http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/306805.aspx

January 18, 2008

The German state is ramping up its war against homeschooling families, giving them no choice but to flee Germany or risk losing their children.

In an announcement that is reminiscent of the 1930’s, the German homeschooling group Netzwerk BildungsFreiheit says that homeschoolers Klaus and Kathrin Landahl escaped from Germany with their kids and “are in safety in England.” The Landahls had reportedly already deregistered themselves as German residents and were preparing to flee Germany when their town mayor tried to get a court order to snatch their children. Others are also fleeing Germany.

And now a new law proposed for passage this year would make it easier for German authorities to snatch children from homeschooling families before the parents can flee Germany or go into hiding, as some have been forced to do.

Watch for a wave of homeschooling families to flee Germany now.

Compulsory classroom education is a German tradition—Hitler was a big fan of it– and many Germans still truly believe that homeschooling is a terrible thing to do to a child.

But having done several of these stories in Germany, its clear to me that German officials are more terrified of the effect educational liberalization would have on the “cohesion” of German society and, ipso facto, their control over it.

Here is a story I did about a Bavarian homeschooled girl taken from her parents, and another about her eventual freedom.