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3 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONM Wolfenbuttel'szyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLK Grofie Schule I N THE SPRING OF 1937 my parents removed me from the Karlschule and placed me as a "three-year boy" into the Sexta of the Grofie Schule.1 There were three of us "three-year boys" in this beginning class of some thirty or so regular pupils who had spent four, instead of only three years, in one of the primary schools in Wolfenbuttel or one of the surrounding villages. After much advice-seeking and soulsearching my parents had concluded that, despite the excellent efforts of Mr. Heine, my time in the Volksschule was wasted. I now knew how to read and write, had a good grasp of elementary arithmetic, and was ready for more challenging material like beginning mathematics and English. Latin would be added two years later in the Quarta, physics a year thereafter in the Tertia, chemistry in the Untersekunda, the Lower Second, and French in the Obersekunda, the Upper Second. In the Volksschule , my parents said, I had begun to lose interest and incentive to do well in my studies. Thus, despite their misgivings that my young age might not find me socially and emotionally prepared to keep up with the ten-year-olds, they decided that it was best for me to continue my education among the boys of the Staatliche Grofie Schule, Oberschule fur Jungen. I was to remain in that school until its war-conditioned closure at the end of my seventh year abruptly terminated my high school education in the summer of 1944. My parents' initial misgivings were justified to the extent that throughout my first few years in that school I was never allowed to forget that I was a "three-year boy." My predicament, however, had little 1. The Gymnasium called its lowest grade the sixth, the Sexta, and then counted upwards to finish with the Prima, the first grade. As both Sekunda and Prima were again divided into a lower and an upper Sekunda and Prima, the Gymnasium of the Third Reich had eight grades altogether. 48 Wolfenbuttel'szyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO Grofie Schule to do with my own shortcomings and malfeasances that, my teachers testified, consisted of my "inclination to be talkative and of classroom behavior that left something to be desired." My predicament instead derived from the quite apparent expectation of Mr. Berger, my English teacher, that we "three-year boys" could not possibly be as capable as the "four-year boys," an expectation gleefully underscored at every possible occasion by my older classmates. In German schools it was the practice that, except for attending instruction in music, physics, chemistry, workshop, and physical education , each grade stayed in a classroom of its own for all its lessons . The teachers had their own lounge and conference room from which they would emerge every hour to be with us and to which they then would retreat for the intermission periods. When my lesson plan called for English instruction my stomach was all in knots as I looked toward the appearance of Mr. Berger with a mixture of fear and disdain . His English classes began with us having to transcribe sentences from the German Sutterlin script to Latin letters. What infuriated me was Mr. Berger's order that we "three-year boys" had to carry out this exercise three times for every one time required of the "four-year boys." In the absence of any failure on our part to produce the desired letters correctly and legibly I saw no justification for such an imposition . I did not know then what I do know now; that is, that at that time German Gymnasium teachers received little, if any, psychological and pedagogical training. They were subject specialists, very well prepared in their academic fields, but often inept as disciplinarians and instructors of little boys. Mr. Berger was a case in point. But there was little I could do to make him change his mind, and I suffered in silence. This injustice toward us "three-year boys" was not the worst of Mr. Berger's failings. His reliance on flogging during our first three years marked him as a veritable tyrant, ever ready to vent his anger with his cane on our backs. Though we only dimly recognized it then, there was an element of sexual perversion to the beatings. Our classroom was arranged with two columns of desks, grouped into twoor three-seaters. As we soon noticed, Mr. Berger's anger was aroused most frequently by boys...

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