It happens again and again that speakers at “lateral thinking” rallies compare themselves with Nazi victims.
Klaus Koch, director of a school in Tölz that recently took the name of a Nazi resistance fighter has no understanding for this.
Bad Tölz
- It has recently caused a lot of misunderstanding and outrage that “lateral thinkers” at demonstrations compare themselves with those persecuted by the Nazi regime, for example with Holocaust victim Anne Frank or the resistance fighter Sophie Scholl from the White Rose.
The Tölzer Förderschule has recently been named after another member of the White Rose, namely Marie-Luise Schultze-Jahn, who lived in Bad Tölz until her death in 2010.
The Tölzer Kurier asked the headmaster Klaus Koch what he had to say about the comparisons made by the "lateral thinkers".
Mr. Koch, how do you, as the director of the Marie-Luise-Schultze-Jahn-Schule, react when “lateral thinkers” place themselves on the same level as resistance fighters in the Nazi dictatorship?
Klaus Koch
: Of course the teacher's soul flinches in me.
Such statements clearly show that we have to think intensively about our schooling so that people are saddled with interpreting history.
The comparisons are an indication that the whole reduction of hours in the field of culture, art and social studies was harmful and that we should intensively think back to what was still taken for granted when I was at school, namely socio-political, civic education.
Our weapon is education
Headmaster Klaus Koch
Now you are in demand as a school.
Klaus Koch
: Yes, absolutely.
Our weapon is education.
We try to give the students and also the parents a differentiated and comprehensive picture and thus provide a tool to be able to weigh things up themselves.
Does the new school name help?
Klaus Koch
: It is downright impressive how much it helps as a school to have a motto - the verve it creates.
Since we have Marie-Luise Schultze-Jahn as our namesake, the students are also interested in what she actually did.
We break that down to the different grades according to age.
In the ninth grade, the history of the 20th century is on the timetable, and it is helpful that we can visit places in Tölz that are related to Marie-Luise Schultze-Jahn.
Education also has to do with touching and understanding.
And how do you specifically explain to the students what the difference is between a resistance fighter in the Nazi dictatorship and a “lateral thinker”?
Klaus Koch
: It starts with looking at the “Third Reich” and the background to the dictatorship, the injustice regime and the seizure of power.
Many crimes have already happened on the way to the White Rose.
With this knowledge and some historical education, the students can easily see the difference.
On the one hand we have a dictatorship, on the other hand a stable, transparent political system with properly elected representatives - even if one might wish for a different government.
The simple educational Abc is a great help.
The comparison is just nonsense, which actually doesn't need any evaluation.
I don't think those who talk like that really mean it either.
They realize that they are serving a good sound box.
It's a very cheap scam.
So this is all about education?
Klaus Koch
: Something else that we as a society have to ask ourselves is how it could happen to lose some of the citizens in this way.
Many of us live in social bubbles, and we urgently need to be in discourse with other groups.
We have to be careful that society does not become so differentiated.
If, for example, four new terraced houses are built in Wolfratshausen, each of which costs one million euros, four families will probably move in there, all of whom have roughly the same mindset.
This kind of isolation cannot be solved with education alone.
One should not point the finger at a group that feels left behind, but try to pick them up through a fairer social policy.