View source for Education for Death

{{short description|1943 animated short film by Clyde Geronimi}}
{{distinguish|Death education}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2015}}
{{Infobox film
| name        = Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi
| image       = EducationforDeath.jpg 
| alt         = 
| caption     = 
| director    = [[Clyde Geronimi]]
| producer    = [[Walt Disney]]
| writer      = [[Joe Grant]]
| based_on    = {{based on|''Education for Death: Sparky The Making of the Nazi''|[[Gregor Ziemer]]}}
| narrator    = [[Art Smith (actor)|Art Smith]]
| music       = [[Oliver Wallace]]
| studio      = [[Walt Disney Productions]]
| distributor = [[RKO Radio Pictures]]
| released    = {{Film date|1943|01|15}}
| runtime     = 10 minutes<!--Theatrical runtime: 10:17--><ref>{{cite web | url=http://bbfc.co.uk/releases/education-death-1970-0 | title=''EDUCATION FOR DEATH'' (A) | work=[[British Board of Film Classification]] | date=February 25, 1943 | access-date=July 16, 2015}}</ref>
| country     = United States
| language    = {{Plainlist|
* English <small>(narrator)</small>
* German <small>(characters)</small>
}}
}}
'''''Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi''''' is an American animated [[Anti-fascism|anti-Nazi]] [[propaganda]] [[short film]] produced by [[Walt Disney Productions]] and released on January 15, 1943, by [[RKO Radio Pictures]], shown in theaters with ''[[Fighting Frontier]]''. The film is directed by [[Clyde Geronimi]] and principally animated by [[Milt Kahl]], [[Ward Kimball]], [[Frank Thomas (animator)|Frank Thomas]], and [[Bill Tytla]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |page=153}}</ref> The short is based on the [[non-fiction]] book of the same name<ref>Gregor Ziemer (1941). ''Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi''. {{ISBN|0-374-98905-2}}</ref> by American author [[Gregor Ziemer]]. The film features the story of Hans, a boy born and raised in [[Nazi Germany]], his indoctrination in the [[Hitler Youth|Hitlerjugend]], and his eventual march to war.

==Plot==
At the beginning of the film, a [[German people|German]] couple proves to a [[Nazi Germany|Nazi German]] bureaucrat that [[Nuremberg Laws|they are]] of pure [[Aryan race|Aryan]] blood and agree to give their son, whom they name Hans at the judge's approval, as it is not on a list of banned names,<ref>In a subtle touch, all the names on the list are Jewish, except the names heading the list: "Franklin" and "Winston", referring to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and [[Winston Churchill]].</ref> into the service of [[Der Fuehrer|the Fuehrer]] [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazi Party]]. They are given a copy of ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' by the faceless civil servant as a reward for their service to Hitler; their passport contains spaces for 12 more children (a hint that the couple is expected to produce a large family for the [[Fatherland#English usage and Nazi connotations|Fatherland]]).

This is followed by the only extended comical section of the cartoon, the tone of which is very light compared to the rest of the film. The audience is told that as Hans grows up, he hears a distorted version of ''[[Sleeping Beauty]]'' depicting Hitler as the knightly prince character rescuing an obese [[Valkyrie]] [[National personification|representing]] [[Germany]], from a wicked witch representing [[democracy]]. The narrator sarcastically comments that "the moral of this story seems to be that Hitler got Germany on her feet, climbed onto the saddle, and took her for a ride." Thanks to this kind of distorted children's story, Hans becomes fascinated with Hitler as he and the rest of the younger members of the [[Hitler Youth]] give the [[Hitler salute]] to a portrait of Hitler dressed as a knight.

In the following segment, the audience sees Hans sick and bedridden. His mother prays for him, thinking that it will only be a matter of time before the authorities come and take him away to a [[Extermination camp|death camp]]. A [[Nazi]] officer bangs on the door to take Hans away, but his mother says he is sick and needs care. The officer orders her to heal her son quickly and have him ready to leave, implying that if Hans does not get well, he will be [[Aktion T4|euthanized]]. He orders her not to do anything more to him that will cause him to lose heart and be weak, explaining that a soldier must show no emotion, mercy, or feelings whatsoever.

Hans eventually recovers and resumes his "education" in a school classroom, where Hans and the rest of his classmates, all in Hitlerjugend uniforms, give the Hitler salute to portraits of Hitler, [[Hermann Göring|Hermann Goering]], and [[Joseph Goebbels]]. They then watch as the teacher draws a cartoon on the blackboard of a rabbit being eaten by a fox, prompting Hans to feel sorry for the rabbit. The teacher, furious over the remark, orders Hans to sit in the corner wearing a [[dunce cap]], calling him "Dummkopf" (German for "stupid" or "feeble-minded") with his classmates laughing at him. As Hans sits in the corner, he hears the rest of the classmates "correctly" interpret the cartoon as "weakness has no place in a soldier" and "the strong shall rule the weak", as the teacher asked what does Hans think about the rabbit now, causing him to recant his remark and agree that the weak must be destroyed, much to the teacher's approval.

Hans then takes part in a [[book-burning]] crusade, burning any books with ideas opposed to Hitler's ([[Albert Einstein]], [[Baruch Spinoza]], and [[Voltaire]]), replacing the [[Bible]] with ''Mein Kampf'' and the [[crucifix]] with a Nazi sword. Hans then spends the next several years "[[Goose step|Marching]] and heiling, heiling and marching!" He reaches his teens (wearing a uniform similar to that of the [[Sturmabteilung]]) still "marching and heiling" until he becomes an adult or "Good Nazi" (now in [[Wehrmacht]] and [[SS]] uniform) embroiled in hatred towards anyone else who opposes Hitler. With "no seed of laughter, hope, tolerance, or mercy" planted in him, he "sees no more than the party wants him to [see], says nothing but what the party wants him to say, and he does nothing except what the party wants him to do."

In the end, Hans and the rest of the German soldiers march off to war only to fade into rows of identical graves, with nothing on them except a swastika and a helmet perched on top. Thus Hans's education is complete &ndash; "his education... for death".

==Production==
''Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi'' was released when [[Disney]] was under government contract to produce 32 animated shorts from 1941 to 1945. In 1940, Walt Disney spent four times his budget on the feature film ''[[Fantasia (1940 film)|Fantasia]]'' (1940) which suffered from low box office turnout. Nearing [[bankruptcy]] and with half of his employees on [[Disney animators' strike|strike]], Walt Disney was forced to look for a solution to bring money into the studio. The studio's close proximity to the military aircraft manufacturer, [[Lockheed Corporation|Lockheed]], helped foster a U.S. government contract for 32 short propaganda films at $4,500 each. This saved the company from bankruptcy and allowed them to keep their employees on payroll.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Raiti | first1 = G. C. | title = The Disappearance of Disney Animated Propaganda: A Globalization Perspective | doi = 10.1177/1746847707074703 | journal = Animation | volume = 2 | issue = 2 | pages = 153–169 | year = 2007 | s2cid = 144807122 | issn = 1746-8477}}</ref>

The dialogue of the characters is in [[German language|German]], neither subtitled nor directly translated by Art Smith's lone [[English language]] narration. A voice track of Adolf Hitler in full demagogic rant is used in a torchlight rally scene. A sequence follows in which Hans becomes a German soldier along with other Hitler Youth.

==Home media==
The short was released on May 18, 2004, on ''[[Walt Disney Treasures: Wave Three#Walt Disney on the Front Lines|Walt Disney Treasures: Walt Disney on the Front Lines]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Walt Disney on the Front Lines DVD Review |url=https://www.dvdizzy.com/onthefrontlines.html |website=DVD Dizzy |access-date=14 February 2021}}</ref>

==Relationship to the Ziemer book==
[[Gregor Ziemer]], an American author and educator who lived in Germany from 1928 to 1939, wrote the book ''Education for Death'' after fleeing Germany on the eve of World War II. The book highlights what was going on in the Nazi schooling of the German youth.

The narrative story focuses around a group of youth that under the guidance of a Nazi storm trooper, Franzen, take a hiking trip into the woods. As night falls, Franzen "lectures the troop on their duty to preserve the purity of the human race, and proposes they symbolize this task with a solemn ritual to 'impress on us all that fire and destruction will be the end of those who do not think as we do'." Franzen then hands out six books: the [[Talmud]], the [[Koran]], the works of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], the [[Treaty of Versailles]], a biography of [[Joseph Stalin]], and the [[Bible]]. The books are passed around the circle and each boy spits on the books, hands them back to Franzen who douses them with kerosene and lights them on fire. The troop then sings the "[[Deutschlandlied]]" ("''Deutschland, Deutschland über alles''") and the [[Horst-Wessel-Lied|Horst Wessel anthem]] around the fire.

The book inspired two different adaptations; ''Education for Death'' and ''[[Hitler's Children (1943 film)|Hitler's Children]]''. The former took Ziemer's conclusions very seriously, as it showed the education of Hans from an innocent, kind youth into a chained and muzzled Nazi drone. The scene of the storm trooper and the hiking trip is transplanted to a classroom where the teacher instructs the students about nature's laws about the strong fox having the right to kill the weak rabbit. When Hans does not agree with the teacher, he is punished until he falls in line. The scene involving the book burning is part of the ending compilation of Nazi transformation and destruction. It shows a torch-bearing crowd setting fire to a pile of books of [[John Milton]], [[Baruch Spinoza]], [[Albert Einstein]], [[Voltaire]], and [[Thomas Mann]]. It then shows a burning of [[Felix Mendelssohn]]'s [[Wedding March (Mendelssohn)|wedding march]], an allusion to the [[Nuremberg Laws|Nazi race laws]], and the burning of a pile of art.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Fishburn | first1 = Matthew | title =  Books Are Weapons: Wartime Responses to the Nazi Bookfires of 1933 | jstor=30227405 | journal = Book History | volume = 10 | pages = 223–251 | year = 2007 | issn = 1098-7371 | url = https://muse.jhu.edu/article/222380}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Walt Disney's World War II propaganda production]]
* [[American propaganda during World War II]]
* ''[[Der Fuehrer's Face]]''
* ''[[Don't Be a Sucker]]''
* [[List of World War II short films]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* Watch [https://www.c-span.org/video/?464005-2/education-death ''Education for Death''] on [[C-SPAN]]
* {{IMDb title|0035836|Education for Death}}

{{Disney's Short films}}
{{Disney World War II propaganda films}}
{{Clyde Geronimi}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Education For Death}}
[[Category:1943 films]]
[[Category:1940s Disney animated short films]]
[[Category:1940s English-language films]]
[[Category:1940s German-language films]]
[[Category:American animated short films]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Joseph Goebbels]]
[[Category:American World War II propaganda shorts]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Films about Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Films based on non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Films directed by Clyde Geronimi]]
[[Category:Films produced by Walt Disney]]
[[Category:Films scored by Oliver Wallace]]
[[Category:Disney educational films]]
[[Category:1940s educational films]]
[[Category:Animated films about witchcraft]]
[[Category:English-language documentary films]]
[[Category:English-language short films]]
[[Category:English-language war films]]
[[Category:1943 animated short films]]