INSIDE THE THIRD REICH'S ELITE SCHOOLS

The National-Political Education-Institutes (Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten, normally known as Napolas or NPEA) were Nazi Germany’s principal training institutions for the future elite of the Third Reich.

Self-confessedly modelled on an amalgam of the English public schools, the Prussian cadet-schools, and the harsh educational practices of ancient Sparta, these institutions aimed to take boys from the age of ten, and turn them into leaders in all walks of life – whether military, political or intellectual.


Helen Roche is the Alice Tong Sze Research Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. She is currently writing a history of the Third Reich's most prominent elite schools, the Napolas. From 2004-2012, Helen studied at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where she completed her doctorate under the supervision of Paul Cartledge, Robin Osborne and Brendan Simms. The basic subject of her thesis concerned the influence of ideas of Sparta in German education, particularly in elite schools, during the 19th and 20th centuries. Her two case studies were the Prussian Cadet-Schools and the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (Napolas). During her doctorate, she was awarded scholarships from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) and the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz for archival research in Germany. The thesis has now been published as a monograph by the Classical Press of Wales.