19 Facts About Bernhard Rust

Bernhard Rust was Minister of Science, Education and National Culture in Nazi Germany.

Bernhard Rust served as the party Gauleiter in Hanover and Brunswick from 1925 to 1940.

Bernhard Rust was wounded in action and sustained a severe head injury, which caused serious mental and physical impairments for the rest of his life.

Bernhard Rust was discharged in December 1918 and returned to Hanover.

Bernhard Rust joined the Nazi Party in 1921 and was a cofounder of the Ortsgruppe in Hanover.

On 10 September 1925, Bernhard Rust joined the National Socialist Working Association headed by Gregor Strasser.

Bernhard Rust retained that position until November 1940, when he was succeeded by Hartmann Lauterbacher.

Bernhard Rust would remain a Reichstag deputy through the end of the Nazi regime in 1945.

Bernhard Rust then returned to his Gauleiter position in Southern Hanover-Brunswick.

Shortly after Hitler became chancellor in January 1933, Bernhard Rust was appointed as the Prussian Minister for Science, Culture and Public Education on 2 February.

Bernhard Rust was made a member of the Prussian State Council on 11 July and the Academy for German Law when it was formed in October 1933.

Bernhard Rust then ordered the creation of a "rolling week", with six days for study, followed by the "youth day" and a rest day, in eight-day periods.

Bernhard Rust added his opinion that it was "expected of every German", regardless of membership in the party.

Bernhard Rust was instrumental in purging German universities of Jews and others regarded as enemies of the state, most notably at the University of Gottingen.

Bernhard Rust bluntly informed teachers that their aim was to educate ethnically aware Germans.

Bernhard Rust believed that non-Aryan science was flawed and had what he felt to be a rational explanation for that view.

Bernhard Rust reportedly committed suicide on 8 May 1945, when Germany surrendered to Allied forces.

Bernhard Rust prepared a reform of German orthography, and his fairly-extensive version corresponded to the ideas of the spelling reformers of the 1970s.

Some of Bernhard Rust's innovations had found their way into the 1942 Duden, such as the spelling of the word Kautsch for Couch, which persisted into the 1980s.