This text sets out to challenge the reader by posing the question: can we learn from history? More particularly, can we learn from social history and the effects on people living today after National Socialism - the German form of fascism?; Of crucial significance, the authors show how social education in all areas of national socialist society operated and how it functioned in terms of an interest in political formation and social discipline. What is clear is an attempt at complete social control, an unceasing incorporation of the whole lives of all people. At the centre of all these practices stood a process that was meant to lead to a particular formation of identity and ideology. The success of National Socialism in achieving its objectives must today cause us to investigate the relationship between identity and formation, political culture and pedagogic activity.