Acting Out Nazi Germany
A Role-Play Simulation For The History Classroom
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33043/TH.27.2.74-85Abstract
The scene I confronted when I arrived in the classroom on that third day of the simulation unnerved me. Festooned all over the walls, the blackboard, the backs of chairs, and the door through which I had entered were photocopied political posters, some in full color, most in black and white, all sporting an array of frightening images from Germany in 1932: swastikas, hammers and sickles, pictures of Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx, a Socialist Party poster with a worker crucified upon a devilish swastika, invocations to vote for this candidate or that one, threats of dire consequences should one or the other side prevail. I quickly closed the windowed door and blocked it, fearful that a colleague or a student might happen by, glance in, and wonder what I was teaching these students. Students moved me out of the way and papered the door window with even more posters, and I confronted the unforeseen consequence of an improvisation. On a whim, at the end of the first day of a three-day simulation of the German Reichstag election of 1932, I had promised an extra 300 votes to whichever party put up the most posters on the third day, and my students had responded with ferocious energy! Well, I thought, that idea was obviously going to require a little bit of tweaking.1
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2002 W. Gregory Monahan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
By submitting to Teaching History, the author(s) agree to the terms of the Author Agreement. All authors retain copyrights associated with their article or review contributions. Beginning in 2019, all authors agree to make such contributions available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license upon publication.