Published : 2025-11-20

„I Don’t Know a Nation which would Be so Unsusceptible to Upbringing as the Germans”

Problem of Social Pedagogy in Germany and towards the Germans

Abstract

The article deals with problem of social pedagogy in Germany viewed in direct connection to crisis of the German culture. Diagnosis of the latter is here presented while making use of anlyses made by prominent German scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster and by one of the greatest writers oft he 20th century Sandor Marai (Hungarian of German origin). Both of them perceived the crisis of the German culture (including political culture) which demonstrated its genocidal face during the Second World War as a consequence of a much deeper phenomenon which was defined by F. W. Foerster as „dechristianisation oft he German spirit“. As S. Marai pointed out in his novels depicting Germany shortly before the Nazi takeover, the cultural and social life of the Weimar Germany was marked by expansion of nihilism which ultimately was rooted in process of cultural revolution initiated in the Reich by Martin Luter. As author of the article stresses one of the most evident proofs of failure to renew social pedagogy in Germany was the way in which democratic Germany treated after 1949 persons (German citizens) accused of commiting genocidal crimes during the Second World War who were regularly acquitted of the charges on the grounds of lacking „personal hatred“ towards their victims.

Keywords:

social pedagogy, Germany, cultural crisis, genocide, totalitarism, Friedrich Wilhelm Förster, Sandor Marai



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Kucharczyk, G. (2025). „I Don’t Know a Nation which would Be so Unsusceptible to Upbringing as the Germans”: Problem of Social Pedagogy in Germany and towards the Germans. Biografistyka Pedagogiczna [Biographical Studies in Education], 10(2), 133–149. https://doi.org/10.36578/BP.2025.10.34

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"Biografistyka Pedagogiczna" received funding for the years 2022-2024 from the funds of the Minister of Education and Science under the programme „Rozwój Czasopism Naukowych”.

Project duration: 2023-2024.

The amount of co-financing is 65 992,00 PLN

Contract number: RCN/SP/0434/2021/1