Adolf Hitler Schule

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I have this triangle and shoulder straps for Oberscharführer, removed from the same uniform. The location of the school is not shown on the triangle. Could the insignia be from AHS at Ordensburg Sonthofen?

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I am interested in better understanding the Ordensburg/ AHS relationship...
I seem to remember reading about AHS presence at some of the Ordensburg, but AHS were younger students, and Ordensburg were students between 25-30, correct?
 
As far as I know, it is to be assigned to the school in Sonthofen.
It can be found in Wilhelm's book on pages 412 and 413.
 
I have this triangle and shoulder straps for Oberscharführer, removed from the same uniform. The location of the school is not shown on the triangle. Could the insignia be from AHS at Ordensburg Sonthofen?

Lovely set :)
 
a beautiful triangle that i see only twice in my life !
 
I am interested in better understanding the Ordensburg/ AHS relationship...
I seem to remember reading about AHS presence at some of the Ordensburg, but AHS were younger students, and Ordensburg were students between 25-30, correct?

I don't know much about the difference but essentially the Ordensburgen (Vogelsang etc) had no HJ involvement and were for older personnel whereas the AHS were a joint DAF/HJ project for HJ/DJ members. Would like to know more about this though.
 
Then let's take a little trip into the world of the Adolf Hitler schools.

The whole thing according to our tried and tested Mr Buddrus, who devotes ten pages to them in chapter 10.2.
The RJF regarded them as the ideal form and completion of their educational policy aspirations, in which a political leadership class was to be created for the first time in German history. Much remained provisional between 1937 and 45, and the significance was much less than the propaganda suggested.

The DAF and the RJF on the one hand won the battle with the Minister of Education, Rust, for jurisdiction over the schools.
Since 1941, the final assessment of the Adolf-Hitler-Schulen (that's the correct plural) was "to be equated without further ado with the school leaving certificate of the higher state schools" and entitled them to study at university.
The fact that this was started so late (in 1937) shows that it was quite late to realise that the old fighters were no longer suitable for the current tasks in the state. This new "school body" for the development of the new functionaries was to consist of a three-tier system: At the Adolf-Hitler-Schulen, the basic level, boys from the age of twelve were to acquire their higher maturity equivalent to the Abitur in six years of schooling; according to the National Socialist 'rule of three' of body, soul and spirit, one third of the day was to belong to "intellectual science, one third to physical training and one third to comradely work in the Hitlerjugend".

After a seven-year period of practical probation, within which a profession was to be learned or a university studies, to complete Arbeits- und Wehrdienst (labour and military service), and active service in the SA, SS, NSKK or as a block or cell leader, about a quarter of the Adolf-Hitler- Schüler (students), namely "the best, the most willing and the toughest, were to move into the Ordensburgen as an elite."
It was envisaged that these would pass through the Ordenburgen in four years, interrupted interrupted by quarterly "service at the front of party work", where the Crössinsee, Sonthofen and Vogelsang Ordensburgen were for physical and character training.
Marienburg was to be "the place of final spiritual and political maturation". The "highest level of this educational system, which after all the previous tests" could only be reached by a "selection of the sifted", was the Party's High School - Hohe Schule der Partei - which was to be established under Alfred Rosenberg's leadership at Lake Chiemsee after the war. The first cadres would have been ready in 1954, when they were about 30 years old. Optimistic planning.

That on the theory of this kind of school. I'll stop here, thank you for your patience in reading.
There are also details about the selection of pupils, number and planning of the schools and why nothing came of it and in the end there were ten (!) schools at the Ordensburg in Sonthofen and nowhere else, etc.
If you are interested in details, give me a shout.
 
Hello Jack,

thank you very much for all these details, your explanations allow us to better understand this complex system.
If I understood correctly, the schools of Vogelsang, Krössinsee and Sonthofen were reserved for the Elite of the Elite of the AHS schools.
This would explain why the school leaving certificates were so special in these prestigious schools. Their prices are also very expensive at the Militaria dealers.

Best Regards
Eric
 
Hello Eric,

at least that was the plan for the future, the AHS as the lowest structure for the party leader of tomorrow. I quoted when the first graduate would have been available, in the fifties. Before that, of course, others also graduated from the order castles.
So the AHS pupils would have gone through each of the three castles you mentioned, one after the other, and as a crowning finale the Marienburg.

So, here is part two which is very long again, bring patience and interest ;-).

The selection of potential pupils began at the Jungbann level and ended with the personal muster by the Gauleiter at the head of the examination board.
The requirements were Aryan descent, complete health (people who wore glasses were already excluded!), a positive attitude of the parents towards the state and - crucially - an endorsement by the HJ. Since 1938, good performance at school was no longer necessary, which once again showed the hostility of the system towards education. Functioning was more important.

The NSDAP districts were allowed to provide a certain quota of AHS pupils according to their population, the large ones like Berlin, Saxony, Silesia 18, the new Ostmark Gaue only 4.

In 1937, a total of 600 pupils were still planned, but the number had to be halved just one year later because Sonthofen was simply not ready.
The initial plan was to run an AHS school in all 32 NSDAP Gaue existing at the time.
By 1942, however, only 10 schools existed, and it was not until 1943 that two new ones were added.

From April to autumn 1937, the initial seat was in Crössinsee (also spelled K). Then all ten existing schools found themselves in Sonthofen, because at most one foundation stone had been laid in the Gau because of the war *).

In 1941, the hygienic and school situation in Sonthofen had become intolerable, so 4 of the schools were relocated to makeshift buildings: Saxony, Thuringia (to Blankenhain in a former lunatic asylum), East Prussia and Cologne-Aachen.
At the end of 1943, there were 2027 pupils at the AHS, which represented only 0.4 per cent of the total number of secondary school attendants in the German Reich.
Then schooling came to a standstill anyway, for lack of teachers, because of conscription, etc.

Finally, the names of the schools in Sonthofen:
The ten Adolf Hitler schools in the Ordensburg Sonthofen were under the control of the headmaster (Hauptschulführer) Hans Klauke and his deputy Ernst Senkel.
The schools were named after their planned locations or districts and were each headed by a high-ranking HJ leader who occasionally came from the teaching profession: AHS Tilsit/Ostpreußen, headed by Hans Klauke; AHS Potsdam/Mark Brandenburg, headed by Hans Klauke, who was deputised by Reinhard Meinung; AHS Waldbröl/Köln-Aachen, headed by Werner Kirsch; AHS Koblenz-Trier/Westmark, headed by August Buttkereit; AHS Plauen-Pirna/Sachsen, led by Rudolf Raab; AHS Weimar-Blankenhain/Thüringen, led by Horst Munske; AHS Hesselberg-Chiemsee/München-Oberbayern, led by Hans Kreißl; AHS Heiligendamm/Mecklenburg, led by Max Klüver, represented by Helmut Gause; AHS Landstuhl/Saarpfalz, ? In 1943, the schools in Wartha/Niederschlesien and Iglau/Böhmen und Mähren were added.

*)In the summer of 1938, construction work had begun at the planned sites in Plauen, Heiligendamm, Hesselberg, Koblenz, Waldbröl and Landstuhl; however, this was initially postponed due to "buildings important to the war". "At the outbreak of the war, work was stopped on all construction sites." By 1941, RM 6 million had been spent on planning and construction work that had already begun.
 
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Hi Osvald21,

what to say - just wow!!! I just knew this triangle from Saris book and I've never seen one before in any collections. Just great! Would love to find one of these one day as well.

BR
Sven
 
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