Historian reveals elite school exchanges in Nazi Germany with the likes of Eaton, Harrow and Winchester UK News

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A historian has revealed that elite schools in Nazi Germany held sports exchanges and tournaments with the likes of Eaton, Harrow and Winchester in the 1930s.

An in-depth first history of these major Nazi schools, which were set up to train future leaders of the Third Reich, highlights the links with the best English language schools before World War II.

Dr. Helen Roche of Durham University has authored a book based on research from 80 archives in six countries and testimonies from more than 100 former students.

Photo: Biology and chemistry classes at the National Institute for Political Education in Rugen (NPEA Rugen) during the early 1940s. Pic: Durham University

It found that between 1934 and 1939, pupils from the most prominent National Socialist elite schools, known as Napoles, participated in a series of sports exchanges and tournaments with boys from British public schools, including Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, Rugby, and Leys in Cambridge.

The Naples students who participated in these exchanges were seen as fulfilling the function of cultural ambassadors for the “new Germany”.

Dr. Roach’s research showed that British public schools were an important model of Napoleon that the Nazis studied and eventually hoped to emulate and improve upon.

Archives show that a German education inspector often praised British public schools for being the creation of characters.

Dr Roach said: “In the early days of the exchange programme, English boys and professors often felt that what they saw in Nazi Germany and in Napoleon was somehow better than the situation in England.

“There was a feeling, finding its way into broader British attitudes toward Germany, that Britain would do well to emulate Germany’s ethnic confidence, and there was admiration for the sheer strength and physical sophistication of German Germans.”

Photo: Archives show that a German education inspector often praised British public schools – such as Eton – for being personal

She added: “We can see the exchange program as providing a microcosm of more public attitudes toward the Nazi regime on behalf of the middle and upper-class British public – not entirely convinced of the aims and ideals of the Third Reich, but nonetheless willing to give their German counterparts the benefit of the doubt, until I reached The Nazi war reached its deadly climax.

Elite Schools of the Third Reich – A History of Napolas is published by Oxford University Press.

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