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The German government continues to undermine parental rights and indoctrinate children in its preferred secular orthodoxies by enforcing
a Nazi-era compulsory public schooling law.
A Christian school in Germany is being forced to close its doors after the German government sent a letter demanding fees and claiming the presence of the school violates the “state’s educational mandate.”
The Dietrich Bonhoeffer International School, named for the famed German pastor, author, and co-conspirator in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, is a Christian hybrid school, meaning that students spend some time in the classroom and some time at home conducting digital online lessons and independent study. The school employs state-approved teachers and students score above average on state examinations.
The Association for Decentralized Learning operates the school and has repeatedly requested the state’s approval to open more schools, which the government has denied. An administrative court recently recognized the high level of education that students receive but claimed that students are not able to spend enough time together, failing the state’s educational mandate.
In a letter, government authorities ordered “the immediate enforcement of the prohibitions,” which means that enrolled students can no longer attend the school. Germany is also requiring the school to pay administrative fees to the government and shut down its Internet domain, as a continuing Web presence would constitute “advertisement for the impermissible school.” A lawsuit to reopen the school has been filed and is currently pending.
In Germany homeschooling and hybrid schooling are illegal unless they have state accreditation, and the government closely restricts private schools.
Jonathan Ertz, head of the Association for Decentralized Learning and principal of the Bonhoeffer School, issued a statement, which read,
“Children have a right to a first-class education. At our school, we were able to provide families with an education that meets their individual learning needs and allows students to flourish. It saddens me deeply that our students and teachers had to leave our school community.”
Earlier this year, Alliance Defending Freedom International filed a suit in the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of the Association for Decentralized Learning, arguing that Germany’s prohibition violates international law.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Article 13.3, guards the right of parents to choose how their child will be educated. It enshrines “the liberty of parents … to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities, which conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.”
Tobias Riemenschneider, a pastor in Frankfurt, Germany, told the Daily Wire that Germany’s law against homeschooling presents “great difficulty to parents who are convinced by their Christian faith that it is God’s will for them to raise their children themselves in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
He continued:
“Even for many Christians who see school attendance as generally compatible with their faith, the situation has changed fundamentally in the last three years. In recent times, the state has increasingly included ideologies in the curriculum that contradict the teachings of the Bible, such as homosexuality or transgenderism. Many parents legitimately worry that their child will be indoctrinated at school contrary to their beliefs and may even be encouraged to embrace homosexuality or undergo sex reassignment surgery.”
Parents who disobey the state face fines and can even have their children removed from their home.
Riemenschneider said some parents flee Germany, but it is also becoming more difficult to homeschool children in Europe. “If you stay in Germany,” he explained, “the best, and for many only, option is to put your children in as good a Christian school as possible and take the necessary time every day to correct things at home that were taught at school and may go against the parents’ faith.”
The Romeikes are a homeschooling family who chose to flee Germany 15 years ago to seek asylum in the United States after the German government fined them and tried to take away their children. In September, however, they were suddenly told by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that they would be deported even though they still have school-aged children. After heavy public pressure, the family was granted a one-year stay of deportation.
Germany claims to have repented of its darkest chapter, but its current law mandating compulsory public education and banning homeschooling is actually a Nazi law that was first put in place in 1938.
Freedom Center contributor William Wolfe discussed the law in a recent article, noting,
“The Nazis passed the Reichsschulpflichtgesetz (Compulsory Schooling Act of the German Reich), which completely banned homeschooling and implemented harsh penalties for any parents who tried to keep their kids out of state schools.”
Why do you think the Nazis did that?
Despite Germany’s extensive and highly successful effort to “denazify” society after World War II, it kept this Nazi law in place. Why would an ostensibly open-minded, modern Germany continue to eliminate alternatives to government-run education that German parents want to pursue? Is it because German schoolchildren in private school settings or homeschool aren’t being properly socialized? No, it’s because those in power still want to control what children are learning.
Liberal democratic republics recognize and respect the right of their citizens to raise children in their own values, beliefs, and religious faith — not those of the governing authorities.
And yet German parents are now being forced to flee their homeland in order to guard their children against government brainwashing, not with racist and eugenics propaganda, as was the case 80-plus years ago, but with LGBTQ and other secular ideologies.
Germany’s disdain for parental rights and mandates for public schooling should remind Americans how blessed we are to live in the United States, which has a Constitution that limits the power of government.
Yet our freedoms can be taken from us if we don’t protect them. There is currently a raging secular humanist movement here that is working to undermine and take away parental rights. And many U.S. government and state officials, teachers’ unions, and leftist activists are fighting to eliminate education options for as many children as possible. Not only are they working to villainize homeschooling and school choice but also any parents who want their child to have the best education possible.
Parents who homeschool or support school choice are not racists, radicals, or any other ad hominem attack they are slandered with. They simply understand that there are better options than a government-run school system that refuses to embrace the competition and choice that will lead to improved academic outcomes.
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