After World War II, America assumed the responsibility for helping to reform Germany's educational system. American educational policy did not have a clear direction; three distinct phases are discernible. (AM)

Between 1945 and 1955, American efforts to reform education in Germany included an initial phase of punitive purges, an imposition of American curricular models, generously endowed reorientation programs, and attempts to persuade the Germans to reform their own system. These contradictory shifts were not the result of rational policy decisions.…