1939: Founding of the Napolas in Austria

On 13 March 1939, a programme of festivities was held at the Theresianum in Vienna to celebrate the official foundation of the first Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt (NPEA / Napolas) on Austrian soil. Speeches were given by dignitaries such as Reich Education Minister Bernhard Rust, NPEA Inspector August Heißmeyer, and Reichsstatthalter Arthur Seyß-Inquart, and fanfares, songs, and massed speech choirs were performed by the schools’ pupils.

This grand event represented the culmination of a year-long process of transforming the Theresianum and the Austrian Republic’s state secondary boarding schools at Wien-Breitensee, Traiskirchen, and Wien-Boerhavegasse from ‘Bundeserziehungsanstalten’ (BEA) into NPEA, in collaboration with the BEA Zentraldirektion.  All of these institutions were radically de-Christianised, and pupils with Jewish antecedents or disabilities were forced to leave in order to make way for those whom the regime believed could be trained as future leaders of the Third Reich. The school at Wien-Boerhavegasse bore the distinction of being the first ever NPEA for girls, subsequently moving to campuses at Hubertendorf and Türnitz. During the 1940s, further Napolas were founded in expropriated monastic foundations such as Seckau, Vorau, Lambach, St. Veit, Göttweig, and Mokritz (Mokrice in Slovenia) as part of the Nazi regime’s bid to diminish the influence of the Catholic Church.