This book brings to a conclusion research begun nearly four decades ago. While working on his doctor of philosophy from Oxford University, titled “The British and University Reform Policy in Germany, 1945–1949” (1983), in 1982, David Phillips organized a symposium that brought together former university education officers from the British zone. A transcript of those discussions appeared as German Universities after the Surrender: British Occupation Policy and the Control of Higher Education (1983). Only in 1984 did the massive records of the British Control Commission become available to scholars. Drawing heavily on those sources, as well as interviews, memoirs, contemporary publications, and secondary literature, Phillips now presents a detailed look at British policy toward all forms of reeducation after World War II.

The book begins with a discussion of wartime planning for the occupation, followed by a description of the recruitment and placement of the various Education Branch officers in the British zone. Two long chapters look at the process of reopening badly damaged and ideologically suspect institutions, starting with the examining schools, textbooks, and teacher training, and followed by the universities and Technische Hochschulen. Two briefer chapters evaluate the rather modest British efforts to introduce reforms in the schools and universities. A rather catch-all chapter touches on the Education Branch's work in cultural affairs (especially in licensing newspapers and publishers), adult education, and women's affairs (especially local government).

In line with its title, the book focuses much more on the British actors than on the Germans upon whom they acted. Although Phillips mentions the terrible shortages of housing, food, and fuel plaguing all zones of occupied Germany, as well as the large numbers of refugees and displaced persons, these themes often get lost in the long discussions of policies and personalities. Neither Alfred-Maurice de Zayas's A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans (multiple editions) nor R. M. Douglas, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War (2012) is in the bibliography.

Phillips notes how the occupiers viewed children as both victims and dangerous products of Nazi indoctrination. He clearly agrees with the quick abandonment of the initial policy of non-fraternization, citing a quip by the first military governor, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery: “You cannot reeducate such a number of people if you never speak to them” (103). Also sympathetically portrayed is Ellen Wilkinson, Minister of Education in Clement Attlee's Labour government, who said of a visit to the British zone: “Not often in history has a conqueror made it his first job to educate the children of the conquered” (127). Phillips admires the initial head of Education Branch, Donald Riddy, whose background was as a teacher of German and French and an Inspector of Schools, more than his successor Robert Birley, headmaster of Charterhouse, whose month-long visit to the British zone in late 1946 produced a lengthy report on educational conditions, one particularly critical of teachers trained before World War I. Phillips calls this report “an unexceptional document” and expresses amazement that it “should have attracted so much attention to Birley” (76).

British officials were well aware of the paradox of trying to educate for democracy by means of an imposed occupation regime. Denazification did lead to the dismissal of many teachers, although at the university level Phillips highlights several egregious failures to detect and remove scholars deeply compromised by their involvement in policies of the Third Reich, including the rector at Kiel, neuorologist Hans Creuzfeldt, and Herbert Schöffler, professor of English at Göttingen. In a brief discussion of libraries, he notes the ambiguity involved in efforts to ban books from a regime that was infamous for burning books: “This paradox—one among many during the Occupation—was never properly resolved and it caused many a headache for … officers committed to encourage democracy in cultural life” (260).

In general, Phillips praises the modest reform efforts set in motion by the British once schools and universities were up and running. With regard to the long German tradition of denominational public elementary schools, he writes, “The policy formulated in the autumn of 1945 was very wise: leave it to the local or regional authorities to decide what to do about denominational education, despite the inevitability of disagreement and confusion” (224). Coming from a Great Britain that had recently adopted the Education Act of 1944, few officials showed any interest in extension of elementary schooling to six or eight years, as the Americans and the Soviets tried in their zones. Only Hamburg in the British zone adopted a six-year Grundschule system and at least aspired to full-scale coeducation, a theme Phillips generally neglects. Significant expansion of secondary education and coeducation would have to wait until the late 1960s and the 1970s.

In higher education, Phillips suggests that the “University Education Officers saw one of their main functions as establishing as much contact as possible with other universities” (183). A report on universities produced in 1947 by a delegation from the Association of University Teachers lambasted the continued domination of full professors and rectors, and raised the hackles of German traditionalists. Phillips admits that the release of this report shortly after the Germans regained control of education was “a serious mistake” (236). He views more positively a German commission on university reform appointed in 1948 by Birley, which had one British and one Swiss member alongside six Germans.

The book suffers from excessive use of abbreviations, including some which do not appear in the list Phillips provides. There are also far too many lengthy quotations from documents that break up the flow of the author's argument; many could have been shortened or paraphrased. More comparisons with the other zones could have highlighted better some of the peculiarities of British policy. Phillips also might have included a brief historiographical introduction that clarified how the rich documentation he provides actually changes our understanding of the reeducation process.