as a partner to whom preschools could be transferred. The Reich Church Committee, for instance, addressed a letter to the Reich Ministry of Church Affairs on May 25, 1936 in which it described and denounced the attacks as infringements of parental rights. It was disconcerting when parental protest was represented as sabotage against state and party.

Kork in Baden furnishes an especially vivid illustration of the variety of ways and the determination with which congregational members and the church government protested against the transformation of a church preschool into an NSV preschool:

When the deaconess employed at Kork – municipal – preschool was let go on March 31, 1936 and an NSV sister took her place, local pastors and Baden’s Inner Mission sought at first to have this action reversed through talks with the local authorities. When these failed, the parents themselves became active. By establishing a support association for a church school for children, they not only made clear that they did not wish to relinquish a religious education for their children but also opposed the state’s “monopoly on education” impressively (Melzer).

The association had numerous members within a very short time. The congregation prepared rooms in the parsonage and hired a children’s nurse. Congregational members who became involved in this cause were soon subjected to interrogations by the Gestapo and threats from authorities.

As a result, the Evangelical High Consistory in Karlsruhe turned to Gauleiter and Reich Governor Robert Wagner and complained about the disregard for the freedom of thought and religion promised time and again. Moreover, it also demanded the revocation of the expulsions from the party imposed on two party members who had supported the church preschool.

When the Kehl district authority prohibited the use of rooms in the parsonage as a preschool, the High Consistory lodged a complaint with the Baden administrative court on October 13, 1936. The court actually rescinded the closure order on December 8 – the judiciary was not yet entirely coordinated with the Nazi state. To protect church institutions, the High Consistory directed in a circular in November to all pastors that the hitherto ambiguous designation of “school for children” be replaced with the terms “preschool” or “child daycare facility”.

The determined stand of parents who insisted on a religious education for their children, the childcare facilities’ close ties to the institution of the church and massive protests made to regionally important Nazi figures led to the first advance to eliminate church institutions being granted only moderate success.