Culture 2 of 2
Since the ban on contacts between soldiers and German children was lifted these contacts have developed the best. Everywhere you can see GIs playing with children, at every street corner. For many adults this was a positive surprise as they had thought they were dealing with Chicago gangsters.
US-amerikanischer Stimmungsbericht (31 July) (our translation from a German collection of American reports on the mood)
After the occupation no lessons at all took place for nearly a year because the schoolrooms had been confiscated. (…) Only if the teachers have untiring patience and a deep human readiness to help will this generation, which is truly a victim of its time, be able to find its way in life again.
Marie Baum, Social Politician and Feminist
In summer 1945, public life was starting to become normal again in some areas, but some teaching institutions – elementary and secondary schools, plus the university – stayed closed for several months. There were, firstly, material reasons for this, such as the limited availability and usability of the classrooms. Secondly, and above all, there was a lack of suitable teaching staff. Many teachers were affected by the military government’s large-scale dismissals in the public service, as their profession evidenced a high formal level of political guilt (Nazi party membership had been widespread among them). This also applied to university lecturers: more than 40 percent of professors, adjunct professors and associate professors were dismissed on political grounds in 1945 – most of them were only able to return to the public service after several months and, in some cases, a few years. The fear that teachers with a Nazi record could undermine a democratic education of young people was ultimately played down due to the need to somehow get the education system going again. In Heidelberg, higher elementary schools (Volksschulen) for pupils aged 6 to 14 were the first to reopen (in Rohrbach and Kirchheim) at the end of August 1945 and more elementary schools for the 6 to 10-year-olds followed in the subsequent weeks. Teaching in secondary schools did not start again until the fall.
With the gradual lifting of restrictions on public life from May 1945, relations between the Heidelberg population and the US soldiers also changed. Admittedly, there were negative perceptions, with the occupiers appearing more as enemies than as liberators, and discontent persisted about restrictions and material burdens in connection with the massive foreign presence in the city; however, for some population groups, particularly the younger people, the American way of life that had come to Heidelberg with the occupiers exercised a special attraction: besides chewing-gum, Coca Cola and jazz, there were also unfamiliar types of sport like the baseball in the picture. The end of August 1945 saw the founding of the Heidelberg Basketball Club in Neuenheim.
With the gradual lifting of restrictions on public life from May 1945, relations between the Heidelberg population and the US soldiers also changed. Admittedly, there were negative perceptions, with the occupiers appearing more as enemies than as liberators, and discontent persisted about restrictions and material burdens in connection with the massive foreign presence in the city; however, for some population groups, particularly the younger people, the American way of life that had come to Heidelberg with the occupiers exercised a special attraction: besides chewing-gum, Coca Cola and jazz, there were also unfamiliar types of sport like the baseball in the picture. The end of August 1945 saw the founding of the Heidelberg Basketball Club in Neuenheim.
