From the standpoint of historical educational research National Socialism can be reinterpreted as a dead end, into which an educationally-driven higher social stratum and the lower social classes maneuvered themselves. The two educational cycles which had been characterized by an interdependence since the Enlightenment (i.e. higher education and popular education) grew to such an extent that a utilization crisis („unemployment“) provoked conflict between the elite and the lower social classes. National Socialism can be conceived of within this context as an inconsistent and unstable unity. The differences between natural selection and culturally determined educational selection were leveled out and blurred within the framework of the national socialist „biological politics“. The commanding climate of selection encouraged many contemporaries of the time to opt for the national socialist adventure. Educational selection, which was instrumentalized under the delusion of race supremacy, lead to death by order of the State and to genocide. Since the second period of expansion in the education system (1960–80) an internationally orientated and self-driven ’grass-roots culture‘ has been able to develop in Germany, which is founded on a mixing of ’elite‘ with ’mass‘.