Homeschooling illegal in Germany

LifeSiteNews reports:

In a shocking verdict regarding a homeschool case in Germany, a family court judge has refused to return legal custody of four children to Christian parents to prevent the family from obtaining visas that would allow them to travel to a country where homeschooling is permitted.

In his December ruling against the Wunderlich family, judge Marcus Malkmus called homeschooling a “concrete endangerment to the well-being of the child,” comparing it to a “straitjacket” that he said binds children to “years of isolation.”

“The request of the parents to reinstate their right to determine the location of the children, the right to make educational decisions for the children, as well as the right to file legal applications for their children is being refused,” the judge stated.

The Wunderlich family made international headlines in August when a team of 20 social workers, police officers, and special agents stormed the homeschooling family’s residence and forcibly removed the children, ages 7–14.

Parents Dirk and Petra were accused of defying a German ban on home education. The children were returned to the parents in September on condition that the parents send their children to public school. Since the court had awarded legal custody of the children to social workers in 2012, the parents had no choice but to comply.

In his decision, the judge ruled that it was necessary to keep the Wunderlich children in public school for their own “well-being,” arguing that if the children were homeschool in Germany or abroad they would “grow up in a parallel society without having learned to be integrated or to have a dialogue with those who think differently and facing them in the sense of practicing tolerance.”

The judge made these comments despite admitting that the children’s “former homeschooling did not noticeably endanger the child[ren’s] well-being.”

Dirk Wunderlich said the ruling is comparable to what happened under the Nazi regime.

Germany used to be a proud nation. I don't want to make Nazi analogies, but it seems that Germany's current brand of socialism requires public school brainwashing.

Control of the public schools is always the top priority of the socialists. If they cannot persuade the adults, they can still win by indoctrinating the next generation.

American homeschooling is one of the big success stories of the last 20 years. It has gone from a fringe kooky practice to one that is widely accepted as legal and legitimate.

I am not recommending homeschooling, but I think that our society is better off for having some students with independent educations and thinking.