May 3, 2002

Today is a good day to reflect on possible causes for last Friday's shooting in a German high school. The usual excuses are being trotted out in the German media: gun ownership, media violence, "alienation," etc. The Germans have not yet mentioned their school system as a possible contributing factor. While NOTHING on Earth can justify the intentional murder of innocents, however good the cause, I believe that the timing of the shooting ought to tell us something about the shooter's motivation.

Some background: There are three types of high school in Germany: Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium. Hauptschule is trade school. Realschule is a sort of management training course aimed at future merchants, and Gymnasium is college prep. Students are "tracked" at about age 12 into one of these three schools, based on their academic performance. There is some flexibility; a 15-year-old's parents might petition for him to be admitted to a different track if they felt there had been an error.

Now, 100 years ago, this system made sense. Most kids would grow up to be tradesmen, serving as butchers or plumbers or machinists. Most students went to Hauptschule, which means "main school." Some of the brighter sons of the proletariat (and most sons of the bourgeoisie) would go to Realschule and learn the art of banking or some similar white-collar occupation. The most studious would attend Gymnasium, and afterwards university, and would most probably become professors or priests.

Students who get an Abitur, the diploma of the Gymnasium, have a right to attend university. Realschule and Hauptschule students may take a complicated GED-like path to get to university, but for the most part do not.

Since WWII, this system's usefulness has broken down. Although local butchers remain much more popular in Europe than in the U.S., most meat is purchased at the supermarket. Factory workers, not skilled butchers, process cattle for consumption. Automation has had a similar effect on many manual trades and greatly reduced the demand for tailors and clockmakers. Actually, these trends started even before WWII, but since 1945 the German government has pursued a policy of pushing as many students to their universities as possible. This has meant that the standards for admission to Gymnasium have been lowered to the point that 40% of German students will eventually get an Abitur and the subsequent college education.

The trend toward greater university enrollment has made life hard for Hauptschule and Realschule students. With unemployment stubbornly remaining around 10%, such students have a hard time finding meaningful work with real possibilities for advancement. Many university graduates have to drive taxis; so much the worse for non-grads who are often stereotyped as dim-witted or criminal. German economic policies and culture do not reward merit and innovation as well as in the U.S.; hard work does not bring returns as great or as reliable.

With this in mind, let us examine the actions of Robert Steinhaeuser. We know he was expelled for Gymnasium; this severely limited his future. He returned to school on the very day that the students were to take their Abitur examination--the day their futures would be secured by a passing grade. We know that he had failed to pass the exam the year before, and if he had failed a second time, he would receive NO diploma of any kind--not even a Hauptschule diploma. He entered the lecture hall with the students who were to take the exam, and said to the proctor "I am not sitting for this exam" before he opened fire. He aimed to kill teachers, not students, opening classroom doors closing them without firing when no teacher was in sight. It seems likely that the rigid social hierarchy associated with the German school system was a major factor in this killing spree.

I am not trying to excuse or justify this mass murder. But in the rush to blame Hollywood, video games, or Germany's gun laws, we must also consider what it means to a young man to see no future thanks to a rigid social and educational system. He alone bears the blame for his crime, but in looking to prevent such acts in the future, the Germans would do well to examine their grossly antiquated school and university system. A student with no diploma of any kind (and no way to get one) has nowhere to go but McDonalds--and will probably never get promoted to assistant manager even there.

It's at least worth discussing--but no one in the chattering classes of Europe seems to have thought of it. Perhaps in their rush to blame this crime on America, they have overlooked the obvious in their own backyard.

Note: All information for this article comes form www.zdf.de, www.diewelt.de, and Deutsche Welle radio. American news sources are mostly putting out translations of these sources, with ignorance and inaccuracy added for fun.

Robert Lyman and his wife are Americans who lived in Germany as students and saw firsthand the inner workings of society. His German Gun Law Primer is also recommended reading.