The Office for popular Education.              
 
 The work of the Office for Popular Educa-
tion must be viewed from two different aspects:
first from the standpoint of the "absolute" knowledge it imparts, and secondly from the standpoint
of that knowledge which is "relative," in the sense
of serving the purposes of the National Socialist
Party. Briefly put, this means that the 0ffice's
work is in part "learning" and in part propaganda,
it being of course understood that the word "propaganda" has no invidious connotations in a totalitarian State such as the German, which, together
with the Italian, has assigned this designation to
one of its principal ministries. The two elements
of teaching are cleverly mixed to give a brand of
popular education which on the one hand is recreational and of intellectual interest to the individual, and on the other hand fits this individual to
be the kind of citizen the Nazi Party and State desire.
 
 Schemes for the education of the worker are
nothing new in Germany, and Strength through Joy
had a forerunner in an elaborate system built up
under the Weimar Republic. In the years after
the War there existed throughout Germany between
50 and 60 Volkshochschulen, or popular institutions 
of secondary learning, which in most cases were supported by the State or in some cases, as for instance