Adult education foreign language courses in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany: A program analysis of the Adult Education Center of Greater Berlin from 1920 to 1945

Abstract This paper analyzes developments in the foreign language course offerings of the Adult Education Center of Greater Berlin (VHGB) from its founding in 1920 to its dissolution at the end of WWII. Having created a digital database of the yearly course programs and newsletters, this quantitative and qualitative analysis explores the programmatic and didactic embeddedness of foreign language courses over time, paying particular attention to the influence of leadership changes on program planning. In addition to documenting the geopolitically motivated expansion of foreign language course offerings that peaked during WWII, these results also uncover important omissions in previous representations of the VHGB and challenge views that all important stakeholders during the Weimar era were democratically aligned. Because of the VHGB’s status as a flagship organization, these findings also provide general insights into the historical development of foreign language courses within German adult education through the Weimar and Nazi eras.