"Every educated person is a future enemy"

Martin Bormann’s assertion that “Every educated person is a future enemy” reflects a profound distrust of independent thought and intellectual development under totalitarianism. In the context of the Nazi regime, education was perceived not as a means of personal growth or societal advancement, but as a potential threat to the consolidation of power. Educated individuals possess the tools, critical thinking, access to ideas, analytical capability, historical awareness, with which to question, challenge, or resist authoritarian doctrine. Bormann’s words indicate a recognition that the spread of knowledge cannot be easily controlled, and that those who are trained to think critically may ultimately undermine propaganda, dogma, and blind obedience.

Totalitarian systems thrive on conformity and uniformity of thought. Education opens avenues for questioning and dissent. When someone becomes educated, they are exposed to perspectives, philosophies, and histories that empower them to identify contradictions, moral failings, and lies within an imposed ideology. Thus, in the eyes of those intent on absolute control, the expansion of education equates to the breeding of opposition. To Bormann and his Nazi peers, universities and schools must serve as instruments of indoctrination or be kept weak, lest they become hotbeds of resistance.

Underlying this viewpoint is a stark divide between the educated and the obedient. Every book read, every critical conversation held, every expansion of the mind carries with it the possibility of nonconformity. Rather than viewing education as beneficial for a nation’s progress or moral health, Bormann sees it as inherently subversive.

His statement embodies the fears of any regime that survives through suppression of thought: that education sows the seeds of rebellion. For Bormann, education does not merely make one informed; it is a precursor to enmity, because it is antithetical to the sort of totalistic loyalty demanded by Nazism. Knowledge is, in this worldview, both dangerous and transformative, leading inexorably to opposition.