Gone are the swastikas, the stalags, and the goose-steps. But in Germany today, at least one trace of the Third Reich remains–the Hitler-era law against homeschooling.
In defense of the ban, a German named Schmidt wrote a letter to Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Assn. here in the USA, dated Sept. 4. Herr Schmidt was sore about some of Farris’ opinion pieces attacking the German government–particularly its practice of seizing children whose Christian parents wish to give their children a Christian education: strictly verboten, under German law.
I don’t know who Herr Schmidt is. He sounds like some kind of obersturmbannfuhrer wannabe. I quote from his letter to Farris.
“The only thing… these so-called parents want is to prevent their children from a free and open minded view on the world.” [Make allowances: Herr Schmidt is writing in what is, for him, a foreign language.] “They want to force them into their own little world regardless of what the children want or not and only for religious reasons!
“From the very beginning theses so called parents drummed religious opinions into their poor children. They never had a chance to build up their own opinion. This can be called torture and if for sure harms the children in their development to free, tolerant and open-minded members of society. Only to please the parents and only to spread the parents strange ideas, disgusting.”
Get it? The dude is tolerant and open-minded. He concludes:
“For my opinion these parents should be imprisoned”–not strung up with piano wire?–“and they should not be released before all of their children have finished school. Anyone, regardless of the reasons who harms his children, in whatever respect, should be removed from them immediately. If it happens for religious reasons the person should be jailed.”
Is this man a nut, or does he represent the mainstream opinion among the German people? Inquiring minds want to know.