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A tiny section on the agenda of the National Assembly of the Weimar Republic from February to July, 1919 was entitled ‟Religious instruction and the public elementary school”, part of the preparation for the new Constitution of the German Reich, the so-called Weimar Constitution [Weimarer Reichsverfassung; abbr. WRV], of August 11th, 1919. The three democratic parties, the moderate-socialist SPD, the Catholic Zentrum Party and the liberal-democrat DDP, were the political mainstays of the Weimar Republic, which existed from 1919 to 1933. But these three parties had absolutely different ideologies concerning the role of religion in public education, especially in the elementary school (Volksschule), the lower school system. While the topic ‘religion and school’ in the Weimar Constitution has been often presented from a politically leftish point of view in the past, here, following the principle of a plurality of historical perspectives, the interests of the Catholic Zentrum Party will be more strongly focussed upon. I would like to also show how difficult the circumstances were that eventually led to an agreement regarding the school articles of the Weimar Constitution. Article 146(1) WRV required a national school act which was to be the framework for further educational laws of the ‘Länder’ (states). All political attempts failed to produce such a national law (Reichsschulgesetz) during the era of the Weimar Republic (in the interest of standardization of state education) because of different policies in the ‘Reich’ and the ‘Länder’ (which were responsible for school education and its legal basis). Just like the parties’ differences in school policy could not be bridged in the years after establishing the Constitution of 1919.

This study shows which contacts and events were decisive for the publication of essays by John Dewey and William Kilpatrick as a German book in connection with Kilpatrick’s ensuing discussion after 1918 of the project method – in the middle of the Nazi era. The volume was edited in 1935, by Peter Petersen, at the University of Jena, the founder of the Jenaplan (Jena Plan). A number of previously unknown letters, information from various archives and Kilpatrick’s diaries, which are now available in digital form, were used. It was not possible to clarify all the details. However, it is certain that personal contacts and the educational exchange in American-German relations were not completely broken off with the beginning of Nazi rule in Germany in 1933.

Book Review