The School That Raped Everbody

That's a great name. I think we might have to, Sophie make a note of that one so we can steal it from Miles. So if you don't just make a note of it, get it tatted for posterity. Wait where were you? Where are you traveling for forty hours? Uh? Not just just a lot of layovers and you know it was only Europe, but you know you wind up getting stuck in airports here and there. I hear your brother. So, Miles, how do you feel about school rules? Uh? Fuck school, dude?

You know I'm a cool yea fu school. You know that answer, Miles that you gave is going to turn out to be very appropriate for a couple of reasons, most of them unfortunate. Um, because I don't even you're talking about we are talking about a school today, and it is a It is definitely a Fox school, Um, but not in any kind of good way. In a horrible crimes were child molestation. Dark. Yeah, this is a bad way to introduce this episode. But there's no good

way to introduce this episode. This isn't Behind the Fun Times. It's behind that. Behind the Fun Times is my other podcast. Could you imagine it? Actually we're very dark where you're hosting it and you're just doing like behind the scenes of like some of like the happiest like you know, pleasant moments in our history. Hey released one happy episode we did release well, he died at the end, but the work was good. Yeah. Yeah, I'd like I'd like to have an episode where Werner Herzog and I just

talk about different puppets we think are cute. I think if I like the baby Yoder, I'd like to hug and caress him. I like that he really kept his vibe up in the Mandalorian. He keeps he's never anything but Werner Herzog, and that's that's all we ever want from him. Now, speaking of a German. This whole episode is set in Germany. It is now uh so yeah, uh schools miles, none of us, none of us is is I'm going to say, overwhelmingly happy with the school

system in the United States. I think that's the same, especially our life. Educational system is meant as like a barrier to entry for a certain class, so out when you look at school like that, rather than like, hey, education is available at everyone puts a bit of that bad taste. I mean I literally just went to college because it was drilled in my head. It's like, well, you can't get a job unless you go to college.

I was like, yeah, that's why I spent twenty grand in debt, failing to get a degree, and then dropping out because they didn't want to spend another fifteen Yeah. So yeah, there's problems involved with college or involved with education in general in this country, and that there have been for a long time. Um. I think most of what I still remember from my high school days is how to install Doom on a T I eight three calculate you could get oh yeah, dude, yeah, or Wolfenstein.

It was one of the two. I forget exactly what Wolfenstein, but the best I could do is get that one thing that was called like drug wars or like the Mafia drug war, drug wars, which the ship you know, yeah, drug wars be like press one to deal heroin. And I'm like, yeah, here we go. But I don't know like algebra. Um so, and I never learned how to pay my taxes. Um shout out to my account. Um. Yeah,

he's he's a cool guy. Now. My point here in this rambling introduction is that in the year of our Lord two thousand nineteen, we're not we're not great at educating the young. Uh. And this state of affairs is not new, and in fact, we we've been shitty at educating kids basically since we decided it was important to

start educating kids. Um. And today, Miles, we're gonna talk about one of the boldest and most brilliant reformers in the history of education, a man whose ideas and intellectual courage were in some ways still way ahead of even our time. Have you ever heard of Paul Gheb Paul Gahb Geheb. But yeah, well, uh, paulus Gehb is actually the actual nagmebor. We're gonna call him Paul. This episode, because I don't truck with any of that police nonset.

What kind of name is Paulus? Anyway? It's some infuriating German name. Those people stick extra use and s is on all sorts of ship. Wow, it sounds like someone who would be like the son of like Caesar, like a Roman. Yeah, a Roman leader would be Paulus. Well, I'm gonna guess actually all of the US names came from Romans just fucking and conquering all over the place. And yeah, Paul Paulus is a Latin surname meaning small or humble. Well, he was a small, humble man. Uh,

so we'll talk about him for a little bit. Uh. Paul was born on October eighteen seventy and Gisa on the Rhone Mountains in Germany. His father and grandfather were both pharmaceutical chemists, and his dad was also a botanist who specialized in mosses. So he grew up surrounded and influenced by people who lived lives of the mind. Now, some of Paul's earliest memories were following his father through

the forest to look for where mosses. By age eight, Paul signed his letters Paul geheb student of natural sciences. So he's a he's a he's a knowledge lover miles because his dad was dragging to the force and like I pick up that grass over there and put in your pocket. Yeah. Well but he I think he liked it. I think his dad was good at in culcating a love of the natural world and you know, excitement and all that stuff. Uh, So there's something was good at it.

There's something like really when I when you said eighteen seventy and they were pharmaceutical chemists, I'm like, that sounds like a comedy. Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna guess most of what his dad is working with is like a mix of heroin and snail poison, and you can give it to little kids. Yeah, and eugit. Now, there's a little bit before they're doing much eugenics. I'll give that to them. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think Paul would have been down with that, but we'll tell you what

he was down with a little later. Now, Paul graduated primary school and he went to the universities of Berlin and then Jenna for a total of ten years. He almost got a doctorate. He was a wonderful student who was renowned by his teachers for his sheer thirst for knowledge, he came to hold an almost religious belief in what he called the perfectly integrated human, a person whose mastery of humanism, science, philosophy, and physical activity would blend into

one being of almost complete perfection. So this is his his his dreams of a chad. Yeah, I think it's his version of like Enlightenment. It's kind of like a quasi Buddhist. Yeah, the perfect man. You know that that that education can build a perfect person um. Now, in pursuit of achieving this end, he studied theology, philosophy, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, anatomy and physiology, and the nascent science of psychiatry. He also got ordained as a pastor and studied religion. So

that's that's cool. I'm said theology early, So am I Now everybody's ordained thanks to the Church of Life. Yeah, me too, That's what I mean. I mean, you know, Miles, if you want, there might still be room on the boat that where Billy and I are gonna go get trained to put bleach at people's asses so we can become reverend doctors. I'm I'm down for that. I mean, honestly, you know, my strength is in scamming and motivational speaking.

So if you know, if I can be of service to that greater vision, I would be more than honored to help. Well, uh, well, we'll keep your name on the on the shortlist for the ass bleaching trailer because I just see a lot of people out there who are really, really struggling, could use some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. And you know, there's no there's no better way to have light at the end of the tunnel than by bleaching your asshole. That

literally light different. Yeah yeah, so uh. Paul spent some time as a preacher um, but he felt himself more strongly drawn to teach and mold young minds, so he started pursuing this doctorate and he got as far as

working in his thesis. But in those days, there was a fee to take your doctor at exam marks, and rather than spend that money on reaching the apex of his ten year educational dreams, Paul Key he decided a wiser use would be to donate the money to a family he knew who faced financial collapse due to their alcoholic father. So yeah, Mr Preacher yeah, so far it seems pretty great right right now? Not sounding like a bastard to me. Yeah, like a man of God who

really puts his money where his doctor it isn't. Um. Yeah, he never became a doctor, and instead he decided that he was called upon to educate the poor children of Germany's great cities. In nineteen o two, he met up with a fellow named Herman Ltz, who was working towards

much the same goal. Both men were part of a movement of educational reform in Germany focused around changing the authoritarian structure of German education at the time, which wouldn't have looked out of place in a movie about the Hitler youth set forty years later. So, like, German education is uh not focused on shall we say, treating children like complete human beings. Like, so, what does that look like?

Just screaming corporal punishment. I don't think much screaming. I think more of that like quiet but very stern and unbending German discipline. Um, you know, they're not a shouty people. A lot of the time. I think it was more just sort of um, you know, everything was kind of military like it would it would have there would have been a quasi military feel to education. Talking up would not have been tolerated yet, very rigid, very uh, very

shame based. I'm sure too. That was probably their great motivator. Yeah, shame based. And also everyone does the same thing and follows the same structure, so like whether you know we now know kids. You know, different kids learn different ways. They wouldn't put in any they would not like none of that bullshit. In German school all do the same thing. They're like, yeah, we do exploration time where we let the children just sort of do as they want to

do to discover themselves. Children don't want things would be the German uh want things they don't want. Paul became part of what the was called sort of the back to nature movement and education UM. He worked with a number of experimental learning institutions and wind up co running what they called a school community in a place called Wickersdorf or Vickersdorf since it's German. Uh. The basic idea

behind this place is that it was a democratic learning institution. Students, parents and teachers all elected representatives to vote on decisions about what curriculum to learn. And you know, how to handle different things, so it seems like a pretty cool idea. I'm worth trying. Yeah. Now, Paul's partner called this a self educating community, and for several years it flourished. Now, one major aspect of the Vickersdorf School was a focus on play, dance, music, and sports as all necessary in

helping to craft well rounded people. So he didn't just you know, train kids to do whatever it is they were going to do as adults. You you, you know, everyone needed to learn how to dance, everybody needed to learn how to play an instrument, everybody needed to learn sports, like the you know, it's it's this kind of idea of the perfectly integrated man that that Paul's obsessed with.

Is that kind of born out of this idea like if you know more things and you push yourself in as many different directions as possible, Like that's that's stretching yourself out for more growth or balance. Basically, Yeah, I think that's kind of the idea that reminds me like Dirk Navitski, the basketball player. He had a shooting coach that sort of had this same mentality that was like, we're gonna work on your jump shot, but this summer

you're learning how to play saxophone. You're gonna do You're gonna you're gonna canoe, and you're gonna start doing like pottery. Now that it's necessarily the same, but it's sort of more like, we're going to help improve your skills by creating new skills that you didn't have in general. Yeah, it's kind of like how Karate Kid taught the karate kid how to do karate by teaching him how to clean how to karate. Yeah, well it's all karate. That's the that's the secret message of Karate Kid is that

all of life is karate. Thank you. Shout out to Pat Morita, Mr. The only person who taught me any thing but how to install Wolfenstein on a T I A three. But also he also told you he did. He did teach me that too. It was weird that that karate class required a hundred and sixty dollar graphing calculator, but hey, everything's karate man, even that graphic. Yeah. So the Vickersdorf School did very well for for years um but by personality conflicts between paulka Heb and his partner

Winikin led to the breakup of the school. Paul resigned and decided it was time for him to start his own school. Now well he'd been at Vickersdorff, Paul had fallen in love with one of his employees, Edith Casseerer. She'd started as a kindergarten teacher, which was not a very common job for a woman at the time, particularly a woman of her social stature, so she was a bit of a boundary breaker. Edith's dad was a wealthy industrialist.

The fact that she decided to devote her life to educating the children of the poor rather than marrying rich and increasing the family wealth was something of a slap in the face to her father Max initially, but while he opposed her marriage with Paul, by nineteen ten he'd been won over by Paul's charismatic enthusiasm for educational reform, and when his son in law decided to start a school, Max was only too happy to pour his own money

into the project. So very happy story, so far, no way, any of this turns horrible, great great step great father in law. Supporting your dreams sounds like a dream, really sounds wonderful. Yeah. In nineteen ten, the oden Vale School was open for business. Now this is the school that that Paul created with his his dad in law's money. The Odenwald School was a massive evolution from the Vickersdorff School.

Paul called it an educational laboratory and considered it a place for daring, bold experiments in educational reforms, which he hoped would spare all of Germany and then the world beyond what he called the sluggish, the sluggish organism of public education. Now, he believed the key to reforming public education was to recognize that the individual personality of the child could not be developed in isolation with Pew builds

quietly taking information and taking in tests. Instead, what was needed was a living community of adults and children working together to develop each other. The odin Bold School was a democratic learning institution uh students and teachers had equal votes on the school council, and Paul Gieb's words quote, the authority of the teacher is replaced by the authority of those who together represent the idea of the school. This authority is heated by adults as much as by children.

That's the that's theity this is based on. Now, it

sounds like it could work. Now, Obviously the adults are, you know, the more experienced and mature individuals, and so they were seen as having the responsibility to guide their students towards knowledge, but they weren't in charge of them in the authoritarian way typical and most of the world at the time, as Paul said, to be governed is completely unknown in our school, for it as a community without superiors, a school without a director, stuff, a school

disappears without I mean, it's funny when you started talking about this new school he made, I'm like, uh oh, he's starting to sound like he's getting a bit of a god complex here, where he's almost been like, nah, this is where the new ship is happening, and I'm completely changing everything and it's me yeah, you know, at

least on paper. Uh, it sounds like it's kind of a mix of that, because like he's definitely saying the whole system needs to be torn down, and but he's also um saying that, like we as a learning community, you are going to figure out what works better, because that's the real way to to to to spur innovation. Now, I I've had a bunch of details on the organization

of the olden Vulge School. In a nineteen two article by Henry Casseer, who was a nephew of Paul Geheb's who attended the olden Vulge school as a child, and here's what he said. He therefore introduced a new structure into the lesson plan, the Curse system. It's essential feature was that for a period of one month, each child had to choose courses in three subjects each time daily for eleven hours. This made it possible for the student

to concentrate on intensive studies in limited fields. Other subjects were been taken up during subsequent periods. The emphysis and teaching was less on learning facts than upon learning to learn to work independently, to study and to understand. Another feature of the Curse system was that the children were to be gathered in study groups according to their level of maturity and knowledge, rather than according to age groups.

Thus a child might find himself with older children and one subject for which he was gifted, but with the younger children and another subject where he had little previous schooling. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it sounds about right balanced, like people around your intellectual level and whatnot. Now, Paul was critical of gender segregation, which was very much common in German public schools at the time. The olden Vold School did not segregate students by gender. It was

divided into families. Each family run by a teacher who helped guide the children. Families consisted of both boys and girls, because he believed it was critical to human development to have gender integration. Before his career as an educator, he'd been a militant crusader for women's emancipation. His forty four page application to the Imperial German government to start the oden Vall School had included thirty pages on the importance

of gender integration. He wrote, co education means joyfully to affirm the polarity of the sexes in both theory and practice and attitude and living, to integrate pedagogically the rich sources of wealth it produces into all fields of life and culture, and to apply them fruitfully to the development of the child, which is pretty welk for nineteen ten. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I just I don't know. I know what this show is, yea, And what you said earlier, and now I'm might like now I'm starting to see

the chess moves. Yeah you what what what what do you what do you mean by that? Well? You said you were alluding to some kind of abuse, And I just feel like in any sort of predatory situation, like a predator is looking for the most target rich environment, and and advocating for integration means many children of both genders. And I just I don't know, I'm just I just know there's a turn. I've done this showing up with you, and then I'm gonna start dry heaving and being disgusted

because humanity is just a gigantic waste pile. Uh. But go on, I'm waiting with you. Put a put a pin in that target rich environment. Than we'll come back to that later. Uh. Yeah. So Paul, Paul's a reformer, uh, and he thinks that this is going to act as like a laboratory to help figure out the way schools in Germany should work in the future. And you know it's it's it's on paper. It seems like a noble pursuit here, like you can't really say, you know, objectively,

I understand what this person is going for. Yeah. Now, Paul School was as successful as it was revolutionary. Over its first years. It would educate men who came to be some of the finest artistic and philosophical minds in Germany. Klaussman, Thomas Man's son went to the Odenwald School. So did Hans Beth, winner of the nineteen sixty seven Nobel Prize for Physics. I could go on, but most of the famous alumni are German famous, so their names are not

particularly well known to most listeners. Were trying a lot of famous German thinkers who came from here. I only wrote down the two, but there's a whole list of them, and they're all very German sounding. Um. Now. By the time the late nineteen twenties rolled around, the Odenwald School had developed an international reputation as one of the finest centers of learning and all of your bad yeah yeah, yeah,

pretty cool. Now. Paul wrote and spoke eloquently on the rights of children, and his speeches are filled with quotes like this. There is no greater miracle among the inexhaustible miracles of creation, which in the strictest sense is unlimited in its richness, than the miraculous fact that nature dispenses its seed every day with generous amplitude, and that not one of its fruits is exactly the equal of the other. The younger the child, the more we enjoy it because

we rejoice in the wealth of individuality and originality. What. Yeah, that could go a couple of ways, couldn't it. Wait, I don't know what's the richness part. That's a great question, Miles. I mean, you know, the charitable undertaking of the is that you know, younger children haven't had their individuality beaten out of them as much by this this harsh German system that we that we live in designed to produce

you know, soldiers and factory workers. And so it's a joy to spend time with with young children because you can really just cultivate their individuality and all that stuff. So that that's one way you could take. It's weird because ones like yeah, before they're completely indoctrinated with like

societal expectations, they still have that purity, that innocence. And also you can mold them too, like they're more pliable at this age, like they're they're they're malleable in terms of how they're looking at the world and things like that. I Mean, it's funny because the first part I get because a lot of people like, if you're into any kind of spiritual texts and things like that always refer to.

You know, when you're a child, you're sort of at this level of consciousness where you can observe many things and still enjoy them because of your not being hit with all kinds of societal norms and things like that,

or cultural patterns of thinking. So when I'm like, okay, yeah, like we should be more childlike at times, well we we we that is so far as we As we come to our first ad break, miles, everything seems great, Everything seems fine, Everything seems very healthy, and I'm sure that that's how it will continue for the remainder of the twelve pages that I've written. Um, but you know what, what's also fine. You know what we'll save us smiles.

The products and services that support this show. Oh fantastic. I'm Robert Evans hosted Behind the Bastards. And if there's one thing I hate more than fascism, it's finishing a long work day and realizing I have no food left. It happened to me the other day after writing a three part episode, and then I realized that I had a Hello Fresh box that was just sitting out in front of my house. I cooked some delicious fish tacos

and it was awesome. Hello Fresh is the easy way to get home cooked meals simply you don't have to go to the grocery store endless amounts of times or spend all that money on takeout food. They're step to step recipes make it easy to get a great dinner in about thirty minutes. Hello has more five star recipes than any other meal kit and they have everything from family recipes, calorie smart recipes, vegetarian recipes, whatever you're into. And they're flexible. You can add extra meals or add

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And if we all know one thing about Germany and in in the nineteen twenties is then it turns into Germany in the nineteen thirties, where we like we're gonna be talking about Nazis, and that is the time that it is now. Um. Now, Paul de Heiba was not a fan of the Nazi Party as it rose to power in the late twenties and early thirties. Now, the Odenwald School was not a political instead tuition, but obviously it's focused on liberty, freethinking and gender integration did not jel

well with fascism. Um. It also drew in harassment because the school's funder and Max Cassarra, was an assimilated Jew. So there's there's a number of of dangerous things going on with the Old Wale School. Uh. And I'm gonna quote now from a right up I found in TNF about how the olden Wald School handled the rise of

the Nazis. The first in a series of Nazi raids on the communist jew Odenwald School took place in March nineteen thirty three and led to the purge of the faculty, the abolition of co educational residences, and the end of

student self government. New Nazi teachers formed chapters of the Hitler Youth in League of German Girls, the Nazi educational leadership of HESSE, hoping to benefit from the school's fame forbade gheheb to close it in response to these measures because he pursued a dual strategy in nineteen thirty three. On one hand, he promised cooperation, agreed to not see mandates, and repeatedly told the authorities that his school's goals were

consistent with those of the New Germany. At the same time, because he privately condemned the Nazi regime and made plans to immigrate and take some of his pupils with him, he hastened the closure of the own Volge school by secretly encouraging parents to withdraw their children. With the help of a sympathetic official and the reich Ministry of the Interior, he closed the school and moved to Switzerland in March

nineteen thirty four. Max Casser believed that his son in law was not sufficiently accommodating towards the Nazis, and for months disapproved his plans to immigrate in Switzerland. He struggled at first, but by the end of the war, the Cold to Humanity, which is the school he started in Switzerland, was an acclaimed haven for young refugees from all over Europe. Meanwhile, a new more explicitly. Nazi school opened at the old Old Old Invulge School. During the war, however, its directors

successfully protected some children of Jews and dissidents. That's a good story, right, sound great? Yeah, he does, we go along with the Nazis. His father in law, you said, who was the assimilated Jewish business person. He was telling him, you're not being Nazi enough. Yeah, that's actually really common.

And I mean a lot of a lot of assimilated German Jews were like, just work along with them, it'll be k. I mean, it's like anything when you sort of internalized that sort of hatred to in order to survive and operate with society. But yeah, okay, that must have been weird. Yeah, it must have been. He has to leave the Germany, which, yeah, it wouldn't have been

a friendly place for him. They started school in Switzerland, but the old and of Alge school continue to operate in Germany, and after the fall of Nazism it reopened under its original operating principles, run by a series of dedicated educators and some child rapists. Um yea, now yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, uh so, I I don't know how to make this transition um, yeah, thank you. The the Old and Volge School was just filled with child molesters

as an average day at Disney World. Um so yeah, yeah, this was as a result of like the fall of Nazism, like that when they restarted it up, or is this was this? This is even predates the Third Reich. A lot is into these miles. Now, none of this was known at the time, you know. What was known for decades was that after naziason fell, the Old Volge School continued to operate and be a very prestigious learning institution for children from all over Europe, um operating under enlightened

principles of student self government and gender reintegration. That's the surface story. But in nineteen reports were first made public that Gerald Becker, who ran the school from nine nine eighty five, had been reported as a child molester by several of the kids in his care. Investigations into this were suspended because so much time had passed. At least

that was the official justification. The reality of the situation is that with its high rate of prestigious alumni, the olden Volge School and its leader were connected people and everything was swept under the rug. Now Becker had first come to the school in the late nineteen sixties. Now, this was a time of increasing liberalism and openness in society. Becker, in the school's music teacher, a guy named Wolfgang, took

horrific advantage of this. Both men lived in the same house, one at the top and one at the bottom floor, with their families of children living in between them. Since both men were pedophiles, this was essentially the perfect living in the situation for predators. They picked specific children to be in their families, who they then molested. Pupils recalled that they were regularly grouped in the morning and forced

to masturbate their instructors in the afternoon. One of those children, Adrian Kay, later recalled this, back then, we children didn't even discuss the things we saw and experienced on an almost daily basis. It was a closed system. Another student recalled, I remember being woken up as a thirteen year old by Gerald Becker sucking my penis like a possessed man. So, oh my god, not great, not great, not great. Yeah. Wait, the family thing, you were saying, that's part of that

structured like a school structures. Yeah yeah, yeah, so that Geba instituted. Yet so the teacher. Okay, so it's a three story home where each teacher is on either side of the middle part, which is all of the students who are the quote unquote family, and the and the fucking teachers pick their family from the the pool of enrolled students and this way. So this but this comes out in the eighties, you said, or in the night in the nineties, and this comes out in the late nineties.

Well it makes sense because for the longest time, we just had the we just were like, I don't know, man, we don't know how to We're not equipped to actually talk about assault against children. We'll just call it like stay away from that person or something's different about that fellow. Yeah. Yeah, And that's kind of what what goes on here. Um although that I should say, that's what it seems like

is going on here at first. Um. So, numerous people's reported abuse at the hands of Gerald Becker and his friend, the music teacher, but the teachers that, like kids, reported this too at the Old and Bold School tended to ignore are those reports. In one teacher, Barbara b was told by a student that Becker had molested them on the previous night and paid for the pleasure with a stereo and a pair of sneakers. Now this teacher reported this to Becker's successor, who was the new head of

the school after him, but nothing was done. Becker was other than his child molestation um a a shining example of a dedicated educator UM and someone who was clearly uh respected in the field. When he wasn't molesting kids, he gave vivid speeches celebrating the enlightened beliefs of the Odenwald School. Former teacher Salmon and Sarry recalled whenever Gerald Becker gave a speech, he always said ours was the

world's best school with the world's best teachers. Now, part of the why this was allowed to go on for so long were the deep connections Gerald Becker enjoyed to the German government. He was friend and colleague to a fellow named Helmett Becker, who was not related to him. But Helmett was the guy who first spearheaded the effort to reform the West German edgercational system after World War Two. He was the first director of the Max Planck Institute

and a huge fan of the olden Volde School. Helmet described this in other independent schools as a kind of incubator within the public school system. He then added this applies in particular to boarding schools and which relaxed encounters between parents and pupils provides better protection for human sexuality. What what? Yeah? Well, did you notice something something word about that line? Say that again one more time, out

loud in English. Yeah. He described the olden Volde School and other independent schools as an incubator within the public school system and added this applies in particular to boarding schools and which relaxed encounters between parents and pupils provides better protection for human sexuality, better protections for That's an

odd thing to say, isn't it. Yeah, there's a number of quotes like that that are odd things to say and and kind of hard to figure out, Like uh uh at the time, people must have just had the same reaction you did, but there were no clear explanations why that could sound really fucking terrible or really smart. I don't know. Yeah, it's like it's like Paul Gehee's line about enjoying little kids, where it's like that could mean a few things, and you probably give him the

benefit of the doubt. You think it's like an educator like, well, there's no way it's for some kind of malicious intent. Yeah, a little. Now, Gerald Becker hired Helmet to work at the ode involved School. Now, Helmet's godson was a student at the school, and within a few months of coming on board, helmets gods son reached out to his godfather to complain that principal Gerald Becker had climbed into his

bed to try to have sex with him. Uh. You might expect this to have led to a gigantic ship show, since Helmet had the influence to demand just about anything he wanted from the school and the government. But instead of doing anything, Helmet recommended that Gerald's seek treatment for his child molesting problem. Gerald was sent off on what amounted to a medical vacation, then returned to the school and molested more children. Um, I mean, it's just it's

that's pretty catholic A sounding exactly. I was saying, like, it's the same pattern of dealing with like I guess not of not dealing with it, where you're being like, Okay, we're pretty sure this happened, but we don't even know what to do, so put him on time out? Like what what is what is a medical vacation in those days, like just to go to some kind of like yeah, I think he probably went to like, yeah, a lot

of steam baths. And the reason he's protected is because of his like how respected he is within like the upper echelons of the government. He's respected, his school is respected. Helmet who reformed German education after World War Two is like, you know, his his name gets all tied up in the old Bulge School's reputation. So it's it's it's nobody's powerful's best interest for anything to get out about what's happened.

What what what Gerald Becker is doing to these students. Um. So Gerald Becker got to die before he faced justice, which is what you always want to hear in a story like this. UM. Another person who died before facing justice was Walter Schaefer, who was Gerald's successor as head of the school and the man who probably worked hardest to cover up his crimes. Now, in the late nineteen nineties, the German media completely ignored the revelations about one of

the school's proudest institutions. Um. None of this really came out until two thousand seven, when a woman named Margarita Kaufman became the school's headmistress. She was the first person at the Old Valge School with any sort of influence who took the problem of child molestations seriously. In two thousand ten, she became aware of the mounting number of child molestation allegations, and she brought in a former judge,

Bridget Tillman, to investigate. According to Dr Spiegel quote, Bridget Tilman and a lawyer published a report on the school, and they run up to the anniversary there no holds barred appraisal paints a frightening picture of widespread abuse at the Old Involge School. They identified more than a dozen perpetrators, more than seventy victims, incited seventeen witnesses alone who justified

against the school's longtime principle, Gerald Becker. So in the late nineteen nineties you start getting these reports that Becker's molested some kids. And then in the mid oughts, the school's new headmistress convenes an investigation and they find that actually more than a dozen teachers at the school and staff members have been molesting kids. So the first they

thought it was just the one. Yeah, they thought it was just Gerald and his The music and the music teacher, right right, right, yeah, And then in after the investigation, like oh it's there's there's Yeah, they start looking into it more. And the more they look into it, the more perpetrators they find, and the more victims they find.

And is this like with talking to past pupils and things like that, And then did they discover that even currently at the time in the nineties, they're also dealing with like a large number of Oh yes, Yet the further back they go, the more allegations they start to find. But then they but they found twelve people that were currently working there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, I mean it's yeah, it also makes sense. I mean obviously it's a shift

in like the culture too. But like when was there was there ever another woman directing the school prior to her? I don't think so. I think she was the first female headmistress in the school. Was she hired as some kind of reformer you think? Or she was just because she's a woman and a little like less interested in protecting male predators. Was like, something's wrong, I actually care

about these kids. What the funk is this? Yeah? I think she I don't know if it's because she was a woman, or just because she was a better person than the other teachers. But not to say that being a woman that makes you more interesting. But I think, like I think, no deviation from the pattern before. Yeah, we we take a strong stance here that that, you know, modern women can be child child molesters too. I just want to be clear about that. Oh yes, I'm sure

that's been in past episodes too. Yeah, absolutely, um actually yeah, the Georgia Tan episodes. Um so uh yeah. So they started looking into this, and more they look into this, the more o involved teachers they find who had molested students,

and the more students they find who had been molested. Uh. Now, this story finally broke into the mainstream news in two thousand ten, uh and a series of journalists from different papers and law enforcement agencies began to conduct wider ranging investigations into the Old Invulge School and what they found was fucking soul crushing miles. I'm gonna quote now from a two Irish Times article. Some eight teachers, including a former headmaster, have been a huge of sexually abusing at

least thirty three former students. Now former students have told of torture. Rituals were older students, raped younger students and scalded their genitals. What I've heard completely goes beyond all imagining, said Miss Kaufman, head mistress of the school since two thousand seven. I just don't know how this kind of

behavior carried on without teachers hearing cries of pain. In an interview with Desight newspaper, ms Coaufman said that the school operated in the past like a cult, with abusive allegations suppressed out of a misplaced off for the reforming pedagogical concepts of Gerald Becker, who was principal from nineteen seventy two to nineteen five. So that's the way this starts being spun in the two thousand's, which is that they're definitely trying to trace this problem back to uh

Gerald Becker. Right. So that's the story as it comes in, is that this guy comes in because he's so respected, um, nobody notices his abuse, and he enables other people to commit abuse. And that's the where where the olden Volge School goes wrong starting in the nineteen seventies. That's that's the that's because of that guy, that one bad apple that spoiled the butch uh As reports came in, Becker was revealed as the ringleader for what can only be

described as a gang of pedophile teachers. They wrapped themselves in the cloak of progressivism, emphasizing the olden Volge School's reputation for forward thinking, experimental teaching methods to hide abuse. Former students reported that teachers saw themselves as revolutionaries, fighting against dodgy ideas about education and prudishness and replacing them

with the ideals of the sexual revolution. To this end, Becker and other teachers children showered, viewed child pornography while working, and regularly woke children up in the morning by masturbating them. So classic revolutionaries. Um yeah. So by the time all this came out, Gerald was old and sick, and he died before facing any justice. As already stated, his partner like a romantic partner. Hartmt. Von Hintig, was a prominent educational expert in Germany, and he said this at the time.

I have no doubt that these friendly gestures were never carried out against the will of the students. Friendly gestures, Yeah, surprise assault while you're sleeping as a friendly fucking I don't. I mean, I would say it depends on your friend group.

The thing about this too is like it's also what you're what you're talking about is like a cult too, because you're saying precisely because other people were in awe of this fucking revolutionary approach to abusing kids or unquote unquote edgy cation or whatever you wanna call it, that that is what sort of uh like sort of enabled this culture of silence because like, well was it that they saw it and they were rationalizing like, well, I

guess that's a revolutionary method, or it's like, well we're taking the good in the bad. It's like there's so much going on here, and we're we're going to dig into it a lot because there's like there's there's a fucking crazy amount going on, just like my wheels are. This has been one of the harder episodes to like structure because there's so much to get into. But yeah, we're we're gonna keep delving into this because it just

there's layers upon layers. So further reporting by a website called The Local, which is a German paper, revealed that students at the Old and Bulge School were regularly applied with drugs and alcohol, and even used by teachers as sex slaves for whole weekends. I'm gonna quote from Dear Spiegel again. Eventually the permissiveness became almost total, and it wasn't the tormentors but the tormented who were made to feel guilty. The declared minimum objective was to be bisexual.

If you didn't achieve that, you were a failure, says former people Gerald Are, who came to the school in nineteen seventy five and was first abused by his music teacher the following year. We knew one thing. Everything was permitted at any time, Gerald Are, at the alumnus who recalled Gerald beckerfilating him like a possessed man, says of his school days. So everything is permitted at any times.

The the way these kids are raised to sort of expect things are going to work in the olden Balde school, right, so that it's almost like nine seven. But nothing was a surprise to It's like accepted. The culture of the school is ship's going to happen because that's just how things work at the Olden Vould. Yeah, And at first they think it just goes back to the early seventies, but as these stories come out, more people start to

tell their own experiences. One of these people who related her experiences was German television presenter Emily Freed, who attended the olden Balde School starting in nineteen sixty nine. In a book published to mark the school's centenary, she recounts how a teacher coaxed her into playing strip poker in

his apartment. She said he goaded her for being a prudish, petit bourgeoisie, white being girl, until she finally caved into the pressure, although she was embarrassed and suppressed her memory of the incident for decades. So if you don't funk us, you're bougie. You're bougie. Yeah, you're too prudish. And the whole like, was the bisexuality thing born out of like an actual philosophical I think, or it is purely like we want to be I don't know. We just want

people to be as sexually elastic as possible. That's it. We want people to be sexually elastic. We want them all fucking uh. And like they wanted the students also fucking other students, because the more of that that was going on, the more it camouflaged the teachers predations on these kids. Oh my god, yeah, I mean it's fucking wild arc like yeah, yeah, you know what won't create

a culture of child molestation? These goods and services. That these goods and services, that's right, Miles, I knew that. I love these. That's that's our only line for advertisers, and it's a good one. Products. We're back. Yeah, it's about to get so depressing her. Um now, When the news of all of the rapes at the olden Volge school came out, Emily, who was just talking about being called bougie for not wanting to fund her teacher, wrote

a column for a Frankfurt newspaper. In that column, she explained that for her, some of this was like her feelings of whe whether or not to report anything, or whether or not this was okay. Her like emotions on the matter were very muddled by the fact that the olden Volge school took like, you know, what you might call a healthy attitude towards sexual relationships between students. You know, they didn't punish kids for starting relationships or whatever. These

are teenagers or whatnot. They had like you could see how at the time someone would be like, oh, they're just trying like not to be as as sex negative as a school is if you don't know about all child molestation that's going on. Um. So she noted in her column, it was suggested to students that they respected principle, understood them very well, and that it was a sign of recognition to show mutual affection. We students were happy to be able to explore sexuality in an angst free climate.

That some teachers use this freedom as a cover for their assaults as a scandal. So that's how Emily winds up even you know, as a victim of this, Emily winds up feeling like, well, the school was basically good and this climate was basically good. It was just some

teachers taking advantage of the system. Um, which is you know kind of I think, um, I think as we'll see her trying to protect herself emotionally a little bit by by bye, because she you know, that's one of the confusing things about being molested in a situation like this. I'm sure the years of her the old and Vulgueool were very positive, had positive memories for a number of the kids who were victims there. So you've got to try to like build this up as like no and

the basic system was good. There was just a few people who uh use the freedom to abuse other like abuse the freedom essentially. That that's the way this this young woman, or she's not a young woman anymore, but that's the way she kind of thinks back on her time in the school and I think tries to protect herself emotionally. But there's evidence that, like even between the students themselves, a lot of what happened at the Old

in Vulgied School was profoundly abusive. There's at least one report of an adolescent girl who was molested by several of her classmates. Um. And it's worth noting here that while all these children were a definition victims, um, a number of them victimized each other too. So this is a very confusing and messy situation. Yeah, because the culture was just just a fucking free for all at every level,

and there's just no it's a pure chaos. Yeah. Yeah, And this is seen as like like ideologically important, revolutionary, Like that's really how the teachers frame it to the students. Um that like what's going on at the Old in Vulgied School is just too far ahead of mainstream morality for most people. That I understand, Like, where how would they extend that logic out? It's like, how is us

assaulting each other making us better students are more balanced people? Yeah, I think it's I think it's you know, it's very easy to convince people to do something terrible if the thing that they were already doing wasn't great, and like German sexual morays in the nineteen sixties and seventies, uh, weren't the healthiest that humans have ever developed. Um, just like American sexual mores at the same time, you know, they're they're very repressive, they're very like based on shame

and guilt, and that's not healthy. So you can get people to buy into something that's even worse if the thing that they grew up doing is also fucked up right or to them it's like, yeah, this definitely is an optimal I guess, yeah, what's the harm in trying the complete other side of the spectrum? Exactly? Um. One people at the school at the time later recalled we were taught that we were different from everyone else, and what child, what person can remain unmoved by the sense

of constantly being marveled at. We were real daredevils in our own paradise behind Golden Gates. So fucking confusing here. Even at the time, it was not paradise for all of those kids. Adam Kerfer, a former student at Oldenwald, called the school hell and described regular forced showers with his teachers. He claimed his music teacher, who was the head of his family, regularly pimped him and other boys

out to friends on school trips. So you get this mix of students who like later on recognize, yeah, we were abused, but it was also a really good time. And these students who have consistently been like, no, this was a nightmare from the beginning. So really different recollections from different kids. Yeah, if it's just sort of subconsciously like anything, like you know, that cycle of abuse just continues.

Other people like if the ones that do continue were just resigned to the fact that that was you know, that what that's what was their reality going forward. Yeah, I think that's that's what's going on here. So once all of this broke in two thousand and ten, the school board resigned under mass outrage that they had chosen to investigate the matter internally back in when the first reports on Becker came out rather than report all that mass child rape to the police. Head Mistress Kaufman thought

this line of reasoning was bullshit. She blamed the cover up on what she called mafia structures with the powerful friends that gerald Becker had accumulated, including heads of state and newspaper publishers. Uh yeah, there's like a let's see. One of the like articles I read on this in Women's Studies Quarterly describes it as a like institutional protection because the olden Volge School is seen as like such a key aspect of like the educational reform movement in Germany.

So like, because these people are proud of the educational reform since the Nazis, they can't discard the oden Volged school because it's kind of at the forefront of that, even though it's very clear that like really fucked up

ships going on there. So that's part of why this all gets uped under the rug now the h The author of that article um Pito Sexuality and especially German History and Women Studies Quarterly, suggests that a lot of the explanation for why all this molestation happened at Oldenvald in the seventies and eighties is tied into the sexual revolution and the intellectual climate of the nineteen sixties and seventies,

particularly in Germany. The author credits the concept of pedagogical eros, which was first cooked up by a guy named Gustav Weinken, who was Paul Geheb's old partner at the school he helped run before founding Odenwald. Now, the term pedagogical eros referred initially to homosexual erotic attraction between a pupil and a teacher. Vinikin didn't see this as a bad thing. He was very influenced by Platonic Greek attitudes towards teacher

student relationships, which were often erotic and sexual. And we can look back in time and say like, we're profoundly abusive as well. Um, but he's looking at this stuff, is like, oh, this is the way teaching ought to be. This is Paul Geheb's old partner in the early nineteen hundreds. I was looking back and like, hey man, they had some good ideas. Yeah. I don't know why, kids, I don't know why we're I don't know why we're disrespecting our history or some ship. Yeah, is that really just

oh my god? Heros that's like, yeah, it's so weird though too, Like the language and the vocabulary these people create to not what they're doing what it is. Yeah, you have to have that language around it, otherwise people will realize, well, you're just you're just talking about fucking kids, dude. Right If if they were up front, it's like, yeah,

and then I just abused the kids sexually. That that they wrapped themselves in ideology to get away with this sort of It's like, right, I guess that's the hallmark of any fucked up movement. Yeah, it's the same thing that the Catholic priest did. It's just a different ideology,

but it's it's the same thing. Um. So you have these very old ideas about like Greek you know, pedagogical eros and stuff, um, and you have these things kind of merging very modern ideas of the sexual revolution because the nineteen sixties and seventies is a time when people are increasingly in the West lifting taboos against sex um, which is good. But when you mix it with with these child molesty desires and some of these like old bad ideas, you get this very toxic slurry um that results.

And it's it's a very complicated thing that happens, but it's not just at the Odenwald School. And this is where we start talking about what was happening in the rest of Germany at the time, because there was actually a very weird and virulent strain of pro child fucking ideology that ran rampant among the German intellectual community in the first decades after World War Two. Have you ever

heard of the kinder Latin movement? Uh, that sounds familiar. Yeah, it's it's not a it's it's a fairly prominent thing. It's started in the nineteen seventies as a reaction to the unspeakable horrors of Nazism. The basic goal of the movement was to raise children to be more obedient, disobedient to adults. So people think at like what happens in the Nazis, and they're like, oh, we shouldn't like this culture of obedience that we've inculcated in Germany has horrible consequences.

So we need to inculcate a culture of disobedience now within our students, which makes sense, right, You can see the logical through line there. Absolutely see why you would come to that conclusion. Now In previous eras German child rearing had placed a strong emphasis on obedience above all else. The idea was that raising children in Germany had to completely change in order to avoid a repeat of the horrors of the thirties and forties. So this all came from a good place, but it didn't stay in a

good place. And I'm gonna quote again from that Women Studies Quarterly article. Within the anti authoritarian kinder Lattan movement, which was closely associated with the early phage of the New Women's Movement, great significance was assigned to the idea of liberating child sexuality. This was linked to a vision reaching back specifically to Wilhelm Reich, who held that liberation of child sexuality would lead to the liberation of human beings.

The idea fitted with a politicization of desire in the context of the nineteen sixty movements, and can be seen analogously as a politicization of childhood's sexuality. The proclamation of their liberation was expected to contribute to their childhood happiness. A number of texts from the West German anti authoritary and educational milieu did not distinguish between childhood and early adult sexuality, but sought to flatten sexual distinctions within the

generations m HM. Now Wilhelm Reich is the guy who coined the term sexual revolution um. And so there's a lot going on here. It seems like what you've got is this very well meaning movement that comes out as a as an understandable reaction to the horrible crimes of

the Nazi era. But you also have all these people who just want to fund kids and see this as an opportunity like, well, I can slide a little bit of my ideology in here, these are the things I believe, and I can cloak it as something more than just me being horny for little kids. Right, I'm changing I'm changing attitudes. I'm saving a future generation of Germans so that you know, nothing terrible happens. Well, also completely taking

advantage of that sentiment for yeah, so um yeah. And I don't want to say, like the whole kinder lat movement was not about child molestation. There were actually a lot of very important developments and educational and child rearing policy that can be traced back to it. But you also had a funkload of pedophiles with inrovement who used the opening up of society is a chance to pray

on little kids. Quote. Within the circles of these movements, the alternative milieu and the advansipatory sexology of the nineteen seventies, Texan documents on child sexuality lacked perspective that reinforced a child's right and ability to say no to sexual contact conduct. So this is part of how Yeah, so these these these teachers who are trying to basically stick uh and thinkers who were trying to basically like mainstream child molestation

by hijacking the kinder lad movement. They're noting the importance of emancipating children's sexuality, but they're not writing anything about the importance of consent. That doesn't The assumption then is that kids want this kind end of contact that way, and people like went with that because I mean, like if you're a really a whole lot of them, did, man, I mean, disobedience is purely built on agency. That's because this isn't this isn't a real like, this chunk of

the movement isn't real. There's no ideology. Sure, but I guess like even if you were hearing this out loud and you're like, this is fucking terrible, can I like limb because if if they had to explain themselves, they're like, Okay, I got caught. You know, it's this matter of it's this matter of Once the weight of cultural forces behind change, most people are are cowards, you know, whether that cultural change is like the switch to Nazism or the switch

to childhood sexual liberation. An awful lot of people are just going to kind of go along with it if it seems like what everyone else is doing. That's that's what is happening here. Now, this is all very complicated to talk about, especially since some of what happened in the Kindred Laton movement has its roots in the struggle

for gay rights. See in the sixties and seventies in Germany, the age of consent for heterosexual sex was eighteen, but the age of consent for homosexual male sex was twenty one, which is obviously unjust. Um So there was a campaign to lower the age of consent for homosexual male sex down to eighteen. And there's nothing wrong with that, obviously. If you're gonna have the age of consent be eighteen,

it should be eighteen for everybody. Nobody's I don't think anybody's gonna have a problem with that, But you can see how the general air of discussion around a lot of the left at that time would have been focused on lowering age of consents and how that brought cover to people who wanted the age of consent to be way lower than so just like the same way you have white supremacists like sort of taking advantage of this disruption in the economy and people giving like sort of

these straw man arguments about well, it's this other group, and then people would darker purposes go yeah, yeah, right right right, also white people. It's it's like white supremacists seeing that like everyone's talking about uh, you know, nationalized healthcare and are like, yeah, we do need more socialism, but it's got to be a socialism that ex ludes people who aren't part of the racial community, like a national sort of social tim like yeah, this happens in

every sphere of life where this is. Or their different laws for gay sex between women, I've noticed how you made that distinction. They I don't think they really thought about it, of course, Like like that's one of those things like sometimes it was kind of easier to be a gay woman than a gay man, just because nobody really thought about it as much. It was like wasn't even discussed like really to the like like it was

taboo really to talk about gay mail sex. And I think sometimes gay women kind of slid under the radar because people just assumed it didn't exist. One of the unintended benefits of toxic patriarchy. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, again, this is all very complicated to talk about. I I maybe a little bit wrong about what I'm saying about, like, uh, you know, lesbian sex and this only read into so much here. Well, yeah, it was weird. Even the government

was like, yeah, there was a distinction to even codify that. Yeah. Now, I found a very good article about all this on Der Spiegel called the Sexual Revolution in Children How the Left went too far um and it points out that Klaus Reiner Wool, the publisher of a popular leftist magazine at the time in Germany, wrote open calls for sex with miners while molesting his own daughters. It also goes into horrific detail about how some experiments and communal living

during this period went very very badly. Quote, in the summer of nineteen sixty seven, three women and four men moved into an apartment and an old building on who Gee brek Strasa together with two small children, a three year old girl, Grisha and a four year old boy Nessim. For the residents, the cohabitation experiment was an attempt to overcome all bourgeoisie constraints, which included everything from separate bank accounts and closed bathroom doors to fidelity within couples and

the development of feelings of shame. The two children were raised by the group, which often meant that no one paid much attention to them. Because the adults had made it their goal to not just tolerate, but in fact a firm child sexuality, they were not satisfied to simply act as passive observer. Now the article goes on into some uncomfortable to tail about what happened with that, and I'm not going to quote the stuff about the sex

acts that followed because it's gross. Um. But there's this there's this complicated era where you have like, you know, kids are going to experiment and like grab things, right um. And because everyone's going around newd all the time, kids will grab adults, and adults will feel that it's like counter revolutionary basically to stop this, and so some of the molestation happens that way too, But it's very, very complicated and weird what goes on in German kind of

leftist revolutionary circles at this time. And this was yet just sort of again to push back against all these social constructs and say, what if we take all take them all down and there are no rules to the point that we're veering into like just the darkest kind of ship. That's exactly what happens. And you know, there was a stigma against me king a fuss about it if you thought what was going on was unhealthy, because

doing so would would make you seem counter revolutionary. Um, one trude, you're being exactly yeah, One teacher later called quote. I found it incredibly difficult to take a stance. I felt that what we were trying to do was fundamentally correct, but when it came to this issue fucking kids, I thought this is crazy, It just isn't right. But then

I felt ashamed of thinking that way. I think many were in the same position, and you can see you you stick that same reasoning to people who kind of went along with the Nazi re shames crimes, and I'm sure it speaks for millions of Germans in that period. Um, so, yeah, it's really ironic to me that a movement that started as an anti authoritarian response to fascism ended with people sitting by and watching other kinds of horrific crimes occur

because they were still too scared to go. There's a lot of lessons about human nature in here, and none of them are positive. Yeah, seriously, Yeah, it's yeah. The the x us as of the kinder Lattan movement are i think, like evidence of how deeply toxic group think can be, regardless of what side it comes from, and how vulnerable times of social change and exploration are to

the whims of hidden predators. You know, it's any time, you know, like now we're changes in the air, you have to be very fucking careful because changes always is especially necessary and society as unhealthy as our own, but it also provides cover to the worst kinds of human beings.

And also like the sort of naivety to think you could completely just one eighty like an entire nation's culture within a generation, and absurd like it's centuries and centuries of norms and traditions that give you that, and to be like, well, all right, if we do this and kids just like we make them all rebellious and like, you know, our kids just need to be more punk rock, Like that's not the solution, and to think that again, but I think also it was also that wasn't really

the point for lot of people. The point was to create this environment in which this kind of behavior could be seen as like not necessarily because it's in the

name of revolution and evolution. And this is where the episode gets more confusing again because if you you know, it makes sense if you look at it the way that like it's started to look right now, which is that like, okay, l sixties, early seventies, you have this movement in Germany for educational reform in a new way of looking at like how children are raised, and child molesters used this as cover to to to you know,

essentially abuse kids. Um and this guy, Gerald Becker, winds up in charge of the Old and Alge School, influenced by these ideas in and inculcates a culture of child ripe within the school. Right makes a lot of sense, goes inline with German historical trends at the time, except for one problem. Gerald Becker and the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies is not when the Old Involge

School started becoming a haven for child rape. It started it with the person we started talking about at the beginning of this episode, Paul Geheb. For a very long time, Paul was viewed as something as a hero, both within the field of education and within Germany. Albert Einstein called him one of the few upright men who maintained the

honor of Germany during the horrible Nazi era. The school he established in Switzerland during a war became a haven for child refugees and orphansive Nazism's mad dashed through Europe. But Paul was not the man he seemed to be, and the Old Vald School's history of child abuse went back much further than the late sixties. In fact, it goes all the way to the beginning. None of this came into light until late in two thousand ten, when

Der Spiegel conducted a deep investigation into the school. Now by this point, other investigators had revealed the sweeping history of sexual assault from the sixties up until the early nineties. At least Adrian Kerfort, the chairman of a group formed by children molested by Old Vold teachers estimated at this point that between five hundred and nine hundred children had been victimized, but most people still believed that Paul Geheb

and his beloved legacy as a reformer were clean. All of that was blasted away by the investigation of an educationalist named Christie Stark. Stark basically gains access to the archives at the old involved school and starts like reading through all of these letters that had been sent from parents, to teachers and from to school administrators, starting from the very beginning of the school, and a lot of what she finds is deeply fucked up. Uh And I'm gonna

I'm gonna quote from that, dear Schpiegle right up. On September four, a mother wrote to Gaheb's wife, Edith, who had built up to school with him. This mother, e m described in detail her twelve year old sons allegations that he had been abused by a teacher. It wasn't

the first such claim. Three weeks earlier, a father had taken his daughter out of the school on the grounds that she had been very disturbed by the nocturnal visits by adults that she had witnessed educationalist Crystal Stark says that the school received a number of such letters from concerned, shocked parents over the years, with some pointing the finger at older pupils and others at the teachers. So, after hundreds of hours of pains making research, Stark writes a

dissertation on all this. Now. Prior to her research, the understanding was that most of the children who had been abused at Oldenvald were boys, but she found vastly more complaints from parents about suspected or confirmed sexual relations with

between their daughters and school staff. Some of these parents presented love letters that their daughters had received from teachers during summer vacation, and shockingly, these early nine parents were generally too scared to a complain, which is probably why the behavior flew under the radar. One mother even promised the school directly that she had no intent of causing a scandal that would put the school in an unfavorable light.

Even in the days of Gheb, the Oldenvald School's reputation as a bastion of bold experimentation and scholarship protected it from harm. So now I'm gonna quote again from that dear Spiegel article on February nineteen thirty one, he wrote to a female pupil who had asked for his help. He had sent the seventeen year old girl to a friend of his in London, a fellow teacher who was supposed to improve her English, but whom she said molested her.

Geh Heeb defended his colleague vehemently. He bravely treads new ground in the realm of sexuality in particular, and it's discovered new successful methods that are of course extremely infuriating for a high society. And it's hypocritical sexual morality. So this is how, this is how he argues to an abused child. Yeah that she wasn't in fact abused now he uh. I just like also, I mean, I I get it because history moves at a very its own pace, and especially things from this era. We don't have the

same speed at which information travels. But it's wild that it's like they're like, oh yeah, back in like this has been going on for a century. Yeah yeah. So when that girl you know wrote him this article complaining about being molested, heb advised her not to make a fuss, uh, and he wrote, it's natural that stupid little girls immediately feel sexually threatened, call him a pig, and maybe even call for the police to get involved. She's she's dumb

for yeah now. And this happens all the time with women, you guys know, you know, you've seen it a hundred times.

It's like the sentiment of it all the Also, like the shame part two is like very interesting because I know, you know, with the Germans and the Japanese, uh, you know, forming the axis back then in World War Two, like the sort of similarities in culture to like, you know, even in Japanese culture, you wouldn't you would maybe be a little hesitant to call something out, not necessarily to this scale, but in general because you don't want to be seen as the person who's trying to disrupt something

or malign a group or something like that. And it's a very powerful force to just sort of maintain the status quo because you know, obviously Americans too, it were on the difference on the other side of the spectrum to aggressively probably probably toxic degree where it's like we'll fucking scream about everything and anything, and sometimes about ship that really isn't even bad, just because we want to

be able to scream about something. But when you see even this, like this mother was like, I'm looking at the evidence in front of me, Yet the thing that is preventing me isn't that I don't I'm not. Uh, it's not that I'm mistaking what is actually happening here objectively, It's that I don't want to be seen as a

bolt rocker. Yeah. And it it gets even more fucked up than that because you know, we talked a lot about what Paul did during the Nazi era and how like he resisted the Nazis and he you know, his his school helped protect kids, and that's all true, but the Nazi era also provided Paul with a shield for

a lot of his abuse. So that girl who got molested that he wrote this letter to her father was a lawyer and he pulled her out of school, but he didn't feel comfortable suing or pressing charges because he was a Jewish person and his daughter was also jew. Yeah.

So this suggests that Paul Geheb, who bravely stood up to the Nazis, may have purposefully reached out so like this this Jewish lawyer, he's not a wealthy lawyer, um, and his daughter was only able to afford membership in the Old Old School because Paul Geheb had authored her a scholarship, which suggests perhaps that Paul Geheb may have purposefully reached out to members of vulnerable groups in order to extend scholarships, knowing that their marginalization would make them

less likely to retaliate against him in the school. It's like classic predator behavior. I mean, if nobody's gonna listen to this Jew talk about our it's like and also the government doesn't care about them, so they're a low poward. It's the same thing like with the amount of sexual abusers that will teach on reservations too, and because of like tribal laws are like well I can just sunk off the rez and then it's a different system of law and I can skirt it and continue to prey

upon vulnerable groups. M It's like, I mean, it doesn't it's not that it's it's just I was gonna say it's it's not fascinating because it's so dark, but to under to know that it's the exact same process that goes into it. Whether it's like if they're priests who we're going after, children who may be like, uh, like hearing impaired or deaf or like whatever, because they know those children speak less to their parents and are less likely to talk to their parents about what happens. Because

of that, they're targeted. And now to see in this one, he's taking advantage of the anti semitism of the time to also find additional cover two in this What do you think that was as intentional as it was or this is an example or was he also maybe like giving scholarships to students who were from those groups too, like they're like, yeah, you may be marginalized, but also

you can come to this school for free or whatever. Well, I think he was doing that, and I think it made it look like it was a very progressive school and he was protecting these kids. But I also think he took advantage of that status yea, of the fact that they had less protections. Yeah. Now, klass Man is probably the most internationally renowned alumni of the Owen Volt School. Thomas Man's kid and dear Spegel reporting suggests that he

too was a victim of Paul Gaeheed. Man published a book called The Old Man, which is a story about a school principle who praised on young girls at his school. In the book, he wrote this, after dinner, the principle lies down on a sofa and listens to the sounds of playing and singing children. A girl comes in, the principle speaks to and then becomes intimate with her. Mom wrote, he began stroking the girl. He even laid his head, his white, unimaginably old head with its fond mouth, into

her lap. The text goes onto report about urgent, greedy caresses and of another girl whom, looking her straight in the eye, he threw himself at and kissed. Now. This is argued by Der Spiegel as a portrait of Paul Gaheed basically like Klaus Moan saw this legendary reformer molesting girls at school and couldn't say anything directly about it, but put it in one of his books after he

got out of the school. He was a famous writer. Yeah. Um. And in fact, when the book was published, Gheheed complained to Thomas Man because he believed that the story would inflict damage on the old involved school. Um. So that's yeah now. The document Start poured through included a nineteen eighteen letter written to Paul Geheed by one of his young students. The author writes that she depended on him and had a right to a ring, perhaps due to all that had happened. She felt that this would make

her safe, or at least safer. Now, the wording of this letter from a student to Paul Geheb doesn't make it entirely clear what happens, but it sounds like Paul got a teenager pregnant. Like that's what this letter sounds like. You've got this like young girl writing to this teacher saying that like she depends on him and she should give her a ring because of what he did to her, Like, yeah, maybe made her get an abortion? An abortion. It's very

hard to say. Yeah. Now, we do know that the school's tenth anniversary celebration in nineteen twenty was canceled because a female teacher committed suicide. We now know that this woman had a relationship with Geheb as well, and it's unclear what drove her to suicide, but I think it's we can safely assume it was something very shady um and probably had to do with all of this and suicide. I don't know that now I've got my wasn't suicide? Yeah,

exactly hard to say. In nineteen thirty, at the school's twentieth anniversary, Paul had some of the girls students pose naked for a photographer. He was then given an album of the photos, which biographer Martin Knoff described in two thousand and six as particularly risk a semi ironic, semi serious,

and unthinkable in the present day. Um so naff who again, like Paul's this educational titans this, this is a very positive biography, and nobody at the time until thou and six expects this is evidence that paula was molesting anybody. But within the context of this additional evidence like oh yeah, of course he made himself a porn calendar of his students. Yeah yeah, I think. I mean, wow, you're really a

little bastard. Yeah yeah, I might with him. I'm just like gobsmacked at how out in the open it was. But it just sort of taking advantage of the perfect societal climate where it gave enough cover to do something so overt, and also just sort of where we were as a as a world global culture of like how

we viewed these things. And it's just I on some level, were there also people who were in positions of power wrapped up in this or it was purely based off of this sort of like intellectual appeal or the way he was spinning it that was giving him this cover. I mean it's both. You know, you have a lot of famous alumni from the school, a lot of rich and powerful people send their kids there. Um. It's it's

viewed with a lot of prestige. You know, it's respected enough that the Nazis aren't willing to shut it down. They just want to like take control of it because it's this internationally recognized institution. Um. And it's it's hum. I think it's it's clear now that the Old Invulged School was from the beginning it's more of a palace

to sexual abuse than an institution of learning. Um. And it's one of those things you read at the top of this all of these famous attributes about how the school was organized, the division of children and students into families, the rural location of the of the of the campus, the focus on the equality of children and adults, and like at the start of the story, before you know

any of this, that seems like a really high minded rhetoric. Um. And once you have all of the context, it seems like a perfect way to construct a society in which you can abuse children incredibly effectively. Um and in retrospect,

the signs are all over the school. Dr Henry Cassier, Gheb's nephew and a student at the Old Invulged School, wrote a praiseful article about Paul and his educational methods and the Unesco Courier in the early nineteen sixties, and it includes a quote that I think is really telling. And I don't know if Cassier was an abuser or an abuse victim. He went to the school. He very well may have been abused. He very well may have been both. It's hard to say, but this quote is

really telling him me. Among his friends, Paulus Paul gehebe counted men like Romain Rowland, Gandhi teg Are, Albert Schweitzer, Einstein, men who put their stamp on the age. What did all these men have in common? To answer, in the words of Tagore, they were all travelers whose eternal journey is towards the future. Climbing barriers, crossing mountains through the

gaping century. They strode out into the unknown, into the unseen, and their blood the trumpets sounded beyond all borders, go beyond. Oh my god, Yeah, yeah, so is that I mean, were these people hanging around each other to a lot?

Oh yeah? So is this like, you know, I guess the O G. Epstein kind of circle of influential person who I mean, is there a dimension of this where he may have been trafficking to or or people knew like if you hang around paulas there's you know, a chance that there are going to be children around Paulice is kind of an Epstein like figure. Um, he's this guy who we there's definitely allegations that later on, you know that like Becker and people who are in the

school later on pimped out kids. And I think it would be foolish to assume that Paul wasn't doing the same thing. Um, And I think you have to look at his association with guys like Einstein and wonder the fuck? Yeah, right, what did you get up to? It seemed like all those people right would see themselves in the work that

they're doing is so massively important. Right, And even as that quote was like going beyond barriers, going past whatever, going past what is legal in the name of exploration, or this like and I'm it's in service of my genius or something. Yeah. Yeah, man, it's really complicated, it's really a messy, and like, you know, it makes me think back to like how we now know that um,

what's his name? Um? Uh, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates too, But Stephen Hawking was when visited Epstein's and like was on his plane and so yes it was Bill Gates. You've got all these all these people who are are treated in society as mental titans, many of them with solid justification to be treated that way. Um, but also

this this intense need to kind of elevate themselves above society. Um. And you know that's not always a bad thing, because society is fucked up, but I think it leads some people to justify things that are horrific because it's just the thing that they happen to want. Um. And yeah, I don't know, like the fact that Einstein comes into the story obliquely. I've heard no allegations that he was ever did anything. But also like how would we have

known all Betty's Yeah, well I'm sure too. Even then, like for someone like Einstein, whose name even rings even louder than gehbs, Like there must have been even more pressure, Like, dude, I'm not about to say something about Albert Einstein or whatever. And I guess that is that thing, right at a

certain level, maybe just having the world. No, you might be the smartest person or the greatest this or the wealthiest, that just isn't enough that you have to go No, I need to further demonstrate my superiority by saying that norms and the laws of mortals just do not apply to me at all, because I'm in this position too.

Like if that's sort of further is that because at a certain point, if your ego is wrapped up in your sense of self of being the sort of deity, then yeah, like why would you even ever think you could? You need to abide by the rules for the normal the mortals. Ye oh b story, yeah yeah, yeah, thanks. This has made me want to start at school and if anything, we just it's what to protect. No, you

have to protect the kids. You just you don't to stop all this from happening, You just build a big walled compound and you put all the kids in there, and then you shoot anyone who tries to enter. Mm hmmmmmmmmmm it's like like like a prison but without doors. Mm hmmm mmm interesting. Yeah, you know, I'm looking forward to your Ted talk. Mm hmm. It'll be interesting to say the least. Yeah, yeah, yes, my Ted talk unlocking children in a cage to protect them from child molesters.

I mean, honestly, at this point people would be like, I mean there was there was something about that talk. I really got something from that. Um, I don't know where you how are you feeling at the end of this, Miles inspired. No, it's just like it's you know, this has been the abuse of children and the weak is a theme that will always echo into eternity in both directions,

in the past and the future. And it's like, no matter how far back you you go, or what or whatever, when you look at the details, the same types of people and personalities create these very similar outcomes. It's just that every fifty years it has a new version or a new way of it happening, or a new uh look and feel to it. Where this But like again, when when we talk about every time, it's like, oh,

it's like this, it's like this. It could be about Jerry Sandusky, it could be about Paul Nasser, it could be about uh, Jeffrey Epstein, it's like that and anything. It's just the same thing over and over. And I think, I guess the benefit is, like, the more we're able to look at these things like this and be see these patterns objectively in these sort of tactics, is you know, the way we can someone somewhat maybe trying to you know,

reduce the incidences. But and I think it's important to see this within the context of both like the left and the right, or I guess it might be more useful to be what as conservative versus progressive, and a conservative institution, a culture of child molestation or of just abuse in general grows up among like, um, these ideas of entrenched authority and hierarchy, and in respect for like, we don't want to like you don't want to shame

the church. You don't want to shame yourself because what happened to you as a crime for you too, so like you know you'll be judged for doing it. Whereas kind of on the more progressive end of things, um, it's no, no, no, we're we're liberating ourselves. This is a positive moment. And if you if you don't feel comfortable with this, then your counter revolutionary, your bougie, you're you're too conservative and you should be ashamed of that.

But it's like so it's it's the structure is different depending on sort of whether it's a progressive or a conservative movement that the abuse is hiding in, but they're both equally uh prone to to to fostering predators, because that's how predators work, right A. Speaking of predators, Bastard's mm hmm, you work. You're gonna plug your Twitter or something. Yeah,

I'll plug my Twitter. I'll also plug my new podcast, uh with one of your listeners favorite guests, Sophia Alexandra Her and I have a new podcast called four twenty Day Fiance where we talk about the t l C show ninety Day Fiance in in elevated way by where high. But that is the new show, and I employ your listeners if you like hearing us talk about much lighter topics. Uh, that's a great show. Other than that, Twitter and Instagram, Miles of Gray and every day actually twice a day

now on the daily Zeitgeist with Jack O'Brien. Well, talk zeit Geist yourself up with Jack and Miles. Check out the four into twenty day Fiance. Find us on the website Internet dot com at Behind the Bastards dot com and on Twitter at at Bastards Pod. Also Instagram find me at I Right Okay, on Twitter and find uh. There's really no good joke to tie into this episode about the mass rape of children, so I'm just going to end the episode on that note. That's very responsible

of you. Thank you. Have a have a good day, everybody. I don't think too much about this stuff afterwards, but you will. Yeah,